Chapter 24 Daisy
DAISY
Earlier that week Nell and I had seen Kendra across from the shop again, pretending to study a bus timetable after three buses had passed.
We saved the camera clip and added it to the record of unwanted contact.
I told Adam. Neither of us could make her choices for her, but we could stop dismissing the pattern.
The thing about Adam asking questions is that he never asks just one.
"What about caffeine?" He's sitting on my apartment floor, back against the couch, a stack of library books fanned around him like he's preparing for the world's most adorable exam.
"The internet says two hundred milligrams maximum, but this book says one-fifty, and I need to know which authority we're trusting because I counted three coffee shops between here and my office and I need to know if I should physically block the doors. "
I'm curled in the armchair with a mug of herbal tea, peppermint, which he brought in a variety pack yesterday because he "wanted options", and I can't stop the laugh that bubbles up. "You're going to block coffee shop doors."
"I'm going to do whatever it takes."
"Adam, I've already cut back to one cup in the morning."
"Then I have questions about cup sizes." He flips a page, frowning. "And serving sizes, and why nobody agrees on what a cup means, and—"
"Please stop."
"I can't stop. There's too much information." He looks up at me with those dark brown eyes, and he looks so earnest that my chest aches. "I have a list for the doctor. It has subheadings."
"Adam."
"What?"
"It's been a week." I set down my tea, trying to keep my voice gentle. "You've read four books."
"Five. I finished the Bradley one at two AM." He rubs the back of his neck, sheepish. "I may have also ordered three more from the store downstairs. Nell gave me a look."
"What kind of look?"
"The kind that said she's going to charge me full price because I deserve it."
That makes me smile. Nell's been surprisingly accepting of Adam's constant presence in her shop, though "accepting" might be generous. "Tolerating while extracting maximum profit" is probably more accurate.
"Come here," I say, patting the arm of my chair.
He doesn't move. "I have more questions."
"You can ask them from closer."
"If I come closer, I'll get distracted by how pretty you are, and then I won't ask about prenatal vitamins, and then I'll forget the questions I wrote down for the doctor."
"The vitamins are fine," I tell him softly. "My stomach's been okay."
"You threw up yesterday."
"Because Nell microwaved fish."
"Nell microwaved fish near my pregnant wife?" His voice goes genuinely offended. "I'm going to have a conversation with her about workplace safety."
"It's her store."
"It's your nose. Your nose wins."
I dissolve into laughter then, real laughter that shakes through me and makes my eyes water. Adam watches with that soft, wondering expression he's been wearing all week, like he can't quite believe this is real.
"What?" I manage, wiping my eyes.
"Nothing." He sets down the book he's holding and crawls across the floor toward me, sitting at my feet like a very large, very earnest dog. "I just love hearing you laugh."
The words land differently now. Everything lands differently now.
"I need to tell you something," he says, and his voice has gone serious in a way that makes my stomach clench. "I've been wanting to say it all week and I keep chickening out."
"Okay."
"I'm sorry." He reaches for my hand, threading his fingers through mine.
"For the questions. For the books. For the way I've been hovering like a helicopter parent before there's even anything to parent.
I know it's probably overwhelming and I know I should give you space and I'm just—" He stops, swallows.
"I'm so scared of missing things again. I missed so much.
I was so stupid and so blind and I let you go through everything alone and now we have this chance, this insane beautiful chance, and I don't want to mess it up by being absent but I also don't want to mess it up by being suffocating. "
"Adam."
"I don't know how to do this right." His voice cracks. "I don't know how to be the husband you needed and the father this baby deserves and I'm terrified that I'm going to fail at both because I failed so spectacularly at the first one and—"
"Adam." I slide off the chair, joining him on the floor. His eyes are bright with what might be tears, and I cup his face in my hands. "Breathe."
"I'm breathing."
"You're spiraling."
"Same thing."
"It's really not." I stroke my thumbs across his cheekbones, feeling the slight stubble there. "You know what I see when I look at all those books?"
"A man with questionable Amazon spending habits?"
"A man who cares." I lean my forehead against his. "A man who's trying. That's all I ever wanted. Presence and effort, no performance required. Just you, showing up."
"I should have shown up five years ago."
"Yes." I won't lie about that. "You should have."
"I know." His hands come up to cover mine, holding them against his face. "I know, and I'm so sorry, and I'll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you if you'll let me."
