Chapter 42
As we walk down the street, Adam bellows the lyrics to ‘My Heart Will Go On’ at the top of his voice.
The night has that harsh, late-October bite to it, but between the booze, the dancing and Adam’s terrible Celine Dion tribute act, I barely notice.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ one of his neighbours bellows from a nearby upstairs window.
‘You shut the fuck up, Mr Marsden,’ Adam yells back, before immediately backtracking. ‘I didn’t mean that, Mr Marsden, sorry.’
I have to admit, in my drunken state, I’m finding all this absolutely hilarious.
‘Grumpy old bastard,’ Adam whispers to me. Well, he tries to whisper, but it doesn’t come out that quietly.
‘I heard that,’ Mr Marsden calls back.
‘Quick, in the house.’ I chuckle as I push Adam up the driveway. The whole place is in darkness; then again, it is two o’clock in the morning – although I’m sure if Si was here, he’d be out yelling at us by now.
I grab Adam, who is doing some sort of swimming motion with his arms, by the wrist and drag him through the door, tug-of-war style.
He only resists for a moment before submitting, but this sends us both crashing into the hallway, falling into a table, knocking it over and smashing the lamp that used to sit on top of it.
Of course, we don’t care. We find this hilarious. Adam grabs the lampshade and places it on top of my head.
‘Lia, what a lovely hat,’ he says in his fanciest voice.
‘Why, thank you, sir,’ I reply. ‘I bought it in Milan. It’s very light.’
Adam cracks up as he pulls himself to his feet before yanking me up with him.
‘Oh look, a note,’ I say as I spy something on the floor underneath the broken pieces of lamp. ‘It says: Staying at Mum’s tonight. Si.’
The wonderfully silly drunken atmosphere is instantly obliterated.
‘Ah, he’s just being a baby, he’ll be fine,’ Adam reassures me. ‘Hey, can I ask you something?’
Adam takes a step towards me but falls over the broken lamp. I reach out to catch him but this just results in the lampshade falling off my head and hitting him in the face.
‘Ouch,’ I say, feeling his pain. Thankfully I don’t think he feels a thing, thanks to all the booze.
‘Get up,’ I practically cackle. ‘Let’s do this sitting down, shall we?’
We carefully make our way to the living room and sit on the sofa.
‘So, what were you going to ask me?’ I ask curiously.
‘Saved by the bulb,’ he jokes. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
I slap my hand over his mouth.
‘That was the worst joke I have ever heard in my life and I will only forgive you if you tell me exactly what you were going to say before, and I will know if you are lying. I’m going to take my hand away now. The next thing you say had better be what you were going to say before, okay?’
Adam looks puzzled, but I take my hand away because I’m not sure if he can breathe.
‘I only got, like, every fifth word of that, because you slurred it, but I will tell you what I was going to say.’
‘Go!’ I instruct.
‘I’m not sure I’d be saying this, if you hadn’t insisted I get so drunk,’ he jokes.
I playfully slap his cheek because he was the one who was all matey with the barman, and insisting we get smashed to cheer ourselves up – which worked, by the way.
‘Anyway. Maybe it’s not a question, maybe it’s just a statement, but those nights you spent with Si, oh my God, it drove me crazy. ’
‘I spent one night in his room, by accident, because we fell asleep watching a movie,’ I tell him. ‘But nothing happened.’
‘I guess, even when I couldn’t hear anything, or if I didn’t know which room you were in, I would imagine what you were doing and that was even worse,’ he admits.
I chew my lip thoughtfully.
‘You’re right… that wasn’t a question.’
‘Oh, no, I remember the question part,’ he says almost excitedly. ‘That night I brought that girl home.’
‘Becka,’ I remind him.
‘Yes, her. Did it not bother you at all?’
‘Why would it bother me?’ I ask, but as I see the look on Adam’s face fall, I know that it’s time to come clean.
‘Okay, I admit it, it did bother me a little at first, but then she told me that nothing happened between you two, so I knew I didn’t have anything to feel bothered about.’
‘But why did you feel bothered?’ he asks.
