Chapter 6 ADAM
Chapter six
ADAM
LoverBoy’s spinning in the carrier, unharmed, and Eve is right here. Real, not some sleepless hallucination. Just my own personal brand of emotional damage.
The candy-cane dick pic would’ve been festive if it weren’t followed by, “Nurse Bitch, why aren’t you replying?”
“What did you see?” she murmurs. Her laughter is gone. In its place? Wariness. Like she’s bracing for me to say something that will crush her confidence. “It’s a dick, isn’t it?”
I nod and she groans.
“Unsolicited?” The word comes out darker than I mean it to.
“Yes. It rains dicks. Some in need of a doctor or a shower.”
Now I want to hunt down every asshole who thinks EveNoName123 needs to see their sad attempt at holiday spirit. “Your call.” I use the same tone I use when owners need to trust me with their pets. “But I could make him squirm.”
She goes still, then whispers, “Okay.”
I dial the number. “Ready to fuck?” he answers immediately.
“Ready for me to report your ass to the app and cops?” My tone is lethal. “Illegal, asshole.” I text myself the proof and hang up.
I hand her phone back. Her fingers brush mine and the sensation hits harder than any kick from a startled horse.
“Thanks... AdamWoof,” she exhales.
“Harrison.” I’m no longer AdamWoof.
“Foster,” she murmurs. “I’m Eve Foster.”
Eve fucking Foster. Finally.
I should turn around. But I don’t. “Having car issues, Eve Foster?” Her dogs quiet at my voice, and she looks at me like I’ve personally offended her by calming them down.
“Can I get in and check something?”
She hesitates. “Fine.”
Right as she opens and steps out of the car, one of the harnesses snaps.
One hundred and twenty pounds of excited Great Dane hits my chest as Eve stumbles into me, and her dachshund follows through, shooting through, their leashes winding around our legs.
My arm catches her waist on instinct, and everything freezes.
I should step back. Should treat this like any other rescue situation: stabilize, assess, retreat.
But instead, I hold. Every muscle locked down tight while some primal part of me calculates exactly how many seconds it would take to back her against that car door. To make her understand with hands and teeth what her disappearing act did to me.
From the carrier, LoverBoy lets out what sounds suspiciously like a laugh.
Eve tilts her head up, and I get a full, unfiltered hit of her.
Vanilla cupcake. She once joked romance novels taught her vanilla drove romance heroes (and maybe men) wild. Mission accomplished, Foster. Because I may not be a romance hero but I want to bury my head in her neck and inhale again and again and again.
“You’re tall,” she says, searching for neutral ground.
“Yep, ma’am. Six foot one. You’d have known that if…” So many ifs.
Her fingers drum against her thigh. Not the steady rhythm she used when thinking through a diagnosis. This beat is off. Uneven. The kind that always meant she was about to say something she couldn’t take back.
“I should have met you that weekend. I should have told you everything earlier or in person. Like I said in my message after, I’m sorry.”
The air disappears from my lungs for a fraction of a second.
Because this isn’t only about Pittsburgh, where I stood for hours in the lobby checking that stupid app, sending messages hoping she was okay, until the batteries died—until she sent me that message telling me she had hidden things from me. Big things. Health things.
Cancer.
Like it was something she was either supposed to be ashamed her or completely defined her.
“I agree.”
“I did reach out again. You’re the one who stopped responding.”
The words punch through my ribs. “What?”
“I messaged you. Told you I was finally done with school. That I was ready to...” She trails off. “You never answered.”
“You ghosted me first and more than once,” I say tightly. “I texted congratulations on your BSN. Even sent a dancing zombie nurse gif.”
Her brows knit. “No, I messaged you. But the app vanished after that breach.”
I force a small smile. “Guess we’ll never know who ghosted who last.” I step closer and she shivers.
“How about we talk about ancient history after we figure out what’s wrong with your car?
” I force some lightness into my tone, like this isn’t a conversation that could level me if I let it.
“Unless you’re planning to disappear again? ”
A flash of hurt crosses her face. She masks it with a nurse’s professional distance, like she refuses to let me see that hit land.
“Nope. No disappearing,” she sighs, but it sounds like she wishes she could vanish into the winter air.
Her eyes are even better in person. That firewood brown. The kind that can light you up from the inside out. Warm you. Consume you.
She narrows her eyes. “Is that you or me?”
Oh, vibrating. My phone. I silence Kellan’s call with a quick text—I’ll deal with missing Wes’s birthday dinner later.
Because. Car. Dogs. Putting others first. Again.
Cassandra said no one else supported dreams like I did. Faye said I took care of everyone else except myself. File under Things I shouldn’t think about right now.
And Eve? Well, she didn’t show up.
“Let me grab my kit from the truck.” I untangle the little dog’s leash who’s now waiting by her seat, shaking hard enough to shake her whole wiener-dog body.
