Chapter Thirteen #2
“Just?” He bumps his shoulder against mine. “I don’t have to explain the very well-established connection between improved mental health and performance, do I? Especially when it comes to stress and anxiety.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “No, you don’t. Are you telling me I have to go?”
“No, in this case, I’m going to explain the research and hope you make the right choice.”
“I’ll think about it, then,” I say, fully planning to spend some time googling this supposed research.
But I also know I need to be supportive of my mom, chanting aside.
This is the first job she’s truly seemed to care about in years.
“If nothing else, I’m sure her classes are an experience.
The woman is like a ball of fire disguised as a white lady with graying hair and twiggy legs. ”
Adrian snorts. “She sounds fun.”
“Oh, she is. My mom has more passion in her pinky finger than I do in my whole body.” I pause in front of the steps of her redwood porch. A dozen wind chimes sing into the evening air. “This is—”
When I spin, Adrian’s expression confuses me. The traces of his mischievous smile, usually omnipresent in the corners of his mouth, have evaporated. His head is cocked, eyebrows squished together.
“What?” I ask.
“I’m trying to figure out if you’re saying you don’t have passion.”
I ascend one of the stairs and lean my low back against the handrail. “I’m not passionate, I’m obsessive. If you took an X-ray of my bones, they would be made of lists and neuroses. I thought that was obvious by now.”
“Not to me.”
I let out an impatient sigh. I’m not embarrassed about who I am—I’m realistic about it.
“The first time we met, I literally arm wrestled a lemon bar off you because I’m so obsessed with ritual and routine.
Routine works for me. It makes me a better athlete.
But I’m well aware of how all that stuff comes off to other people. ”
Adrian frowns at me for so long I wonder what’s happening in his mind. Maybe he’s finally seeing the full picture of my personality? Maybe he’s trying to figure out a way to extricate himself from this conversation—and possibly the rest of the summer—now that the pieces are clicking together?
I half expect him to hunch his shoulders and bolt back into the night. It would be fair. It’s the way most people react to me. Grating, I’ve been told many times—sometimes even to my face. She’s just too much.
Maxwell was one of the first—and only—people in my life who wasn’t always trying to fix me for being rigid. Given that Adrian is basically Maxwell’s opposite, it’s hard to imagine he’ll appreciate my flaws for what they are: important, albeit socially awkward, tools for success.
Adrian moves up the stairs and presses his hands to the railing beside me, gazing down at the vines like he’s lost in their pattern. “I want to tell you a story.”
“A…story?”
“About a woman I met in Italy.”
Goose bumps raise on my arms. “Okay.”
“So,” Adrian shifts so he’s leaning against the railing, facing me now. “I was sitting in a bakery—”
“Pasticceria,” I whisper.
He nods, unthwarted by my attempt to deflect. “Of course. I was sitting in a pasticceria, trying to prepare for an interview that I was…well, let’s just say I was not ready for it. And suddenly this woman with a blond braid and striking brown eyes marched up to me and demanded to buy my lemon bar.”
His eyes flicker between mine and I can practically feel the anticipation crackling in the places where his gaze touches me.
“That was you.”
“I got that,” I manage.
He continues, low: “Glad for a distraction, I asked her why on earth she wanted a lemon bar so badly that she was willing to bribe one off a stranger. To my surprise, she brought up rowing. Yeah, I knew something about that sport. Then she just laid it all out for me. I thought my anticipation was bad? She was confronting a string of failures, one worse than the last. She was staring them down and powering through. She was ready to take on more.”
He drops down a step, angling toward me. There are only inches separating us now, and all I’d need to do is lean forward to erase them.
“Sure,” he continues, “she seemed a bit stubborn and maybe a little inflexible. But I also saw her passion. Her power, her confidence. I felt it, too, when I got her to agree to touch my hand.”
My chest tightens like Adrian’s words are wrapping around my middle.
