Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I kneel in the middle of a blizzard. It’s cold here, so cold the flowers at my feet are iced over. Not dead, but dipped in water and flash frozen. Everything is encased in frost. My body is numb where it touches the snow.
In front of me, Lovie squats down, hands and knees on the white ground as she tends to a small bunch of blue flowers.
“Lovie, wake up.”
Lovie looks up at me, but she shakes her head, and I do too. Not me , she’s saying. You.
That floating voice is talking to me?
“Come on, love. Wake up for me.”
An earthquake shakes the ground, and I grab at the ground to hold steady. The voice is getting louder, the shocks more apparent.
“Damn it, Elle. Wake up. Your friends are here.”
Wait a minute. I think I know that voice.
“Adam?” I croak. I raise my head and encounter the pillow I must have burrowed under. It’s a little early in the winter for hibernation, even for me.
“Thank God,” he breathes. “Your friends are here.”
I peek at him through one slitted eye. He stands next to the bed in dark-green scrubs, beautiful as ever. I’m not sure I’m wearing pants.
I try to make his words make sense, blink myself into a more conscious state. “What friends?”
Adam grabs my phone from the nightstand. “These friends, I’m pretty sure.”
Behind a dozen notifications each from Liss and Dakota is a picture of the three of us last summer. Dakota’s boyfriend Sam took it at their apartment-warming party. I was already buzzed by that point. My arms are around Liss and Dakota’s are around me, and the three of us are singing a song I can’t remember to save my life.
“That’s sweet,” I say, handing my phone back to Adam and returning my head to the pillow.
Then his words register.
“They’re here ?! Literally here, in this house?” I throw off the covers—I was right, no pants—and run down the hall. If Lovie has something to say about my thighs today, it’s going to have to wait until I squeeze my friends to death.
Dakota’s voice reaches me first (“I think she’s coming!”), but Liss physically touches me first, rounding the corner the same time I do. It’s been far too long.
Liss Kessinger is five feet five inches of pure sugar (and coffee). I have all the spice in this friendship.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I mumble into her hair, ever frizzy and the color of sunshine, even in the winter.
She kisses my cheek. “You seemed off the last time we spoke.”
Dakota hip-checks her out of the way to pull me into a bone-crushing hug of his own. Dakota is softer, rounder, but just as giggly. He rests his hands on my bare shoulders. “She looks like Elle, she sounds like Elle, but it’s been so long I can’t quite remember.”
I laugh. “Point taken.”
“Seriously, though. We haven’t seen you in too long,” Liss says, her bottom lip trembling ever so slightly.
Dakota elbows her. “We said we wouldn’t cry at the beginning.”
She wipes her eyes. “Right. Sorry, you’re right.” And then I’m squished between them and two-thirds of us are crying anyway.
“Why are you almost naked?” Liss whispers. My tank top feels especially scandalous under such a heavy gaze. She gasps, her cheeks going bright again. “Did you share the bed?”
I hope Adam goes the long way around, through the laundry room. Maybe he’ll start a load of towels or something.
But a throat clears behind me, and I know I won’t be that lucky today or ever.
Adam steps up to our little huddle, holding out a pair of sweatpants and a jacket. “Here.”
In my periphery, Dakota’s mouth falls open, and Liss’s clamps shut.
I scramble for the clothes, moving my hopes and dreams onto greener pastures. Like that maybe, just maybe, my friends will keep their comments about Adam’s … Adamness private until he’s out of earshot.
“If I wasn’t already happily partnered, I would ask if you had a brother.” Dammit, Dakota.
Liss nods vigorously as I pull on the sweats. “ Do you have a brother?”
“He only has a sister,” I bark, shoving each of them in the shoulder. I haven’t even put on the jacket yet. But I have to separate my friends from Adam before they can ask any more embarrassing questions. Like whether he’s worked through his childhood trauma and his opinion on family portraits for Christmas cards. “Out.”
“But—” Dakota protests, pouting.
“It was nice to meet you, Nurse Adam!” Liss gasps, then covers her mouth as I lead her toward the kitchen. “Was that nickname supposed to be a secret?”
“We brought pizza?” Dakota tries, which, I’ll admit, does make me falter for a second before I catch sight of a clock.
“Bullshit. It’s only ten.”
“I did bring doughnuts,” Liss says over her shoulder, still resisting me. “And a cold brew, ice on the side so it didn’t get watered down.”
Now that gets me. “The good kind of doughnuts?”
She frowns. “Is there a bad kind of doughnut?”
Adam follows us down the hall. He’s probably going to remind us to keep it down so we don’t disturb Lovie’s routine.
Instead, a tentative smile turns up the edge of his mouth. “Lovie’s reading on the back porch. I’ve got the gas heater out there, but if she gets restless, I’ll take her out for a drive or something. Enjoy yourself, okay? They really love you.”
My hands drop to my sides. “Thank you. I’m sorry I slept so late. I must have forgotten my alarm. If you want, tomorrow I can take the early shift with Lovie.”
He studies me. “You have sleep lines.” His finger ghosts across my right cheek, and sweet heat curls around my spine.
Liss and Dakota swoon in tandem.
Adam heads toward the back patio, and Dakota literally gasps at the sight of him walking away.
Okay, fine. Same.
Liss starts three sentences before the door is fully shut, and I shush her each time, eventually resorting to physically holding her mouth closed. Once there’s no possible way Adam can overhear us, I drop my hand.