Without thinking, I tuck her inside my coat, wrapping my scarf around her first. She melts against me instantly, little sigh and all, like I’m her personal heating system.
Eve’s eyebrows shoot up, like I’ve personally offended her. Again.
“Really?”
I smirk. “Plenty of room for you too, Foster.”
I don’t miss the way her eyes flick over my coat, like for one split second, she’s considering it. Then she exhales sharply and nods toward the car where her Great Dane is making sounds like the world’s biggest worrywart.
“That’s her default setting. Her name’s Blanche and the little traitor in your arms is Dorothy.”
We stumble toward my car, me holding the carrier with LoverBoy who’s leaping against the door, Blanche almost crawling and Dorothy snuggling. As I reach for my truck door, pull it open… nothing.
Shit.
My keys are inside. It’s an old car that could tell stories about this town. And of course this would happen now.
“Not our day with cars.” she says, looking up at me, teeth chattering, wrapped in her coat but still visibly cold. I settle her dachshund closer to me in my scarf and shrug off my coat and she’s murmuring, “I’m okay. So okay.”
“Then humor me, please.” I wrap her in my coat while putting Dorothy in my scarf and grab my hat and pull it down over Eve’s beanie.
Her breath catches.
And I wonder how her soft dark blond hair would feel in my fist.
Big mistake because now I’m freezing and hot all at once. That can’t be good.
She blinks up at me, lips parted, like she’s about to say something, clears her throat. “I can call... your father, I assume?”
That’s right. After making myself forget the exact shade of her eyes, she’ll be everywhere. And I’m leaving. Finally leaving. After all this time. Timing was always our enemy.
“I’m starting tomorrow,” she continues, like her verbal uppercut to my ribs has already healed.
“Of course.” Mom’s fingerprints are all over this. Always trying to get me to meet new people. Even if I’m leaving in less than twenty-four hours. Even if Eve isn’t new. She’s already left a mark everywhere.
“Right. Sure. Let me call Mike first. He’s the garage owner.”
Mike texts he’ll be there ASAP, reminding me too that I’m missing a birthday party, hinting at the fact that there’s so much to celebrate. I send a quick “I’m sorry.” To which he doesn’t reply.
And I continue, “I’ll call Sally from the B&B for a pickup.”
“How do you...?”
“Because that’s the only place in town and that’s where I’m staying too.” I adjust Dorothy, who’s snuggled contentedly in my scarf. “Sold my apartment last week.”
I let LoverBoy’s carrier on the ground, noting the blankets around him. At least he’s warm. But as I bend down to pet him, Dorothy goes rigid in my arms and LoverBoy barks. Dorothy whimpers, pressing against my chest.
“What the hell?” Eve moves closer, professional concern replacing awkwardness. “She’s never scared of small dogs.”
I shift into vet mode, noting her posture. “Did she show any pain earlier?”
“She yelped getting out of the car yesterday. I thought she slipped on the ice.”
“I can check her at the clinic super early tomorrow morning,” I offer, thinking I can do one last check-in before hitting the road. For a moment, we’re nothing more than professionals discussing a case, the tension briefly suspended.
“Thanks,” Eve nods.
As Dorothy settles, the professional shield between us begins to thin.
The quiet stretches a beat too long. Eve tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, that nervous gesture I remember from our video calls whenever the conversation veered toward something more personal.
We shared so much. I thought we shared everything. But we didn’t. She didn’t.
She clears her throat. “You staying at the B&B with your wife?” If that’s her attempt at a casual, she’s missing by a mile. I’m sure she changed in all those years, but that throat clearing was one of her tells.
“Smooth, Foster. And no, never married. You?” If she’s married, I’m taking celibacy tips from little Megan’s bearded dragon who had to be rescued because their previous owner tried to have them cohabit with another one.
“Divorced,” she admits softly and I must make an are-you-okay? face, because she adds, “Don’t be sorry. He was an asshole.”
“Then I’m glad you’re divorced,” I murmur.
She licks a snowflake from her upper lip, and my whole body is attuned to her.
She’s here. Divorced. Dating.
I’m here. Single. Leaving. But here.
“I should give you your coat back.” She tries to shrug it off, her movements a little too hurried, a little too eager to create distance.
“Keep it.” My right hand falls on her shoulder and we both still at the contact, like animals sensing a shift in the atmosphere. “Sally’s going to be there and she’s got plenty of blankets.”
“Thanks.” Her breath steadies as she squares her shoulders beneath my palm. And it hits me as her scent wraps around me again. She told me once how nice I was. How she trusted me. How happy she was we met on that iZombie forum.
Well…
Eve Foster still makes me want to show her exactly how not-nice this “nice guy” can be. Even if I guess nice guys aren’t supposed to get hard imagining all the ways they could ruin her for anyone else.
Especially nice guys leaving tomorrow.