Chapter 18
AJ
After an overall good brunch with the girls, we’d gone shopping for a bit, taking a walk through the mall then a quick stroll on the beach before I had to go home to finish a report on Knox that I hadn’t quite wrapped up yesterday at the office, thanks to my intermittent fuming over Caspar’s shitty texts.
“And... bye-bye,” I murmured to myself as I officially blocked his number and deleted him in my messages. It took a second after the initial swipe left, because there was something so final about hitting delete on literally years and years’ worth of texts.
But as soon as I did it I smiled, feeling actually lighter.
I felt so good, in fact, that I managed to finish my work in half the time I’d expected, which was perfect since I needed to get this jump drive full of Knox highlights back to Adam tonight—just for some extra reviewing ahead of our second meeting with Knox on Thursday.
Peering at the clock, I wiggled my pursed lips.
For work purposes, I’d let myself into Adam’s all the time. The protocol was just to text him a heads up, which I usually did when I was ten minutes away.
But it was seven-fifteen right now and his date was at eight, and since the restaurant was a thirty minute drive from his house, he was probably getting ready right now. Most likely showering or getting dressed.
Ugh.
Emily’s words came back to haunt me as I sat at my kitchen counter.
So, how would you feel if Adam slept with her tonight?
I stewed for three seconds before I heaved a sigh.
“Not great, Emily, okay?” I confessed aloud, irrationally annoyed at both her and me and Adam as well, because now my stupid brain was digging through every memory in the past five years that I had of Adam’s smile as he talked on the phone with Naomi, and that low, sexy chuckle he gave whenever the girl on the other line said something presumably very dirty.
“Ughhh,” I said with exaggerated irritation just to get it all out of my system.
Then I pulled up my big girl panties, told myself to stop thinking about this and played Words With Friends in the kitchen till it was a quarter to eight and a safe time to go.
By the time I got to Adam’s house, it was a hair before 8PM, which explained why Morris’s car wasn’t here yet. He was the home cook who came every Sunday evening to meal prep for the week, since I swore Adam ate more meals a day than any human I knew.
Then again he was six feet and four inches of pure lean muscle, so maybe it was normal.
Aside from his daily breakfast at Gizzy’s, lunch somewhere near the office and a dinner meeting at some ritzy restaurant, he also had first breakfast in the early morning and second dinner at night, since he generally stayed up late to work.
I was wondering what Morris had on the menu for tonight as I was letting myself in, but as soon as I was in, I was wondering something else entirely—namely why Adam left the TV on.
He never did that, but as I made my way through the foyer I could hear the distinct sounds of March Madness playing from the living room.
My intention was to turn it off until I got to where the living room met the dining room and kitchen—and saw Adam sitting at his dining table, wearing a white T-shirt and sweats.
The sun set on him as he, surprisingly, wrote a letter on stationery.
By hand. There was even a first draft balled up next to him, as well as an envelope already stamped and addressed.
I could’ve watched him for longer, but it felt like a big, weird invasion of privacy, so as gently as I could, I said, “Adam.”
Still, he startled, looking instinctively pissed the way he did whenever he was interrupted. But then his eyes found me, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel warm all over from the way he instantly calmed.
“Oh. Hey.”
Heading over to him, I cocked my head to the side. “Why aren’t you dressed? Or at dinner?”
Adam blinked for a second, as if forgetting what dinner was. “Oh. I got held up by a phone call and I decided to just… cancel altogether. Didn’t really feel like going.”
“Huh.” Do not rejoice that he didn’t go. He’s clearly bummed about something, I scolded myself. “Everything okay?” I asked as we met each other halfway in the kitchen. “Was it work?”
“No,” Adam answered.
And since he left it at that, I nodded, doing my typical silent cursing of Jeannie. Thanks a lot, lady. Can you chill with your shit for just one day? I thought before glancing over at the clock on the top oven.
“You know Morris is going to be here any second, right?” I reminded him, instinctively sorting the pile of mail on his pristine white counter as he took the seat right by me on one of the kitchen stools.
“Nah, I canceled. I needed a quiet house.”
I frowned. “Well, he’s booked till next Sunday and now you’ve got a fridge full of groceries you’re going to waste, because you can’t cook to save your life.”