Obviously it’s because I’ve wanted him since the second I saw him, and because I was jealous, and because I knew he was chasing a girl at work too, so I really couldn’t have meant anything at all to him, if I was so far down the list…
‘I don’t know,’ I lie. ‘It’s just weird hearing other people have sex, isn’t it?’
‘Right,’ Adam replies. ‘Can I ask you something else?’
‘Only if it’s less awkward,’ I reply with a smile.
‘All this time, I thought maybe you might be into me but… was I imagining it?’
‘That isn’t less awkward,’ I point out with a laugh.
‘Sorry,’ he says with a smile.
‘The truth is,’ I start, but then I hesitate.
Should I tell him the truth? ‘The truth is that Si mentioned you having a crush on some girl at work, and how you were probably going to be late home because you were probably flirting with her, and I had no idea you had a thing for someone at the station, so I felt a bit stupid, and… jealous. Yeah, okay, fine, I felt jealous.’
I know I’m babbling, and drunkenly slurring my words, but I suddenly realise that now I’m going to look much worse unless I tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
‘The truth is,’ I start, pausing for a few seconds and not for dramatic effect, but because I’m too scared to say it out loud.
‘I’ve fancied you from the moment I laid eyes on you, since we met at the bar, and I was probably in love with you, by the time we left the toilet – words I never thought I would say.
And then we ran into each other again, and you and I started getting closer, and stupid me, I thought you liked me too.
Then Si told me about this girl at work and I felt like such an idiot.
Anyway, I feel extra stupid now, and things are even more awkward, so I’ll go home – I’ll probably move back home, actually – you won’t have to see me again.
Well, except from at work, but after the festival is over – assuming Kerry offers me a job – I won’t take it.
I’m not going to make it awkward for you. ’
I struggle to get to my feet, ready to head for the door, but I don’t get far before I realise that Adam is laughing.
‘You think that’s funny?’ I ask, still facing the door because I’m fairly certain I’m going to cry.
‘This isn’t a laugh of amusement, this is a laugh of disbelief,’ he tells me. ‘You’re the girl at work.’
I turn around and stare at him blankly. Adam gets up and walks over to me.
‘I knew Si liked you, he had warned me off you, and you and I were getting closer. That morning, before I invited you over for lunch, I was on the phone to Mel, telling her exactly how I felt about you. I asked her if she thought I should tell you and she said I should leave it with her, that she would find out how you felt. Si caught part of our conversation so I told him it was a girl at work. You are a girl I work with,’ he reminds me.
‘So, I like you and you like me and there’s no other girl at work?’ I check.
‘Correct,’ Adam replies.
Oh my God, I’ve been such an idiot.
‘Shit’ is about all I can manage to say.
‘I know I’m drunk,’ Adam starts, ‘but believe me when I say that I really like you. Really, really, really like you. You’re smart, you’re funny, you’re sexy.
Do you know how crazy it drove me, when we were babysitting that night, the two of us half-naked and soaking wet?
It’s a good job there were kids in the house…
and that that crazy man punched me in the street… ’
I laugh.
‘I didn’t think you’d want to kiss me, not with the blood…’ he continues.
To be honest with you, he could have been on fire and I wouldn’t have been able to resist leaning in, if he’d tried to kiss me.
‘If anything, it only made you seem more attractive,’ I say with a smile. ‘Rugged, manly, brutish…’
‘Then I should have gone for it, shouldn’t I…’ he continues.
Adam moves towards me slowly and then gently strokes my cheek. This is the part where I should say… something but I don’t know what. I really didn’t think he was into me, not like I was into him, but now that I know… wow.
As I gaze into Adam’s eyes, I feel my breathing slow, my chest feeling heavy, like each breath is an effort.
I would do absolutely anything to kiss him right now, and while I wish he would just grab me and do all sorts of things with me, I know that I should take a beat, think about things, clear the air with Si, think about what this means for my future, for work.
I would love to get lost in the moment but I need to be practical, right?
I need to think about things before jumping in headfirst, not more rushed decisions.
I open my mouth to speak, but before a word can leave my lips Adam’s mouth has met mine and we are kissing.
