Chapter 6 #2
But when his mouth was a breath from Carly’s, his thoughts ceased and all he could hear was his own heart loudly pulsing in
his ears.
He snuck a glance back at Shireen, but she wasn’t looking at him anymore. She was focused on Dean, and they appeared to be
in the middle of a heated discussion. No more nuzzled noses.
Well, that was interesting.
“How did you learn to do that?” he asked. “Kissing without . . . the kissing.”
“My dad worked in film when he lived in LA,” Carly explained as they arrived at the other end of Main Street. “It’s called
a stage kiss. All the actors do it.”
“Your dad was an actor?” Adam carefully set the wheels off the lip of the curb and onto the road. The library was two more
blocks down.
“He was a cameraman, but he brought me to set a lot. In between takes, he’d talk to me about what was happening in each scene.
He was . . .”
She drifted off. Adam waited to see if she’d continue, but when she didn’t, he asked, “Is that what you do in LA, too?”
She cleared her throat. “No, no, you saw how my back reacted to that fall. I’m a screenwriter. Or, well, trying to be one. I haven’t sold anything yet, but I’m getting close. I bartend to pay the rent.”
Carly stopped Adam by holding up a hand, allowing a man covered head to toe in rainbow balloons to walk past. How the guy
was able to see where he was going was a true mystery.
“Never met a screenwriter,” Adam said. “That’s really cool.” Had he just given Carly a compliment on top of having kissed
her? He frowned at the state of their current relationship.
Or, rather, whatever this was. Definitely not a relationship.
Carly blew air through her lips. “I get it. You think I should be doing something practical with my life.”
He frowned again. “I just told you that I think screenwriting is cool.”
“Everything that comes out of your mouth is sarcasm.” And then she scrunched up her face and said, “Acorns in the walls?”
If he didn’t know any better, he’d say she was putting on some kind of accent to impersonate his voice. “I do not sound like
a congested gremlin.”
She raised her eyebrows and said, “Sure you don’t.”
And suddenly, he remembered why he’d wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible in the first place. He was still
so dazed from their time together—the evil cows, the stage kiss—that he’d forgotten how unpleasant Carly was.
“Luckily for both of us, we’re at the library.” He stopped the wheelchair at the entrance, then hit the big blue button that
swung the doors open.
“Finally,” she said.
And something about that twisted a knot in his stomach. Was he really a person others wanted to run from? First Shireen, and now Carly? And why did he care about what Carly thought at all?
Because no one will ever love you, the annoying voice in his head chimed. The same voice he’d had since Shireen left him.
Carly turned to him. “You’re welcome for the Shireen thing back there, by the way.”
He didn’t even know what to say to that. He hadn’t asked Carly for help. So why should he thank her?
Carly began to wheel herself in through the open doors, which is when he thought to say, “And you are welcome for the two-mile push to safety!” Even though he’d shouted that last bit, the doors had closed behind her and
Adam wasn’t entirely sure she’d even heard him.
By the time Adam walked back to his car at the funeral home, it was late in the afternoon. He hadn’t seen his parents in almost
a full loop. He wondered if they were anxious or just thrilled that he’d taken their advice to heart. And he wasn’t ready
to go home yet, because he was a terrible liar and wouldn’t even know where to begin with explaining his morning.
So instead, he drove out to his favorite flower farm in Julian. In the fall, the farm opened its gates to tourists and locals
for a harvest of pumpkins, apple cider and bouquets. But with the loop, there were few places people didn’t let themselves
into. He opened the fence, drove through and parked in the middle of a field.
Jasmine bloomed along the wooden fence and filled the air with the thick and heady scent. The air hummed with crickets and
the faint caw of a crow. He didn’t need Goldie to tell him that it was almost time for the eclipse, as a quick glance upward
revealed the moon approaching the sun.
Adam slipped on his protective glasses, leaned against the hood of the car and crossed his arms. He didn’t have his usual set of tools, but he had his watch to keep the time.
He scanned the ground for the flits of shadow bands, but didn’t see any from his vantage point.
No bother, he could still time the eclipse.
The moon’s cavernous mouth gobbled up the sun, and the caw of the crow and the hum of the crickets vanished. Adam marked the time on his watch.
In that moment, a gnat flew across his face. He waved the thing away, and Carly popped into his head. Of course she appeared
at the presence of something annoying. He sighed, because more irritating was the reminder of their last interaction and how
she assumed he was making fun of her career choices. He didn’t think she was silly. Quite the opposite, he was jealous of
the kind of confidence it would take to do something as scary as write a movie. What if people hated it? What if she never
got a movie made? What would she do for money?
Jesus, he was starting to sound like his dad. Sometimes people pursued their dreams and actually got them. What would Carly
think about the fact that unlike her, his passion for astronomy wasn’t one he’d been brave enough to go after?
The realization of that made his stomach clench. Adam clung to what he’d known, and Carly raced toward something she had no
control over. Her success wasn’t guaranteed, and she didn’t at all seem bothered by that. While Adam . . .
He took in a deep breath and let it out. He’d already had one crisis today, and he certainly didn’t need another. He glanced
at his watch, then up to the sky. The eclipse would end soon. He waited for the moment when the moon began to cough the sun
back out. But as the sliver of light surfaced and Adam looked down at the watch, he froze.
He double-checked the time. Then triple-checked. He ran through the eclipse, when he’d started the timer and when he’d ended it. Had there been any deviation? No. He’d done this experiment the same exact way for as long as he could remember.
Four minutes and twenty-two seconds.
How was the eclipse ten seconds shorter?