She takes a big breath. “Oh my God. Elle.”
“Did you see his traps?” Dakota says.
My head pounds from the disorientation. I’m dizzy from the tables turning so swiftly. “Can we please pause this conversation until I have that cold brew I was promised?”
“We have not slept together,” I say for the fifth time. I thought I needed caffeine, but my friends are the ones not comprehending information properly right now.
Dakota’s bushy blond eyebrows slash a straight line across his forehead. “Third base?”
“No.”
“Second, surely.”
I reflect on my doorway kiss with Adam, where his hands wandered. Teased, but never quite touched. Unfortunately, Liss and Dakota read my hesitation as confirmation and start fangirling again.
“No, no, nonononono.” I set my cup too harshly on the table, and precious cold brew sloshes over the side. “Listen, both of you. I have only kissed him. And only a few times.” Gushing about kisses, squealing over cute boys, blushing at the thought of him. “I didn’t realize we were thirty going on thirteen.”
“I’m only twenty-eight,” Dakota says. “And you’re never too old to have a crush on a boy. My nana has three boyfriends at the retirement home.”
Okay, Dakota’s nana. You go, girl.
“Adam is not a boy,” I say under my breath.
Liss grins. “So you’ve got yourself a man .”
I didn’t expect any less of them, to be honest. I knew they wouldn’t sweep this under the rug, especially once they laid eyes on Adam. I didn’t show them his picture for this reason. And Adam is largely antitechnology, anyway. His Instagram picture is still a gray silhouette.
But they get it. They saw us together for two seconds and deduced something I’ve been trying to ignore for weeks.
“Is he a good person?” Liss asks, more serious now as she grabs my coffee and takes a heavy swallow.
“The best.” My hands fall limply into my lap. “I think I’m screwed.”
Dakota takes the cold brew next. Who’d they bring that for, anyway? Clearly not me. “Would that be a bad thing? The traps, Elle. Think about the traps.”
Liss leans into his shoulder. “Dakota, you’re thinking with the wrong head. We need to know if he’s grumpy to the world but nice to her. If he likes baseball over hockey. If he eats a second lunch just because she’s hungry and makes self-deprecating jokes.” I think those are the exact criteria she has for her future husband. “We’ve seen him troll that guy on Instagram.”
I’m split down the middle. I want to share everything good about Adam and somehow keep it all to myself. How he gets my favorite creamer at the grocery, makes sure my butterfly mug is set by the coffeepot each morning even though he’ll inevitably comment about BPA poisoning, and has a green smoothie waiting when I return from frigid morning runs. The way he holds me during Jeopardy! even when Lovie’s in the bathroom.
How he kisses me like he needs me.
A small, warm hand covers mine. Liss’s face pinches. “You can keep it all to yourself if you want, but I’ve never seen you look like that when all you’re doing is thinking about a guy. Never, ever. Not Grady, not that one guy from the band. Not even Miles Teller.”
Has my infatuation with Adam surpassed that of my greatest celebrity crush? Oh shit. I really am screwed.
Dropping my head in my hands, I start from the beginning. It takes me so long to go through every detail, every lingering touch and glance, that by the time I’m finished, the cold brew is gone, the ice has melted, and I’m convinced Adam and Lovie have gone through two units of propane trying to keep warm outside.
Dakota knocks his knuckles against the table. “I just decided your love story is going to be called ‘Adam and Elle’s Guide to Gardening.’ ”
Then, and only then, do I remember there isn’t supposed to be an Adam and Elle . The last thing I want to do is get him in trouble with his superiors, or somehow disqualify Lovie from AngelCare’s assistance.
My head finds the nearest surface, which happens to be Liss’s shoulder. “Why did I do this to myself?”
She pats my head. “I don’t think you did it to yourself. I think this is a thing that happened to you. I think what you’re doing to yourself is fighting something inevitable.”
“Remind me why fighting it is bad?”
Liss hums, her pink bottom lip plumping out. “Remember when we went to Sydney Mattingly’s pool party in the fourth grade and made that whirlpool? You tried to fight the current and almost drowned.”
“Did not,” I say, even though I truly did. Sydney’s dad had to slap my back so hard, it left a welt in the shape of his palm.
Adam’s eyes sort of remind me of a whirlpool, darker around the edges, lighter toward the middle. I’ve found myself lost in them a few times.
Annoyed at Liss’s all-too-fitting anecdote, I boop her on the nose. “Can we talk about something else? How’s business? Is your website doing okay?”
Liss’s eyes light up, the way they always do when you discuss her pride and joy. “It’s amazing. Since Brody Boswell commented on your post, I’ve been working nonstop. I answered emails last night until two in the morning.”
“The official Cubs page follows us,” Dakota added. “Our engagement is up like two thousand percent.”
My heart warms. “You’re going to need more space.”
Liss nods, mouth as close to a frown as it can get. “Please don’t remind me. It’s on the list.”
I quirk an eyebrow. “Just at the very bottom of the last page.”
“How’s Forget Me Not doing?” Dakota asks. “Have you convinced Adam to sit down with you?”
My eyes flit to the patio door. “Not yet. But I’m close, I think.”
“Speaking of close …” Dakota’s eyes sparkle as he clasps his hands primly on the table. “Can we please loop back to the sharing-a-bed situation?”