“And then you saw me bomb,” I whisper. “And lose it in a club.”
He shakes his head. “That was the most impressive part of all. You were knocked down. Hard. A few days after that, you fought me to get back on the water with the same grit and determination as before. Without a single thought of quitting. Of letting yourself get defeated.” Slowly, he reaches his hand toward my forehead and sweeps a strand of hair off my face, like he’s worried it will distract from the intensity of his eye contact.
“You might be the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met, but if that’s not passion, then I don’t know what is. ”
I’m not sure whether it’s the thick summer breeze or the warmth of Adrian’s approval or the way I feel so seen, but my body seems to have floated up from the porch, untethered. I’m drifting in the specks of gold flickering in his green irises, sinking and rising.
Adrian is so close I can feel the warmth radiating off his skin. So close that when I take another breath, I inhale his scent of citrus and sandalwood. I’m huddled in this pocket of his body, enveloped like I’ve found a peaceful eddy even as a river rushes around our shoulders.
I lean forward.
Our lips touch. Heat ignites between us, so sudden that I startle backward.
“I’m sorry,” I stammer out. “That was so unprofessional of—”
Adrian’s expression cuts me off, hunger in his eyes. I go silent as my legs loosen, like my knees have been replaced with mousse.
In slow motion, he lowers toward me until his breath warms my temple.
He squeezes a hand to my cheek, fingertips pressing into the back of my head.
His other hand follows, framing my face.
I tip my chin higher. Adrian leans in until his lips touch mine, a kiss that’s gentle but firm.
My lips part for his tongue. Our bodies flatten together, drawing heat across my chest.
My hands coil around his shoulders, tugging him yet closer. He responds to my touch with equal energy, fingers crushing my braid to the back of my head. Desire rolls through me. One of my hands circles his arm, my fingers notching into the indent of his triceps. He flexes under my touch.
I sigh and this seems to unlock something else inside him. With one motion, he lifts me up and sits me on the railing. My legs curl around his torso. I press myself into the warmth of his body, slotting into him like a puzzle piece clicking into place. His heart hammers at my collar bone.
The railing groans. I tug him toward me, like I can’t get him close enough, and he meets my urgency with his own, pressing harder into our embrace. Holding me tighter. I bite on his lip and he moans. I try to silence him with another kiss, tight against his lips.
But then he’s trailing a hand up my shirt, leaving fire everywhere he touches, and I can’t care about how much noise we are making or which of Mom’s neighbors might hear. I arch my back into his hand, relishing the feel of his skin against mine, my head falling back—
The railing shifts. I nearly topple backward. I clutch at Adrian instead. He shoots his arms out to catch me, but loses purchase. We both tumble onto the steps in a heavy, crumpling echo.
A porch light clicks on, bathing us both in a harsh illumination.
“Kath?” Mom’s voice filters outside.
The kiss is still jamming up my throat. “Yes! Mom, it’s me. Everything is fine!”
“Are you reorganizing the patio furniture again?”
I try to push myself backward from my awkward position, now straddling Adrian—one of his legs underneath me the other splayed out onto the stair above us.
“Sorry,” I call out. “I dropped something. I’ll be right in.”
Untangling myself from Adrian’s limbs, I find my way to my uneasy legs. I fumble for my discarded bag, and hug it to my chest, like it could slow the erratic beats of my heart. Adrian slings himself upright, looking decidedly less rumpled than I feel.
Regret fills the empty space that now hangs between us. Coach. I just made out with a coach. How am I supposed to look him in the eye the next time he reads out my splits? The wind chimes peal around us, discordant and harsh, like they are judging us, too.
“I should go,” I say, motioning to the door, looking anywhere but his eyes. His chin. I can handle his chin.
The chin nods.
“Okay, then.” Adrian’s voice is low and rough.
“Goodnight,” I say.
Without waiting for a response, I flee to the door and let it thunk closed behind me.