"I'm letting you." The words feel enormous. "That's what this is. That's what I'm doing."
He pulls back to look at me, really look, and whatever he sees makes his expression shift. "Okay," he says softly. "Okay."
We stay there for a long moment, foreheads pressed together, breathing each other's air. Then his stomach growls so loudly that we both jump.
"Was that you or the baby?" I ask.
"Definitely me. The baby is tiny. That noise was definitely me."
"Maybe ours is already taking after you."
His whole face lights up. "You said 'ours.'"
"That's generally how reproduction works."
"Say it again."
"Adam."
"Please."
I roll my eyes, but I'm smiling. "Our baby."
He makes a sound that's somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and then he's kissing me, soft and sweet and tasting like his morning coffee.
"Get dressed," he says when he pulls back. "We're going out."
"Where?"
"County fair. It opened yesterday." His grin is boyish and bright. "I want to win you a stuffed animal."
The fair is chaos in the best way: the smell of funnel cake and corn dogs, the shriek of children on rides, the plink-plink-plink of carnival games designed to extract maximum money for minimum prizes. Adam is terrible at all of them.
"This is rigged," he announces, glaring at the ring toss booth where his six consecutive throws have landed exactly nowhere near the bottles.
"The physics don't work. The rings are slightly too small to fit over the necks, which means you need an exact angle of entry that's statistically impossible to achieve without—"
"Sir, do you want to buy more rings or not?" The bored teenager running the booth is examining her nails.
"Yes. Give me twelve."
"Adam." I tug on his arm. "You've already spent forty dollars."
"And I'm going to spend forty more until I win you that ridiculous giant panda."
"I don't need a giant panda."
"You deserve a giant panda." He hands over another bill with the intensity of a man going into battle. "You deserve all the pandas."
I watch him miss another six throws, his brow furrowed in concentration, and warmth unfurls in my chest. He's so serious about it. So determined. Like winning me a carnival prize is the most important task he's ever undertaken.
"You know," I say casually, "the trick isn't the angle."
"Everything is angles."
"The trick is the spin." I pick up one of his remaining rings, demonstrating. "You want to add a backspin so it slows down when it hits the bottle. Like a basketball off a backboard."
His eyes narrow. "Where did you learn that?"
"My dad used to take me to these things." The memory surfaces easily, Dad's callused hands adjusting my grip, his laugh when I finally landed one. "He was really good at the basketball free-throw one. Won my mom a giant teddy bear on their third date."
Adam goes still, the way he always does when I mention my parents. Like he's holding his breath, not wanting to spook the story away.
"Show me," he says softly.
So I do. I demonstrate the flick of the wrist, the release, the follow-through. And when the ring lands perfectly over a bottle neck, the teenager's eyes go wide.
"Holy crap," she says. "That actually worked."
Adam stares at me like I've performed actual magic. "You could have done that the whole time?"
"You were having fun."
"I was hemorrhaging money."
"You were being cute." I pluck the small stuffed dog from the prize wall, nowhere near the giant panda, but it has floppy ears and a slightly crooked smile. "I like this one better anyway."
"I want a regulatory body to investigate these games," Adam mutters, but he's smiling. "I want a congressional inquiry into carnival physics."
"I want a funnel cake."
"Done."
We find a picnic table near the edge of the fairgrounds, away from the worst of the crowd, and Adam returns with two funnel cakes and a lemonade to share. The air is crisp, carrying the scent of fallen leaves and sugar.
"You've got powdered sugar on your nose," Adam says.
"I'm aware."
"It's cute."
"I'm aware of that too."
He laughs, reaching across to brush it off with his thumb. His touch lingers on my cheek, gentle and warm, and I lean into it without thinking.
"Come on," he says when we've demolished the funnel cakes. "Corn maze."
"I thought you wanted to win me a panda."
"I've accepted my limitations." He stands, offering me his hand. "But I can definitely navigate agricultural vegetation."
The corn maze is quieter than I expected, the last timed group has already moved toward the exit, leaving the tall stalks rustling in the evening breeze. Adam holds my hand as we wind through the paths, taking wrong turns with theatrical cursing and doubling back with exaggerated sighs.
"We're lost," he announces after the third dead end. "Hopelessly, completely lost. We'll die here. They'll find our bones in the spring."
"It's a corn maze, not the Amazon."
"Same energy."