Chapter 21
AJ
And it would’ve been the worst if I weren’t perfectly happy to go on a mini adventure with Adam this morning.
“Here you go. Just these three things?”
Handing me a cooler, a bag of ice and a long spoon was the manager from the restaurant in the lobby of our building, which was so used to agents requesting weird things last minute that they didn’t even think twice about providing it.
“That’s it. Thank you!” I said before heading out the restaurant and the building to see Adam’s Range Rover parked out front.
He had a hell of a cute smile waiting for me when I got in the passenger seat.
“Morning,” he said, his eyes skimming over my white Oxford shirt and hip-hugging cigarette pants. I smiled back.
“Morning,” I said, trying not to melt under his stare because he was looking at me like he wanted to kiss me.
But he didn’t, and that was fine, because we were still in front of the building, and there were other important things to do, like get snacks.
It didn’t matter what time of day it was—snacks were customary for every car ride at least two hours long.
I didn’t even have to say a word for Adam to know to drop by my quesataco truck, and it didn’t even matter that we’d both had breakfast recently.
It was understood. When the ride was two or more hours long, we got to have car snacks and second coffee.
“What, are these for the way back?” I snorted when Adam somewhat swerved to get out of the way of a crazy driver, then immediately told me to check on the cinnamon rolls in the back. He smirked at my question.
“Yeah. From Heidi. They’re okay?”
I laughed. “Yes, the cinnamon rolls are unharmed. You managed to swerve this giant-ass car very smoothly.”
“Well, I’ve been driving this thing for fifteen years, so I better.”
I nodded absently before pausing. “Wait—what? You’ve been driving this very car since you were seventeen?”
“No, not this one. But it was a pretty similar Range Rover.”
My eyebrows went up. “Well, la dee da,” I teased, making him grin.
“I grew up driving a hand-me-down Honda. Which was honestly pretty good for sneaking in and out of the house. I can’t imagine being stealthy with this beast of a car.
Even just the flash of my Civic lights coming into the driveway was enough to wake up my mom. ”
“Well, my dad was on and off with how hard he tried to stop me from sneaking out. But even when he did have the energy to try and keep me in check, it was still pretty easy ‘cause we had this circle driveway. And my parents’ bedroom faced the backyard anyway.”
“I see,” I said, adding the details to my existing image of Adam’s childhood.
It was always funny thinking about what teenaged Adam was like, because it was the part of him I didn’t really know at all.
We didn’t talk often about his childhood in New Jersey because, well, we had about nine million more important things to talk about on a daily basis and beyond that, the topic generally led back to his mom, and how he openly despised her.
Hell, I kind of despised her too. It was why I’d been so active in helping his sister finally carry out her long-hatched secret plan to move out.
Adam and I had actually fought constantly over her during that time, bickering about whether it was best for her to live in this neighborhood or that, and whether she should go with my real estate friend or his.
In the end, Holland got so sick of our debating that she resorted to an extremely sketchy apartment listing on Craiglist.
Thankfully, it led her to a perfect roommate, who indirectly led her back to Iain’s life.
I smiled as I thought about them, trying to conjure up my most vivid image of the Maxwell household.
“Okay, so Range Rover. Circle driveway. And from what I recall, Iain would crash in your pool house when he stayed over,” I said. Adam peered at me, wearing a quizzical look but already laughing.
“Yeah. What are you getting at?”
“Nothing. I’m just rounding out the already-clear picture I had of who Adam Maxwell was in high school.”
Adam snorted. “Which was what?”
“King of Barton Prep. Life of the party. Drove all his teachers nuts by paying zero attention in class and being a complete dickhead yet somehow always acing the tests. Star of the basketball team. Probably started for the football team too, whether or not he deserved that position.”
Adam laughed. “Shit. You actually nailed it.”
“And just to round out my stereotypical presumptions, I’m going to go ahead and guess that you were prom king.”
“I was not, because Barton Prep was a Catholic all-boys school and we didn’t have time for that dumb bullshit.”
“Oh, well excuse me. I’m just a public school kid who actually had normal things like homecoming and prom.”
“Well, we had prom,” Adam said. “We just didn’t have prom court.”
“I see. And who was your date?”
Adam looked over his shoulder as he switched lanes, and I thought he hadn’t heard my question. But a couple seconds later, he answered, “My girlfriend.”
I blinked.
He glanced at me. “You look surprised.”
“I literally thought you’d never had a girlfriend before in your life.”
“Yeah, well. I did.”
“How long did you date?”
“Three years.”
“Holy shit.” I wasn’t sure why I was so taken aback, but this was blowing my mind. “So most of high school.”
“Yeah. Which I think is considered a decade in high school years.”
I managed a laugh. “Add Adam years to that equation and you were basically married.”
Adam snorted. “Basically.”
I looked at him, trying to gauge if he was actually agreeing with me or just repeating after me absently. Then I asked myself why the hell I was taking this so seriously.
“What was her name?” I asked directly before jumping at the sheer volume of his phone ringing through the Bluetooth of his car.
“Ah, Jesus. Fuckin’ Engelman,” Adam muttered before picking up and getting immediately blasted with Engelman’s voice.
