by Abby Jimenez
When I didn’t reply, she changed the subject. “How was she? When you saw her. Was Annabel okay?”
I crossed my arms. “Disoriented. A little scared maybe. But she’ll be fine.”
She shook her head. “Will she? What if this wasn’t the wake-up call we’re hoping it is? What if being shot isn’t actually her rock bottom?”
“There’s nothing you can do to get her there. Just take care of Grace and focus on you.”
She bit her lip and paused for a long moment. “I saw the adoption attorney yesterday morning.”
I smiled. “Oh yeah? What did she say?”
She looked away from me. “She said if I can get Annabel to sign over her rights, I could have Grace placed with a family in the next few months.”
This news hit me like a slug to the chest.
“What?” I breathed. “I thought you were adopting her.”
She shook her head and turned back to me. “Adrian, I might not be around in a year.” Her chin quivered again. “I can’t be her mommy.” She choked on the last word.
I looked down at Grace and felt an ache in my heart that I had no right feeling.
When my eyes came back to Vanessa’s, they were anguished. “Adrian, I have to give her the best chance at stability. I hope Annabel gets clean. I hope she stays clean. But if she can’t…my life isn’t conducive to motherhood. Especially single motherhood. I have to do what’s best for her.”
I never thought about what being a parent might mean for Vanessa’s career. She’d have to get back to the road eventually. I knew what she was doing wasn’t sustainable, and it wasn’t realistic to drag an infant all over the globe while Vanessa made videos. It was hard enough taking the baby to the store. I couldn’t imagine putting Grace on international flights and trying to keep her on a routine while Vanessa traveled. But give her up?
I dragged a hand down my mouth.
What could I even say? I wasn’t a member of the family. I wasn’t Grace’s dad. I wasn’t even Vanessa’s boyfriend. I was just the neighbor—some guy she’d met a few weeks ago who babysat sometimes. This was none of my business.
So why did it feel like something was being taken from me without my permission?
She wiped at the tears on her face and I saw the switch coming. The effort to redirect and think or do something that didn’t make her sad.
Looking away from the sun.
“Hey,” she said. “What do you think of a sleepover?”
I drew my brows down. “What?”
“Here. Tonight. My sofa has a pullout bed. It could be fun. We could stay up late watching The Office and do mud masks.”
I almost had to laugh at the irony.
I shook my head. “I wish I could. But that really wouldn’t be appropriate.”
Her face fell. “Oh. Right.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I get it.”
We stood there a moment, a weird heaviness between us. It lingered like steam from a shower.
I didn’t want to go home. But being in her apartment with the lights dimmed and her barefoot and braless and asking me to stay the night was dangerous ground.
I was keenly aware of the potential to get hurt here. I knew I was falling for a woman who didn’t want to be pursued. And continuing to put myself in intimate situations that made me wish she did wasn’t good for me. But at the same time, I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to miss anything. She made me never want to close my eyes around her. I didn’t even want to blink. I realized it at my office and on that ladder yesterday, her perfume dancing around me like lightning bugs flickering in the summer. I realized it laughing with her after her robe malfunction and sitting there next to her at her dad’s where I could feel her there like a raging bonfire, she was so warm.
She looked up at me with those big, vulnerable brown eyes and I thought again about kissing her. A part of me wanted to say fuck it and just do it, take the risk, break the rules, forget about the consequences, the possibility of losing her, and just lean in.
I let my gaze fall to her mouth. Her lips looked soft and warm. I could imagine running my hands up her shirt, around her waist, pulling her into me. I wanted to put my nose into her neck, rake fingers in her hair, taste her mouth. I wanted her to touch me.
I stared for only a second before looking anywhere but at her.
She had no idea the power she had over me—and I don’t think even I realized it until tonight. It was almost comical, Gerald declaring they had a lawyer in the family—because they did. I’d do anything she needed. She’d wrapped me around her little finger without even trying.
