Chapter 41
ADAM
There was no force on earth stronger than the gravitational field between me and Billie in that moment.
She stood braced against the closet door.
Her chest rose and fell in quick, shallow arcs, her cleavage pressing against the fabric.
The gentle glow from the light bulb above her was a halo on the crown of her head, picking out a glimmer in her brown hair and the heated flush at her jawline.
It had taken every ounce of self-control not to take her up against that door, which is why I’d backed away from her.
She didn’t say anything at first, just kept her eyes trained on a point somewhere over my shoulder, the way you did when you’d just gotten off a roller coaster and needed to convince yourself the ground was real.
I let her have the quiet. I curled my hands into fists and wedged them into my pants pockets because I wasn’t sure what else to do with them.
If I left them at my sides, I’d touch her.
If I crossed my arms, I’d look defensive.
I didn’t want her to think I was mad or frustrated. I was just affected.
“Thank you,” she exhaled, breaking the silence after a long moment. Her voice vibrating at a register just above a whisper, but it was a real thank you. Not the kind people said when they didn’t mean it. “That was a lot.”
I nodded, trying to keep the movement subtle, like if I made too much noise, it would fracture the delicate vacuum of the moment.
My hands, now officially liabilities, got jammed even further into my pants pockets.
I focused on the scuffed linoleum beneath our feet, tracing with my eyes the faded, hexagonal pattern and the small black scuff marks from years of boots, barstools, and probably the occasional mop bucket.
If I looked at Billie right then, I’d come apart.
There was a rawness to her that called every protective instinct in me to the surface, but the part of me that wanted to touch her was less noble, less filtered.
It was more like a compulsion. So I kept my gaze in the safe zone, in my own little patch of shadow.
The silence between us wasn’t just a pause, it was a living thing, breathing in the warm, closet-flavored air.
I could hear her steady exchange of oxygen, the faint catch and release of each exhale, and the shuffle of her shoes as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
There was a kind of intimacy in letting her have the space to recalibrate, like standing at the edge of a wild animal’s territory and waiting for it to decide if you were friend or foe.
It didn’t feel awkward, more like necessary.
Like if I said the wrong thing, she’d bolt, or worse, fold back into herself and shut me out for good.
So, I stood there, taking up as little psychic real estate as possible, and waited for her to orchestrate the next move.
If she needed to talk, I’d listen. If she wanted to pretend we were just friends again, I’d play along.
Hell, I’d do the moonwalk in steel-toed boots if it meant she’d feel less exposed.
But the stillness had an expiration date, and when she finally spoke, her voice was a little rough at the edges, smoothed out by the effort of holding it together.
“Why aren’t you talking?” she whispered.
I exhaled and realized, only then, I’d been holding my breath. “I’m giving you time and space.” I was careful to keep my tone neutral, like a babysitter reporting the weather to a nervous parent.
She tilted her head, a little crease forming between her brows. “Time and space for what?”
I almost smiled. “To decompress,” I offered.
“I don’t want time and space, not from you.” The way she said you, the way her mouth trembled at the edges made my heart stutter like a bad transmission.
And the way she was looking at me made my body—specifically the part of it below my belt—swell instantly, as if instructed by a committee of absolute morons.
I wanted to apologize for the obviousness of my response, but instead I jammed my hands even harder into my pockets, steeled my jaw, and focused on the pale skin at her collarbone and not the look in her eye.
At my non-response, she took in a shaky breath. “I thought you were bringing a plus-one,”
It wasn’t quite an accusation, but there was a kernel of something sharp at the center. I wasn’t sure if it was jealousy or just old-fashioned curiosity.
I blinked, surprised. “Why would you think that?”
Her hands fluttered at her sides, restless. “Because Genesis is in town,” she stated, her voice was flat, almost clinical.
“We’re done. I told you that.”
She nodded, but she didn’t look convinced. “Is she here for you?” The question hung between us, heavier than the dust motes swirling in the shaft of light.
I hesitated, but there was no point in lying. “She did stop by the house a few days ago.”
“Yeah, I saw.”
