Bittersweet

by Noelle Adams

  She let out a long breath. “Yeah. I don’t want to rush things either. And I really want to try this too.”

  Adam smiled, and she couldn’t help but smile back.

  “So Friday night?” he asked lightly.

  She stood on her toes to give him a soft kiss on the mouth. “Friday night it is.”

  Sixteen

  Late on Friday night, Adam took Zoe to get some ice cream and walk down by the river.

  They’d gone to dinner and the symphony earlier, but Zoe had willingly agreed to dessert.

  Their first date had gone smoothly by all appearances. Although they’d been out together before dozens of times, the difference this time was palpable. Zoe had put extra effort into dressing attractively, and Adam was putting extra effort into acting charming. They talked about politics, about Logan, about the orchestra, and about their favorite kinds of ice cream.

  And the whole thing felt incredibly weird.

  There was no reason why it should feel weird. They knew each other too well for awkwardness or this kind of stilted tension. Experiencing first-date jitters was ridiculous after they’d already had sex. But, despite the fact that both of them were doing well in keeping up the light, pleasant conversation, Zoe was nervous and uncomfortable.

  And it wasn’t really getting better.

  The evening was cooler than she’d expected. She’d brought a pretty gray cashmere cardigan with little flicks of sparkle in it to put on over her little black dress. But the combination of the ice cream and the brisk breeze off the river was making her shiver.

  She tried to hide it. If Adam saw she was cold, he would probably suggest they leave. Then the date would be over.

  And it would have been a definite flop.

  He was telling her a funny story about a disastrous interview he’d given a few weeks ago, and she kept her lips shaped into a smile and nodded or laughed at all the right places. But underneath it was a current of deep disappointment.

  She should have known that trying to transform her relationship with Adam into something romantic just couldn’t be that easy.

  After he’d finished the story, there was a pause in the conversation. Zoe finished her cone, licked the last of her ice cream off her fingers, and crumpled the napkin into a ball. When she cut her eyes over to Adam, she saw he was watching her closely, discreetly.

  “You okay?” he asked in a light tone.

  She nodded and grinned up at him, hoping he wouldn’t see the expression was forced. Then she was surprised by a sudden shiver.

  “You should have told me you’re cold,” Adam said, shrugging off the jacket to his black suit and giving her a vaguely annoyed look.

  Bristling at this implicit censure, she said, “I’m not that cold. It was just the ice cream. And there’s no reason to be snotty about it.”

  Ignoring her response, Adam wrapped his coat around her shoulders. Since it was warm and smelled deliciously like Adam, Zoe didn’t object. She slipped her arms into the sleeves and pushed them up to free her hands.

  He was watching her face again. In the interest of being fair to him, she managed to bite back a sharp comment about how his constant staring was freaking her out.

  After a few minutes, she glanced at her watch. It was after one in the morning.

  “Should we head back?” Adam asked, in his voice that same light airiness it’d had all evening. It wasn’t really him at all.

  “I guess so.” She smiled again as she stood up, sure she looked ridiculous in his jacket. But it was warm, and she wasn’t willing to give it up quite yet. “Thanks for the great evening.”

  He murmured, “Thank you.”

  And the whole thing felt weird and artificial.

  Now that they were reaching the end, Zoe was almost relieved the date was over, despite her lingering disappointment that it hadn’t been a success. She wanted to go home and get into bed in her lovely, warm new bedroom and pull up the covers over her head.

  Her first date with Josh had been horrible too.

  The random thought startled and upset her so much that she tripped on one of the stone stairs. She reached out to catch herself on the rail, but her hand was trapped in the too-long sleeve of the jacket. Always with quick instincts, Adam tried to catch her. But he must have been rather distracted too, and he wasn’t quite quick enough.

  Zoe fell in an awkward tumble, barely catching herself before her face hit the stairs.

  She was wearing a silk sheathe dress, and it was too fitted to allow for much flexibility. The seam on one side split from the hem all the way up to her hip, and she skinned up both of her knees. For a moment, she was trapped in Adam’s damned jacket, unable to free her hands.

  Adam stared down at her, temporarily at a loss for what to do.

  The irony—the pure, unmitigated irony of the entire situation—hit Zoe like a blow. And she began to laugh as she futilely tried to pick herself up from the clumsy heap.

  Adam reached down to help her, and together they managed to turn her over so she was sitting on one of the stairs.

  He sat down next to her, smiling a little quizzically at her continued giggles.

  She finally retrieved her hands and inspected her destroyed outfit.