“What the hell is a date shake?” he asked, prompting Adam to groan and me to muffle a laugh.
“It’s a shake, Don. Made of dates. What the hell else would it be?”
I snorted, and as they talked, I checked my texts and work emails, all the while marveling over the fact that only Adam could get away with bitching and moaning and cursing on the phone with the head boss of bosses.
I tried not to laugh as the call stretched on, getting to that point in conversations that Adam hated. Silly stuff unrelated to work. Talking about golf and shooting the shit. It was like a saving grace when Adam’s friend Sully from law school just so happened to call.
“Don, hey. I gotta go, I got a call,” Adam said urgently, assuring Engelman he’d keep him post before hanging up and grinning broadly. “Sully. What’s up, brother.”
But the voice that came back wasn’t Sully. It was a woman’s voice—low and sultry, and dripping with sex while simply saying, “Hey, you.”
Adam and I paused as we stared at the screen. Judging by his quizzical expression, he didn’t recognize the voice. But it hit him quickly enough.
“Naomi,” he finally said.
“Mm-hm. Had to use Sully’s phone to get you to pick up.
That’s not very nice,” Naomi said, though the undertones of her words were still very much I’d like you to fuck me—which was honestly fair enough considering they were strictly fuck buddies, and he’d canceled on her last-minute on Sunday night.
The night of that mind-blowing kiss.
That you should not be thinking about right now as he talks to a woman he’s slept with many more times than you, I thought while making a face at Adam, because I hated when he took personal calls on speaker without telling the other party that someone else was listening.
Almost done, Adam mouthed as Naomi went on about the swanky hotel she booked.
“That sounds great, but now’s actually not a good time. I’m driving and—”
“Fine, then I’ll make it quick. I decided to extend my stay by a week, because I’m not leaving LA without getting fucked, specifically by you, so call me later, Maxwell, because my pussy’s been waiting,” she said, giving a sexy little “bye-bye” in singsong before hanging up and leaving me to stare ahead at the road for a few awkward seconds.
“So,” I said, solely to break the silence. “Schedule Naomi for Friday then?”
Adam gave a curt laugh. “I’m good.”
“Adam,” I snorted. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend you’re suddenly this pure angel who has no interest in sleeping with other women.”
I looked over at him, but it took several seconds of me looking at him for him to look over at me.
And when he did, there was half a smirk on his face, though he didn’t actually look all that amused.
In fact, his eyebrows were just slightly lifted in the way they were when he thought someone just did something weird.
“Alright,” Adam said slowly, in a tone that made me feel especially weird.
And that was it.
Wait. Seriously?
In the silence that followed, I couldn’t help staring somewhat crankily out the windshield, because I’d said what I’d said, and I had certainly meant it, but couldn’t he acknowledge it? Or say an actual sentence back?
Also, I knew him well enough to know that he was very much capable of delivering the word “alright” in a less shitty voice.
It annoyed me.
And though we talked for the rest of the car ride, it was noticeably strained. And then it got even more strained because Adam knew it was strained, and all he did was laugh to himself about it.
I knew it was irrational, but it put me in a huff.
A very girlfriend-y type huff, which was the exact kind of huff I had no right to be in, given I was not a girlfriend. But here we are.
We had radio playing for the last twenty minutes of the ride before he pulled into Judy’s, the little white shop with the Spanish tile roof and big palm trees out front.
As soon as Adam parked, he was looking at me, watching me as I unbuckled my seatbelt and grabbed my phone off the dash. I could feel him smirking and smiling, but since he wasn’t saying a word of anything, I didn’t look his way before getting out of the car.
It took till he got out of the car before he finally said, “AJ.”
“Yeah?” I rounded the front of the car to find him shutting his door, wearing that boyish grin I didn’t want to be charmed by right now.
“Come on. You usually read me better than this.”
“Better than what?” I asked, but since I didn’t stop walking, Adam snorted.
“Get the fuck over here,” he muttered, jerking me over to him by the back of my shirt and spinning me so fast that my yelp was half-surprised laugh.
And before I knew it, he had me leaned against the side of the car, his strong arm circling my waist and his hand pushing the windblown hair from my face. He took a few seconds to just look at me before he said, “If it isn’t clients or family these days, AJ, you’re all I think about.”
My breath hitched in my throat. All I did was stare back at him, and though I might’ve looked outwardly blank, bells were sounding off in my head, like I’d just won some big prize I didn’t even know I was waiting for.
“If we’re being honest, I spend half my day trying to get you out of my head and the other half just letting you fucking own every inch of my brain space, so have I been thinking about sleeping with other women?
” Adam paused and laughed. “I can barely think about getting up in the morning instead of jacking off a second time to the thought of you.”
Oh.
Well then.
Stunned, chewing my lip back, I only nodded. But it was probably clear that I was trying to suppress a giant smile, because Adam suddenly looked smug.
“What?” I snapped.
“Nothing,” Adam smirked. “I just love how pissed off you get when you’re wrong.”
With that, I finally broke into a smile, prompting Adam’s satisfied grin as he touched his thumb to my dimple.
“There we go,” he murmured before nodding at the shop. “Now let’s go get this stupid fuckin’ shake.”