Adam laughed a little but didn’t hit back. Okay. My frown deepened. Something is very wrong.
I looked around, trying to find any sort of hint as to why he was so somber. But as soon as my eyes returned to his letter in the dining room, he said something about cleaning up his shit before getting up and collecting the stationery and envelope off the table.
Curiously, I watched him.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen Adam in a mood so shortly after another mood.
They were usually spaced farther apart, but I also didn’t doubt his mom was raising increasing amounts of hell every day.
The one time I met her, she was cold and frosty and spent most of the lunch talking only to Holland, and in low mutters that were not for the rest of us to hear.
Possessive didn’t even begin to describe Jeannie Maxwell, so I could only imagine what she was like these days given she still hadn’t gotten in contact with Holland.
“Jump drive for you,” I said when Adam got back, and once I set it in his palm, I made the announcement that I had just decided on two seconds ago. “I’m going to meal prep for you tonight.”
Adam’s eyebrows lifted as he cracked a smile. “AJ, you definitely don’t have to do that.”
“I know, but I want to. Consider it a thank you for helping me exorcise Caspar yesterday.”
Adam smirked. “I’m pretty sure you already thanked me. In fact, I haven’t finished thanking you.”
Something fluttered inside me, and I bit back a smile as he tugged me gently over to him by the pocket of my jeans.
“Adam,” I said softly. I was definitely happy to see that he was okay enough to still be thinking about this, but mustering every ounce of good behavior in me, I removed his hand from my pocket and set it back in his lap. “That won’t be happening right now,” I said.
I’d actually meant to say “that won’t be happening,” as in at all, but the last two words just slipped in, and I tried to tell myself it didn’t make an actual difference.
Adam’s blue eyes glinted as he read my inner turmoil with ease. “You don’t want me to?”
“No,” I replied fast, absently organizing his mail again. And though I wasn’t looking at him, I could hear the smile he broke into, which made me want to smile too.
“Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want me to make you come again.”
I wet my lips, which reluctantly curved at the edges. And though I didn’t look up at him, I did answer.
“I do want it,” I said quietly, as if there were other people in the room. “But I can’t afford to know how good that feels.”
“Why not?” Adam asked.
Because.
Because I just got chewed out by my sister for sleeping with you this morning.
Because I’m afraid of feeling more than whatever I’m feeling now, which I’m pretty sure is already too much.
“Because you’re my boss,” I finally replied, looking up at him. It seemed like a pretty solid reason. “But anyway.” He looked amused as I changed the subject. “I’m going to cook for you now.”
“As long as you stay and eat with me.”
“I can do that,” I said before going over to his fridge and having a look at the groceries. “Okay. Where’s your cast iron?”
“What’s that?”
I turned around and laughed at the earnest cluelessness on his face. “It’s a pan, Adam.”
“Sorry. I’ve been kitchen illiterate my whole life.”
“Really?” I laughed as I started opening all the drawers and cabinets to look for everything I needed.
“Yes. I feel like that shouldn’t surprise you.”
“Well, on TV you’d always see jock boys like you constantly raiding the fridge and eating everything in sight.”
“Yeah, well, I generally avoided the kitchen and downstairs as much as possible. Unless Iain was over. And even then we did our best to be upstairs or outside.”
The mental image I had in my head sharpened as he talked about nights he’d crashed in the pool house with Iain.
I hadn’t known that particular detail. What I knew was that in college and law school, Adam couldn’t be motivated to visit for holidays unless he was allowed to bring a friend.
I’d always figured it was a boredom thing, but I should’ve known bringing Iain was also for mere survival’s sake.
Well, at least that eventually worked out for Holland, I thought to myself, freshly charmed by the thought that many years later, she managed to land her dream crush from her childhood.
“I take it all this was to avoid your mom?” I asked as I located the cutting boards.
“Yeah.”
I couldn’t help shaking my head a little. I knew that Adam’s relationship with Jeannie was rocky, but I could never really wrap my mind around just how awful it was.
Or more importantly, why.
“Were you really that bad of a kid?” I asked cautiously, half-expecting that Adam would say “dungeon” and move on. But instead he laughed.
“Between you and Emily, you were considered the bad kid right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And what was the worst thing you ever did?”