Chapter 18
I go another whole day without speaking to @tryingsomethingnew.
When I scroll back on our last exchange, I feel a little embarrassed, at first, at how unapologetically horny we were.
How unapologetically horny I was. But then I shake my head, holding my shame at bay.
What we did was fun and consensual. Even if I never speak to him again, I refuse to regret it.
I don’t see or hear from Adam for another several days, until the incredibly inconvenient time of me walking outside the house on Friday morning, gearing myself up for the blind date Amá has set me up on without even telling me.
Dress well, she’d texted the night before. Dress like the wife you want to be.
I’m so glad Teal spilled the beans on the date, because it would’ve been so weird to get that text from my grandmother without any context. Because of course, Amá Sonya hasn’t told me anything about the date herself.
I’d decided on a peach-pink dress, very body-conforming, but it looks a little less slutty with the delicate lace layer of embroidery over the satinlike material.
I’d left my hair down, in beach waves, clipping the front back with sparkling butterfly hair clips, leaving a couple of long curls by my crown.
I’d slipped on strappy sandals the color of almonds and applied light pink makeup over my cheeks and lips.
I had intended to be ready much earlier, but by the time I walk outside, I only have two minutes until either Amá or this random guy is supposed to arrive to pick me up. Because of course, that information wasn’t conveyed to me, either.
And then, all of a sudden, there is Adam, for some reason, leaning against my car, tapping on his phone.
I furrow my brow. Adam wouldn’t be my blind date, would he? No. Amá Sonya made her feelings about him very clear. My brain just can’t seem to wrap around why he’s randomly in the driveway this early in the morning.
“Adam?” I call, approaching him.
“Oh hey, I was just about to—” When Adam looks up, his phone slips from his hand, falling to the driveway so hard, it bounces twice my way.
I lean down to pick it up, but apparently he’s got the same idea, and the top of his head rams right into my shoulder, but before I can fall on my ass, he grabs me to bring me toward him to keep me upright, I assume.
The problem is, he wasn’t exactly in a stable position, having just leaned over to get the phone, too.
So when he pulls me in, I land on him just as he unceremoniously falls flat on his ass.
I am sitting in Adam Noemi’s lap. I am sitting in Adam Noemi’s lap as the morning sun turns his warm honey hair into spun gold. I feel frozen in place as he asks, “Shit. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
Instead of responding straightaway, I realize many things at once. His big hand on my waist. How solid his thighs are beneath my bottom. How good he smells—like he’s just been hiking in the woods. Pine, cranberry, leather.
I shake my head when I realize he’s still waiting for a response. What was the question again? Right. “I’m fine. I’m sorry about that, too.” I make to get up. He keeps his hand on my waist as he rises alongside me, in case I accidentally fall again, I’m guessing.
Once we’re both standing, he looks at me up and down and up again. He doesn’t even try to hide his appreciation. He even whistles! Which does nothing to help the blush forming on my cheeks. “I told you, Sky, you gotta stop taking my breath away. Jesus. Look at you.”
His words remind me of @tryingsomethingnew, when I first sent him that spicy selfie. Look at you. This only makes me blush even harder.
“I was going to see if you wanted to go to the beach, but…” He puts a hand on his head as he surveys me again. “What do you have going on? A hot date or something?”
I open my mouth, and close it. “Well…”
His eyes widen and he begins to nod rapidly. “Oh. Right. That guy you said you were…”
I shake my head. “Oh, it’s not him. It’s just…”
He laughs. “Oh, another guy. Wow, you’re…I mean, I can’t say I blame them. Blame anyone for…Christ. I’m babbling.”
It’s at this moment that a Lincoln I’ve never seen before pulls into the driveway. Inside is a man I’ve never seen before, either. He gets out, wearing a sharp gray suit, one that matches the salt-and-pepper of his hair.
“Oh God,” I say under my breath. “He’s old enough to be my dad.”
Adam whips his gaze to me. “You don’t know him?”
I shake my head. “My grandmother set me up. She didn’t even ask.”
“Sky?” the man smiles at me warmly. “Sky Flores. I’m Jacob Clearwoods. Attorney. Your grandmother is great friends with my mom. They’re always getting up to no good at those fund-raisers the ladies at the Gilded Cranberry are throwing.”
His mother is probably the same age as my grandmother. Doing the math, this guy was probably in law school when I was born.
I don’t mind the idea of older men. I mean, look at Adam.
He’s nine or so years older than me. But at least he was still a little kid when I came into this world.
