by Cassia Leo
Chapter Ten
Claire
THE DRIVE TO RALEIGH IS nerve wracking. Four weeks ago, I would have pulled over to the side of the road and meditated for a while to calm my nerves, but I’m trying to limit the meditation to once in the morning and once at night. I’m not a fucking monk. I need to get a grip on my life without having to check out every few minutes at the first sign of emotional turmoil. It’s not as if I think meditation is unhealthy, but it was most certainly unhealthy the way I used it to block out the world. If Adam can quit smoking pot cold turkey, I can limit my meditation fix to twice a day. I have to learn to be present, to feel the emotions instead of stuffing them down beneath a veneer of false serenity.
I pull into a parking space on Wilmington Street about a block away from the Busy Bee Cafe where Adam and I are meeting Yuri and his girlfriend. When I step out of my car—Senia’s old Ford Focus that she gave me the day I moved into the dorm—Adam is walking along the sidewalk toward me. Just watching him, the way he walks with that easy confidence that comes so natural to him, I know that the next two months are going to be hell.
We walk along the sidewalk together in silence, but I can’t help but smile as the girls who pass us in the opposite direction ogle him. From the corner of my eye, I can see him look at me then he gives my hand a gentle squeeze.
“What are you smiling about? Are you happy to be getting rid of me?”
“Just happy to have you.”
He kisses my temple as he reaches for the door at the Busy Bee. I step inside and I’m treated to the most amazing smells, like garlic fries and tacos. I instantly start salivating as the hostess asks how many are in our party.
“We’re looking for our friends,” Adam says and the hostess smiles at him. “A little guy that looks like a darker, sexier version of Keanu Reeves.”
If the girl weren’t wearing a pound of blush, I’m sure I could see her cheeks flush red. Adam doesn’t understand the effect he has on girls. It’s both adorable and infuriating.
“I think they’re in the back.” She pulls a couple of menus from the rack and nods toward the dining area. “I’ll take you there.”
She leads us to a table in the back of the dining room and Yuri’s eyes open wide with excitement at the sight of us. He and Adam engage in a quick, slap-on-the-back guy-hug then Yuri moves in to hug me. I’m surprised by this gesture and I end up giving him an awkward pat on the arm when he releases me.
“Claire, I’ve heard so much about you,” Yuri proclaims excitedly. “This is Lena, the servant of my loins.” Lena punches him in the arm and he laughs. “I mean, the goddess of my universe.”
Lena looks like a female version of Yuri. They have the same golden tanned skin that seems to glisten even in the dim restaurant lighting. They also have the same dark, almond-shaped eyes that glimmer with mischief.
Lena holds out her hand to me as I take a seat. “Nice to meet you, Claire. Don’t pay attention to him. He’s compensating, if you know what I mean.”
I try not to laugh as I shake her hand, but the what-the-fuck look on Yuri’s face kills me. The hostess rolls her eyes as she leaves our menus on the table in front of Adam and mutters something about our server then quickly leaves.
“We’ve been here five seconds and you’ve already offended the hostess. You two should be ashamed of yourselves,” Adam says as he passes me a menu. “What are you all drinking?”
Lena holds up her frosty glass. “We’re both drinking the cream ale. It’s fucking delicious.”
“Not as delicious as my homemade cream ale,” Yuri mutters before he takes a few huge gulps from his glass.
“Dude, can you show a little respect for Adam’s guest?” Lena snipes at him before she turns to me. “So what are you studying at UNC?”
“Sociology. I’m a year behind so I’m doubling up on my units this year to try to catch up.”
“Double units? What are you doing here with these losers?” Lena says with a playful smile.
“Speaking of losers,” Adam interjects. “Did you bring the trophy?”
“It’s in my trunk with all the rest of my junk,” Yuri replies.
The waitress takes our drink orders and we both get an iced tea. I don’t say anything, but I’m glad Adam isn’t drinking today. He orders some tacos and I order a bacon cheeseburger, which puts a smile on Yuri’s face.
“I like a girl who isn’t afraid to eat a juicy burger.”
“Don’t talk to my girl that way,” Adam says, and I can’t tell if he’s kidding, but Yuri’s raised eyebrows tell me he probably isn’t.
I’ve only hung out with two of Adam’s friends before and I admit I was a bit inebriated from the champagne cocktails on my twenty-first birthday. I don’t remember him making any possessive comments that night, but I’ve always known about his temper. And he did admit to me that the reason he was on probation and forced to attend anger management classes was because he beat the shit out of the guy he caught his ex-girlfriend cheating on him with six months ago.
I brush off the comment and we make it through the rest of the meal without further incidents, until Adam asks what happened with the job interview I went on Thursday afternoon.
“They called me back yesterday,” I say as I push my plate away and reach for my glass of water. I take a nice, long drink as I attempt to stall.
I can feel Adam’s gaze on the side of my head, but I really don’t want to tell him what happened when the manager at EspressOasis, the café in the campus food court, called me yesterday.
“What happened?” he persists.
I drain the last few drops of water from the glass before I answer. “They can’t work with my schedule.”
“What about weekends?”
“I told them I couldn’t work weekends.”