I’d had clients go to prison for doing something stupid at the behest of some woman and I always shook my head at their gullibility. But now I understood it. I had a feeling Vanessa could call me and ask me to help her move a body and I’d show up five minutes later with rubber gloves and bleach.
I cleared my throat. “I should go.”
I grabbed my jacket and let myself out before I said, or worse, did, something stupid.
At midnight I lay in my own bed, a foot away from where she was probably lying in hers. It was officially her birthday. I sent her a text I’d had ready all day. A picture of a salted caramel Nadia Cakes torte that I’d gotten her with a candle in it and a text that read “Hey girl, you up?”
I heard her laugh through the wall.
She texted me, “Fuck yeah, I’m up. Come over.”
I sat up and stared at the plaster and brick between us. I wanted to come over. I wanted her to really want me to. And not for a sleepover either.
I replied with a laughing emoji. Then I rolled over and spent the next hour tossing and turning, missing her, trying to fall asleep in the wrong bed.
CHAPTER 16
I SHOWED UP TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY AND YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHO WAS THERE!
VANESSA
I spent the morning of my birthday with Dad and Brent. Another Nar-Anon meeting and then out to eat. A meeting wasn’t really my idea of a good time, but I wasn’t above using my birthday as leverage to make them go. Adrian watched Grace.
He’d wanted to come out with us.
First he offered to make me breakfast. Then when I told him where I was going, he asked me if I wanted him to take me. I said no. There was only so much bullshit I could in good conscience allow him to endure. Dad twice in less than twelve hours, a Nar-Anon meeting, and Perkins would probably be the end of this friendship.
I’d gotten back around 11:00 a.m., but Adrian told me he’d keep Grace so I could have a few hours of alone time. He always watched Grace for me while I showered, but I never drew it out. I didn’t want to take advantage. A few hours of alone time was probably the best birthday gift I’d ever gotten. I was so freaking excited. I was going to take the world’s longest bubble bath.
On top of this, I’d come home to flowers in my apartment. He’d cleaned too. There were vacuum lines on the carpet. He’d made my bed and done all the dishes. He’d even cleaned the bathroom.
I can’t tell you the strength it took to keep me from running back to his apartment and tearing off his clothes.
Last night I’d asked him to stay over—I wasn’t planning anything scandalous, but if he’d initiated something scandalous, I wasn’t gonna say no. Instead he’d politely declined before fleeing back to his place as quickly as humanly possible. Then he’d texted me at midnight with a picture of a cake and I’d told him to come over. I wasn’t kidding.
He’d sent me a laughing emoji.
It was fucking depressing. I was falling in love with a man who was totally uninterested, because of course I was.
I took my bath and a long nap. Then I got ready and met Adrian at his apartment at 6:00. He’d enlisted Becky to watch Harry Puppins and Grace over at his place while he took me out for my birthday tonight. He assured me Becky was perfectly capable and had plenty of babysitting experience. I think she would have assured me too, but she still couldn’t speak around me.
Adria
n drove us to Summit Avenue, an upscale neighborhood in St. Paul. The street was peppered with historic mansions, the residences of the railroad magnates and lumber barons of the 1800s. We pulled up to an enormous house, built in 1881 according to the historic landmark plaque on the front.
“Where are we?” I asked, peering up through the windshield as he pulled the car into the driveway.
He was grinning. “I’m not going to ruin it.”
The door was open, and Adrian let himself in. Unfamiliar voices drifted into the foyer from an adjoining room. The house smelled like something incredible was cooking.
Adrian set my birthday cake down on the credenza and helped me out of my jacket and hung it up. “Hello,” he called, shrugging out of his own coat. “We’re here.”
The first person to clear the corner was the last person I’d expected. It was Malcolm. And he was filming.
“Happy birthday, Vanessa!” he said from behind his lens.
I laughed. “Oh my God. What is going on?”