Ah, screw it. It’s a slow, gentle, passionate kiss, which only lasts for a few seconds – but it’s the best kiss I’ve ever had in my life.
My entire body is tingling from head to toe, and I feel even more drunk from the excitement alone.
There’s no stopping us now. Whether this is a good idea or not – it’s hard to care.
‘I know I shouldn’t have done that—’ Adam starts, but I don’t let him finish. I grab him and kiss him again, only this time it isn’t the same slow and gentle smooch as before, it’s the kind of frantic, red-hot kiss that happens when two people finally get together.
I’m not sure who makes the first move but before I know it I am unbuttoning Adam’s jeans as he rips off my shirt, sending buttons flying in all directions, before he whips off his own T-shirt.
He lifts me up and pushes me hard against the living room door, causing it to slam closed with a loud bang.
You know in movies when someone fires a gun into the air, firing a warning shot, in the hope that the loud noise will stop whatever chaos is going on?
The slam of the door brings us both to our senses all of a sudden.
We stop kissing for a moment, and try to catch our breath as we look at one another, both in our underwear, his body still pinning mine firmly against the door while my legs are wrapped tightly around his waist.
We’ve stopped kissing but we haven’t separated, as though we’re both still thinking things through, knowing we should stop, but not wanting to.
‘We should stop, shouldn’t we?’ he says breathlessly, reading my mind.
‘We should,’ I reply as I run my hands through Adam’s short dark hair. He closes his eyes and groans softly. ‘Just… not yet.’
I know, I know, I’m weak, but I want him.
‘Sofa then?’ he suggests. I nod my head.
Adam lays me down on the sofa and gets on top of me, our kissing quickly resuming, like we’ve got a lot to catch up on.
He starts kissing his way down my neck, ever so slowly, then my chest, then my stomach, each kiss getting lower and lower.
I savour the moment, the anticipation killing me, but I can feel my sober thoughts creeping back in, my common sense screaming at me, telling me to think with my brain for a moment, because as good as this feels right now, it’s just a moment, just a night – tomorrow the world will look different and if I want this thing with Adam to be real then we need to start things properly. Not like this.
It pains me to do it, I’m sure I’ll hate myself tomorrow, but…
‘Stop,’ I call out, just as he gets to the bottom of my stomach. ‘I can’t do this.’
Still on top of me, Adam moves back up to eye level.
‘I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to do this, I want to do this more than anything, especially that thing you were just about to do,’ I assure him, ‘but I really, really think we need to clear the air with your brother first, just to make sure there are no wires crossed. I just… I’ve told him, a few times, that I want to be just friends, and that I’m not ready for a relationship, and…
I don’t know, we all need to live together, and it’s going to look bad if I said I wasn’t ready, but I’m clearly fine with you and me getting together and…
I just need to smooth things over. Then we can do… this.’
I know I’m babbling, and I’m probably overthinking things – as I so often do – but I know that I’ll only stress about things if I don’t think I’ve done them right. I messed up my last relationship by being a bystander when I should have acted. I can’t do that again.
I don’t know where Si’s head is at, if dating me was just a way to piss my brother off, or if it developed into real feelings, but the last thing I want to do is come between them. Better they clear the air first. That way, Adam and I might actually stand a chance.
Adam pulls himself up so that he is kneeling in front of me, and as I look up at his incredible body I can’t help but regret every word I just said, but I know that it’s the right thing to do.
‘I understand,’ he says. ‘Obviously I don’t like it.’ He smiles. ‘But I understand, and it not only makes me like you so much more, but it makes me want you so, so much more.’
I pull myself up and give him a peck on the lips.
‘I should get to bed,’ I tell him.
‘Yep,’ he says, grinning, willing me to change my mind with his eyes.
‘Goodnight,’ I tell him as I force my feet to work.
‘Sweet dreams, gorgeous,’ Adam calls after me.
‘You too,’ I call back.
What am I doing? He’s mine, right now, and I’m walking away from him.
It’s the right thing to do, it’s the right thing to do, it’s the right thing to do…
I just need to try to fall asleep before I change my mind.