“Because of me?”
“It doesn’t matter. I can find something else that will allow me to work weekends now that I know you’re going to be gone.”
“Why don’t you just call them back and tell them you can work weekends now?”
“Because they already gave the weekend position to someone else.”
The silence at the table and the way Adam is looking at me with those green eyes full of regret makes me nervous. Thankfully, he doesn’t say anything else about the job—until he walks me to my car.
We walk side by side as we stroll down Wilmington Street holding hands. He pulls my hand up and lays a soft kiss on my knuckles. I smile and let out a sigh. This is it.
We reach my car and he grabs my purse out of my hand to lay it on top of the car. Then he traps me against the car with one hand on either side of my head as I lean back against the driver’s side window.
His gaze penetrates me, burns through me as he searches my eyes for something. “Do you need money?”
“What? No, I don’t need money.”
Shit. He can smell the poor on me. The truth is I’m probably going to have to cancel my cell phone service if I don’t find a weekend job soon.
“Don’t lie to me, Claire. If you need help I want to be the one to do it.”
That’s what this is about. He doesn’t want me to have to accept help from Chris.
“Adam, I’ll be fine.” I grab the front of his shirt and pull him toward me so our lips are almost touching. “But I promise if I find myself in a bind that you will be the first person I call. You are my hero, after all.”
I kiss him hard, partially to distract him from the conversation, but mostly to imprint the sensation of my lips in his memory. I’m not stupid. I know Adam will have girls—hot girls in bikinis—chasing after him in Hawaii. Yes, it scares the shit out of me. Possibly more than Chris scares him. Just the thought of Adam with another girl makes me want to wrap my arms and legs around him and never let go, or drop everything and go with him.
I don’t want to stop kissing him, but he starts to chuckle so I finally loosen my grip on his shirt and he breaks the kiss.
“I’m not going to war. I’m going to Hawaii.”
“That’s not funny. I’m really scared.”
“Why? You don’t think I’m going to cheat on you, do you?”
“No, but it’s not you I’m worried about.” I stare at the wrinkles in the front of his T-shirt where my fingers were just clenched tightly, grasping for my lifeline. “Adam, I don’t think I’ve made it clear enough. I was drowning when I met you. I was barely breathing until you saved me. I’m afraid of what will happen to me without you here.”
The muscles in his jaw twitch as he clenches his teeth to hold back whatever emotion he’s feeling. I don’t want him to hold back. This is our last day together. I want to see everything he’s feeling.
“Talk to me,” I beg.
He blinks his eyes a few times before he wraps his arms around my shoulders. He kisses the top of my head as he squeezes me tightly. I bury my face in his chest and he finally speaks.
“I will never let anything happen to you as long as you’re mine. You know that, don’t you?”
I nod as I close my eyes and breathe in his scent and his warmth. “I know.”
“But I want you to know that if you ever feel like you need me to come back, for any reason, that I’ll hop on the next plane. I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you never drown again.” He grabs my face and forces me to look him in the eye. “You put some kind of love spell on me with your wicked dance moves and now I need you like Paula Deen needs butter, or insulin, or whatever.” I laugh and he kisses the tip of my nose. “I’m going to miss the fuck out of you, but I promise this is going to be worth it. Do you believe me?”
I grab his hands to pull them away from my face and he looks disappointed. “I believe you, but I’m still scared.”
He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet. He slips a wad of cash out and attempts to hand it to me.
“I don’t want that.”
“I know you don’t want it, but you need it.”
He tries to force the money into my hand. I wrench my hand away then stuff both my hands behind my back.
“I’m not taking it.”
“Please take it, Claire. It would make me feel better if I knew I didn’t have to worry about you, at least not for another few weeks while you look for a job. I’ll send you more later.”
“I’m dead serious. I don’t want your money.”
“Why? You can take a fucking car from Senia, but you can’t take a few hundred bucks from me?”
“It’s not the same.”
“Why? Because it’s me? Would you take it if it were Chris?”
“Please don’t start with that.”
Adam has only made one other negative comment about Chris, three weeks ago when we got in a fight over the fact that Chris texted me while Adam and I were hanging out in my dorm—well, we were doing a little more than hanging out. That’s why I erased all of Chris’s texts from my phone when Senia told me what happened between her and Eddie. Adam and I have been straddling the line between crazy in love and Crazy Town ever since everything blew up at Chris’s concert five weeks ago. I’m not surprised that the stress of this impending separation has brought on another Chris accusation, but I’m also not in the mood for it.
He shakes his head as he takes a step back and my heart stops as a van swerves to avoid hitting him.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
He steps forward again and glares down at me. “All right. I’m just going to come right out and say this because I need to say it before I leave.”
I hold my breath as I wait for whatever he’s about to get off his chest.
“I don’t like that you’re spending so much time with him. I don’t trust him.”
I can’t believe he’s doing this now. Actually, I can’t believe he’s doing this at all. He knows the only reason I’ve seen Chris three times in the last five weeks is for the purpose of the open adoption. Is he actually trying to make me feel guilty for that?
“Are you saying you don’t want me to see Chris anymore, ever?”