“I hope you don’t mind that I called him,” Adrian said. “I know you’re having trouble getting content for your channel, and I figured tonight might be video worthy. I got permission from everyone here. You don’t have to use the footage unless you want to. It’s up to you.”
A second later I understood why he thought I might want it.
A woman came around the corner to greet us.
It was Sloan Monroe.
I actually shrieked.
“Hi!” She gave me a warm hug. “Happy birthday! It’s so nice to meet you.”
She turned to my companion. “Adrian, it’s good to see you again.”
He kissed her on the cheek.
I’d seen the pictures of her. The magazine covers and the black-and-white photo on the front of Sloan In-Between, the album her husband had dedicated to her. But Sloan was even prettier in person. She had long blond hair and an arm of colorful tattoos. She’d used some sort of shimmery eye shadow that made her brown eyes pop. I didn’t get a chance to ask her what it was because the rest of the guests were funneling out behind her. Adrian’s cousin Josh, his wife, Kristen, and Sloan’s husband, Jason, aka famous Grammy Award–winning musician Jaxon Waters.
I was breathing into my hands. “I can’t believe you did this,” I whispered.
Adrian smiled at me. “Sloan’s making you dinner. Her osso buco recipe from her cookbook. They all came down from Ely just for you. I got the house for the night. A client owes me a favor.”
I looked up at him, and tears filled my eyes.
This might be my last birthday. In fact, if family history was any indication, it probably was.
And he’d gone and made it the best one of my life.
* * *
Three hours later we’d had dinner and cake and I was sitting in the living room in front of an enormous crackling wood-burning fireplace with Kristen and Sloan. The guys were standing over by the bar talking. I’d sent Malcolm home after they sang happy birthday to me. I appreciated that Adrian had thought to have him here, but I wouldn’t be sharing the video.
Adrian had told me once after I had to take a picture with someone at Trader Joe’s a few days ago that he didn’t know how I dealt with all the lack of anonymity. I dealt with it because it’s what made my fight against ALS possible. But Adrian had no such skin in the game.
My following was no small thing. If I shared that video, he would be instantly famous. He’d never be anonymous again. It was one thing for me to talk about a man named Jesus’s Abs, but it was something else entirely to put a face on him. He’d be recognized in public, viewers would hunt him down online, they might even show up at his work. Everyone else here was probably used to that. Sloan and Jason for sure, and Josh and Kristen by association. But Adrian still had his privacy. When I explained this to him, he said he was still fine with me sharing the video—but I could tell he’d rather I not. So it was a not. But I loved that Malcolm had gotten the footage. That way I could always remember this day.
I loved Adrian’s friends. I loved that they came here simply because he asked them to. I loved that they were all so grounded and nice and went completely out of their way to make today special for me. It sort of made me jealous that they were so normal and he had to deal with the shit show that was my posse.
I was slightly drunk. Jason had been making martinis.
Sloan ate the olive out of her drink. “God, it’s been so long since I had one of these. I’m still nursing.”
“A boy or a girl?” I asked.
She smiled. “Girl. Emma. She’s a year now.”
I looked at Kristen. “And you guys have, like, what? Four?”
“Yup. Oliver is five. Kimmie and Sarah are ten and twelve, and the baby’s one.”
I tucked a leg under me. “Wow, who’s watching all of them?”
Kristen snorted. “Jason’s mom. The woman’s a saint.” She put her drink on the coffee table and leaned in. “Okay, you have to tell me. How’s the penis? Is it big?”
Sloan groaned and sat back in her chair. “Oh God, the penis thing again.”
I looked back and forth between them. “What? What’s the penis thing?”
Sloan shook her head at her best friend. “They’re just friends. She hasn’t seen it. Leave her alone.”
I put up a hand. “Uh, no, wait, I’m here for this. What’s the penis thing?”
“She’s here for it, Sloan. Stay out of it.” Kristen smiled, sitting on the edge of the sofa.