What on earth would I even say to a guy like Jacob?
What could we possibly talk about? His children, who are probably more age-appropriate for me to date?
“Oh wow. I’m so sorry, Jacob, but there’s been a mistake,” Adam says quickly, noticing my hyperventilating and probably crazed eyes. “Sky didn’t know about this date, and she wouldn’t have said yes to it because…ah. Well, she and I are together.”
I glance at him so fast, I want to fall over again. “We—”
“Yes, babe.” Adam puts an arm around me and pulls me close. He places a warm kiss on my forehead and whispers, “Go with it,” before turning back to a befuddled Jacob. “Coming up on, what? Three months next week.”
“Oh wow,” Jacob says. “And Sonya really had no—”
I shake my head. “You know how elders are. She’s so forgetful.
Just the other day, she forgot how doors worked.
We had to pull her out of the window because she literally got stuck trying to get in her own home!
” I only just barely suppress my giggle.
Take that, Amá Sonya. Now the whole country club will be chatting about your deteriorating brain capacity.
“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that,” Jacob says. “So…” He looks between me and Adam again, and then pauses.
“I’m Adam Noemi, by the way,” Adam says, cutting off Jacob’s next words.
Jacob beams in response and points to Adam as they shake hands. “Say, aren’t you that famous news reporter that moved to New York City from high school?”
And just like that, Jacob completely forgets that I exist. All of a sudden, he and Adam are chortling like they’re in the middle of a yearslong bromance. By the time Jacob leaves, they’ve exchanged numbers to play a round of golf later in the month.
I slow-blink. “Damn. Your peopling skills are unreal.”
Adam looks at me and sighs. It’s not a sad sigh, but it’s also…
not exactly happy. Like he’s just accepted something he’s been fighting for a really long time.
“How about the beach?” he asks. “Do you wanna go with me?” He fusses at his phone with one hand, his other in his hair, and he’s jiggling one of his legs.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that Adam seems… nervous.
My stomach interrupts my thoughts with a growl, and we both laugh. “I need food,” I say, putting a hand on my belly.
“Noted. Let’s get food and head to the beach.”
I grab a beach bag and throw a swimsuit, a towel, and some SPF in it. I’m too hungry to change now—I can do that later. I run down, and Adam’s got his Jeep in the driveway, waiting for me.
“How do you feel about breakfast burritos?” he asks as he opens the door for me.
“Yes. All of them. Now, please.”
He laughs, his eyes doing that sparkling thing again. “Where do you think Mr. Jacob was about to take you?”
“Probably someplace nice, to be honest. But he was going to ruin it by showing me photos of his great-grandchildren.”
Adam bursts into laughter again. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but…yeah. He was up there in years, wasn’t he?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know what my grandmother was thinking.”
“Does she appreciate money? ’Cause he and his whole family are old money.”
I nod. “She appreciates little else, to be honest.”
Adam cuts me a glance with the corner of his eye. “And what about you? Do you appreciate money?”
I pause. “I like having food in my cupboards and gas in my tank.”
“Right. But your grandma wasn’t setting you up with Jacob Clearwoods for food security. She was trying to hook you up with Hamptons parties and wine tastings in Napa…”
“Yeah, I know. I know.” I close my eyes for a moment. “I’ve never cared about that.” I shake my head. “I just want someone who’s…you know.”
He grins. “Sexy? Smart? Charming?”
I shake my head again, smiling as I consider the answer to his question. “Someone nice.”
“Nice.”
We’re pulling into the breakfast place, getting in line at the drive-through. “Nice is boring, though, Sky.”
“Nice is not boring!” I wave my hands. “What’s the opposite of nice? Huh? It’s mean. I don’t want someone mean, I want someone nice.”
“But that goes without saying, doesn’t it?”
I frown and look away. “You’d think. But no. It doesn’t go without saying.”
Thankfully, he doesn’t say anything to this.
Or, at least, I don’t think he will, as he takes my order and insists on paying for my egg-and-chorizo burrito with extra avocado and cheese, alongside a veggie burrito with scrambled tofu for himself.
But it happens fast—as I’m inhaling my burrito in the most unladylike manner possible—he says, while driving back toward the main road, staring straight ahead, “You deserve so much better than what this fucking town has given you, Sky.”
“Hmm,” I say through a full mouth. When I swallow, I add, “Thanks?”
He’s kind of lost in thought, I think, running a hand over the dark red scruff at his chin. “If it were up to me…”