“No,” he insists, but the millisecond flash of hope I see in his eyes at this suggestion tells me that’s exactly what he wants. “I know you have to see him for the adoption stuff, but him showing up at your dorm to drop off pictures or outside your class to pick you up…. Why can’t you just drive your own car there? I just don’t fucking get it.”
I lean back against the car and gaze at the reflection of the blue sky on the side of the Raleigh Times high-rise building across the street. “I didn’t know you felt this way.”
“How could you not know?”
The incredulous look on his face makes me furious. “Because I don’t read minds.”
“Jesus Christ, Claire, I know you’ve only been in one relationship, but this is fucking common sense.”
“Are you saying I lack common sense?”
“Don’t do that. You know what I mean.” He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Let’s not do this today. I’m sorry I brought it up.”
He searches my face for a sign of agreement, but I’m fuming inside. I don’t even want to look at him.
“I shouldn’t have come here. Everything was fine before we left the dorm.”
He grabs the sides of my waist as his legs straddle mine and I can tell he’s getting ready to kiss me.
“Stop.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
He lets go of my waist and steps sideways so he’s no longer straddling my legs. “Whatever you say, Claire.” He pauses for a moment and I know this argument has gone too far. “Maybe we should just take a break.”
I let out a soft chuckle. “I can’t believe you.”
“You can’t believe me? You can’t even look at me.”
I turn and look him straight in the eye. “I don’t want to take a break, but I also don’t want to feel like I can’t hang out with one of my best friends because you’re afraid of something that’s never going to happen. Chris and I are over. I thought I made that perfectly clear.”
A blue hatchback pulls up next to us and Lena is in the passenger seat. She’s smiling until she sees the serious expressions on our faces. Yuri leans over her and shoves the trophy through the open passenger-side window.
“Dude, we got tired of waiting for you in the car,” he says as Adam grabs the trophy.
Adam sticks his hand through the window to do a little secret handshake with Yuri.
“Thanks, man. I’ll see you on Koki Beach.”
“I’ll be there, bro,” Yuri says before he takes off down Wilmington.
Koki Beach. They had this all planned out, but I just found out about it this morning.
“All right,” he begins. “You do what you have to do and I’ll do the same. I know you would never do anything to hurt me, intentionally. And I hope you know I won’t do anything to hurt you, even unintentionally. You have my word on that.”
I’m so annoyed that I can’t even be more annoyed by that intentionally remark. “You already hurt me by keeping this from me until this morning, even if it was unintentional. You’re no angel, Adam, so please stop making me out to be the devil in this relationship.”
He sets the trophy on the pavement at his feet and it’s so tall it almost reaches his hip. Third place in his first competition. This is not the first time he’s going to leave me.
“You’re right,” he replies. “I apologize. I never should have said that. And I can’t keep you from having a relationship with Chris. Whatever works for you two works for me, as long as it doesn’t infringe upon my boyfriend duties, if you know what I mean.”
I smile reluctantly and he seizes the opportunity to grab my hand and plant a soft kiss on my palm. I step forward and throw my arms around his neck. He lifts me up and pins me against the car as I wrap my legs around his waist.
We hug like this for a few minutes in silence as I try unsuccessfully to fight the tears.
“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” he whispers in my ear. “I�
��ll break all the rules to keep you.”
He leans his forehead against mine and my mouth stretches into the biggest, uncontrollable grin I’ve worn in a long time.
“I love that smile,” he murmurs as he leans in to kiss me.
Our lips haven’t touched yet when a car pulls up so close behind Adam that my heart stutters in my chest.
“Claire Nixon,” a voice calls out as Adam turns around to see who it is.
I see the black Porsche and I’m about ready to kill Chris, until I see Tristan sitting in the driver’s seat. Chris is on the passenger side calling my name.
“What the fuck!” Adam and I both shout at the same time.
“You almost hit him!” I shriek.
Tristan laughs, but Chris at least attempts to hold in his laughter. Before I can even process what’s happening, Adam is wrenching open the passenger side door and Chris’s eyes are locked on him as he steps out of the car and pushes Adam back.
Adam is only a couple of inches taller than Chris at six-foot-two-inches, but he’s solid as stone from years of surfing and training. I’m actually afraid for both Chris and Adam right now. Adam is still on probation for another six months. If he gets cited for anything, even something as minor as being a public nuisance, he’ll probably go straight to jail.
Adam lunges forward and swings at Chris’s face. The sound of his fist connecting with Chris’s jaw makes my stomach lurch. Chris falls backward toward the seat just as Tristan scrambles around the back of the Porsche and rushes Adam.
“Stop it!” I shout as Tristan and Adam roll around on the asphalt, fists and curse words flying in all directions.
Chris stands up from the passenger seat, rubbing his jaw, and I push him back before he can join in. “Get your fucking friend off of him!” I shriek.
He glares at me. “You should keep your boyfriend on a fucking leash!”
I step toward them to attempt to break it up, but Chris grabs my arm and pulls me back. He struggles for a few seconds to get a grip on Tristan’s arms, but he finally yanks him off and I immediately grab Adam as he gets to his feet.
“Get out of here before the cops come!” I whisper-shout at him. “Hurry up!”