Sloan rolled her eyes at her.
“Josh has this enormous penis and I have a theory it’s hereditary,” Kristen said.
My eyes darted to Adrian across the room. “Really?” I whispered.
Kristen nodded. “Yup.” Then she made a space between her hands to show me, and Sloan started choking on her drink.
Sloan shook her head at her best friend, coughing. “This is so not appropriate.”
Kristen blinked at her. “This is important research, Sloan.”
I nodded quickly. “I agree, further study is needed.”
Kristen laughed, and Sloan looked slightly horrified. I got the feeling flustering Sloan was one of Kristen’s hobbies. She seemed very good at it.
I sat back against the sofa. “I would love to explore the possibility of Adrian’s magic peen. But unfortunately he’s not into me.”
Kristen and Sloan shared a look.
I glanced back and forth between them. “What?”
Kristen leveled her eyes on me. “I don’t know what he tells you, but that dude’s whipped.”
Sloan was giving me a slow, wide-eyed nod.
I scrunched my forehead. “What? No.”
Kristen looked up over me. “He’s literally staring at the back of your head right now. He’s been staring at you all night.”
I looked sideways, but I didn’t turn around. “Is it like he’s watching a tennis match?” I whispered. “Like, his head goes this way and that way watching me walk around?”
Sloan nodded. “It’s exactly like he’s watching a tennis match. That’s really accurate, actually.”
“He talked about you for thirty minutes straight on the phone with Josh when he called to ask us to come,” Kristen said. “Josh hung up and was all ‘Daaaaamn, I’ve never seen him like that.’”
My heart fluttered a little. And then it remembered it had no reason to.
I let out a sigh. “I really don’t think he’s interested.”
Sloan drew her eyebrows together. “Why?”
Impending death?
“My lifestyle isn’t conducive to relationships,” I said instead.
Kristen nodded. “Oh yeah, the fame thing. That shit sucks. You try dating and you end up with some dude who’s obsessed with your dryer lint.”
Sloan nodded. “It was hard for Jason too. He didn’t even tell me who he was until two weeks after we met. It’s not easy.”
“Yeah, it’s not really that,” I said. “Just some stuff I’d rather not
talk about.”
Sloan smiled gently in a way that told me she followed my channel. “Well, just remember, the universe doesn’t give you more than you can handle.”
Kristen scoffed. “Yeah it does. It does all the time. The universe doesn’t give a shit, it’s a total asshole.”
CHAPTER 17
WILL YOUR CRUSH
EVER NOTICE YOU?
TAKE THIS QUIZ!
ADRIAN
I watched the women huddled together in the living room. “What do you think they’re talking about?”
Jason took a swallow of his drink. “Well, looks like Kristen has activated my wife’s nervous eye twitch, so I’m going to say it’s something inappropriate.”
Kristen threw her hands up. “It’s science, Sloan!”
Vanessa laughed and peered over at me, her pretty eyes twinkling.
I grinned at her. “What are you ladies doing?” I called.
Vanessa twisted to smile at me over the back of the couch. “Summoning the devil to Eastwick. Don’t come over here.”
Josh chuckled and handed me an old-fashioned.
“Just one,” I said, taking it. “I’m driving.”
“I’m glad you called,” Josh said. “We should get together more often. Come up to Ely and see the new house.” He nodded at the girls. “Bring Vanessa.”
I looked over at her and smiled. I’d like to bring her. I’d like to bring Vanessa anywhere. She made me proud to know her. She was exactly what her YouTube channel said she was—a social butterfly. A woman you could put in any situation and she’d charm the pants off whoever she was with.
Vanessa was effervescent. I’d never met a person that I could describe that way, but it was true. She glowed. Energy came off her and illuminated everything and everyone around her.
It wasn’t until I noticed that Jason was talking to the side of my face that I realized I was staring at her. “I’m sorry, what?” I asked, looking back at him.