“You saw? I thought you moved back to your apartment.” Which I hated. When she said she was moving out, I assumed she was going to be moving back in with Bailey.
“There are paparazzi photos of you two kissing.”
“There are?”
Billie nodded.
Fucking Genesis. Of course there were. That kiss felt like a show. “She showed up at my house, I opened the door and she kissed me. She must have staged it.”
“Did you guys talk?” Billie asked.
I nodded, wondering if Genesis had always been this way and I hadn’t seen it or if she’d changed over time once her celebrity started to grow.
I honestly wasn’t sure. We only spent a weekend together at a time, so it was hard to say.
Anyone could keep up an act for forty-eight hours.
Or maybe it wasn’t even an act, maybe it was just one side of her I was seeing during those short periods.
The durations of our relationship had been long but actual face-to-face time logged together wasn’t a lot in comparison.
Billie’s eyes narrowed. “What did she say?”
“She said she overreacted and we could put the girls in boarding school,” I said, and my voice came out raw. “She said she was willing to move past my mistakes.”
“Mistakes?” Anger rolled off Billie in palpable waves, the kind of cold, crystalline anger that could shatter bone. Her hands, usually so measured and controlled, balled into fists at her sides. “Boarding school? They’re five.”
“I told you, I’m not going to be with her.”
She licked her lips and nodded, an obvious relief washing over her.
This was ridiculous. We always talked about everything but since I’d been back, we’d been walking on eggshells.
We weren’t saying what we wanted to say to each other and it was driving me crazy.
“I love you, Billie. I’m in love with you.
But I know we don’t have a future. You don’t want kids and that’s fair, I understand that but I wish we could be friends. I miss you, every second of every day.”
“I miss you, too.”
“But being friends with you would be messy. You obviously didn’t want me to be here tonight with Genesis.
I was going crazy thinking of you with Russell.
We don’t want to see each other with other people.
That’s not what friends do. And, personally, it is hard for me, literally—” I glanced down at my pants which had grown tighter by the second since we’d entered the closet.
Billie smiled. “—to be your friend because right now all I want to do is go over there, pull your skirt up and find out if you’re as wet as I think you are. ”
A flush bloomed on her cheeks. She wasn’t denying being wet, which told me she was just as turned on as I was. She’d worn that dress for me tonight, even though she thought my ex was coming as my plus-one. Probably because she thought my ex was coming as my plus-one.
“Do you think we can just be friends?” I asked.
Her nostrils flared. “Yes.”
“You’re lying.”
“What?”
“Your nostrils flared. Your nostrils always flare right before you lie. You’re lying, you don’t think we can just be friends.”
“We can be friends.” Her response was about as convincing as “Rolex” sold out of a trunk.
I started walking towards her, slowly, and the pulse on her neck sped as her eyes dilated.
“I’m in love with you, which would be fine, but I also want to tear your clothes off and fuck you every time I see you. And I think you want me to. Do you want me to?”
“No.”
Her nose wasn’t flaring. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she didn’t feel the same. But her eyes, there was so much in them.
I paused halfway. “You don’t want me to?”
She licked her lips, and a tiny grin appeared. “This is a nice dress, I don’t want you to tear it.”
Fuck. My dick hardened. Billie’s eyes were wide and glinting in the closet’s half-light, pupils blown and breathing shallow, like she’d just sprinted a hundred meters and refused to show the effort.
I could feel the temperature rise by degrees, the heat crawling under my skin, the air itself growing heavy with anticipation.
When I closed the space between us in a single stride, it was less of a decision than an inevitability.
The faint, lingering trace of her perfume, some citrus and floral scent that I could never pin down but always noticed when she was close. It was intoxicating and dizzying.
Her back flattened against the battered supply closet door with a soft thump, the impact barely a brush but enough to make her gasp.
I lowered my head, without a conscious thought, not even realizing until her breath hit my jaw, warm and trembling.
My hands hovered, uncertain for half a heartbeat, before I gave in and cradled her face, thumbs grazing her cheekbones and jawline, memorizing the contour of her.
She looked up at me as if daring me to do something reckless, so I obliged.