  “You look a little worse for wear,” Adam murmured, using a leftover napkin to clean up the blood on her knees.

  “I am a little worse for wear.”

  For some reason—for absolutely no good reason—the words struck her as sharply poignant. And the tension of the evening, her disappointment over the awkwardness of the date, the jarring pain from her fall, and the memory of her first date with Josh all slammed into her again at the same time.

  She gave a little sob, squeezed her eyes closed, and ducked her head, trying desperately to keep her shoulders from shaking.

  “Oh baby,” Adam said thickly, reaching out to pull her into his arms. “Come here.”

  She shook against his chest for just a moment, feeling warm and comforted and at peace for the first time all evening.

  “I’m sorry,” she said at last, raising her face to look up into his. “You’ve been just wonderful. And I’m...I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are,” he said, his voice still a little rough. He pulled her tightly against him again and brushed a few kisses into her hair. “I think I went about this all wrong. I should have done something more natural for our first date. We’ll try again. It will be better.” She felt him stiffen just a little as he paused. Then he added, almost diffidently, “Assuming you want to try again.”

  Just a few minutes ago she might have hesitated, but now things seemed to have changed. With a few last sniffs, she pulled away and gave him a rather wet grin. “Yeah. Let’s try again.”

  * * *

  Their next date was better. And the third was even better than the second.

  And, for their fourth date, Adam came over to her place for a late dinner after Logan was already asleep. Zoe made grilled chicken and risotto, and they ate it in front of the fire in the living room with the bottle of Chardonnay Adam had brought.

  After a while, they ended up in the bedroom.

  They hadn’t had sex since that time in Adam’s apartment, and Zoe was so hungry for him she came once just from foreplay before they’d even made it to the bedroom. Once in bed, Adam moved very slowly, his eyes caressing her with a tender smolder she couldn’t seem to get enough of.

  He kissed and stroked her for a long time, bringing her to climax again with his hands and his mouth. Then he finally put on the condom and settled himself between her legs.

  It was only once he was inside her deeply, her arms and legs wrapped around him as tightly as she could get, that Adam lost his unhurried control. He tried to guide them in a steady rhythm, sustain a pleasing rocking motion. But his motion kept accelerating, his features almost twisting with tension. And his eyes were so hot and hungry Zoe felt like she might burn in them.

  For some reason, his obvious neediness was more intoxicating than his
deliberate seduction. Zoe felt her body respond, and she gasped out, “Oh God, Adam! Adam!”

  His attempt at a controlled rhythm failed utterly. His hips rutted wildly as his whole body tightened up like a fist. His grunts matched her pants and sobs of pleasure, and their tangled bodies generated so much heat Zoe thought she might literally melt.

  It wasn’t long before Adam lost it completely, and the entire time his eyes never left her face. He came hard, gasping her name on his last taken breath. The look on his face was so overwhelming that Zoe lost it too, coming with him at the very last second.

  Afterwards, she gathered him into her arms, loving the weight of his hot, relaxed body on top of hers as much as she had the previous time. And, like last time, he seemed beyond words, like their coupling had drained him of the power of speech.

  So she didn’t say anything. Just held him as they fell asleep together.

  They were awakened less than an hour later by the sound of Logan crying.

  He almost never cried at night anymore, so Zoe jerked awake at the first cry. She was groggy and disoriented, and her arm was prickling painfully from being trapped under Adam’s body. Before she could get it together, Adam was pulling on his pants. “I’ll check on him,” he said.

  Zoe started to object, but didn’t. There was no reason why Adam couldn't check on his nephew. Logan was too young to recognize anything significant in Adam's being present in their house in the middle of the night.

  He was gone much longer than Zoe expected. So, after a few minutes, when she still heard Logan crying, Zoe pulled on a bathrobe and went to see what was going on.

  She smelled what was going on before she saw it.

  She found Adam trying to clean up Logan at the changing table, and not having a lot of success with it. She took one look at her very unhappy son and a very messy case of diarrhea all over Logan’s bedding and the changing table and said, “Oh, the poor little thing. You better just put him in the tub. I’ll clean up in here.”

  Adam did as she suggested, picking up a still messy Logan and holding him against his bare chest as he carried him into the bathroom. Zoe almost gagged as she pulled up the bedding, Logan’s pajamas, and everything else that had been dirtied.

  As she passed the bathroom, she heard Logan still crying. And Adam said, “I know it’s very unpleasant, but you’re a trooper. You’ll be all right.”

  After throwing everything into the washer and then wiping down everything that couldn't be laundered, she cleaned herself up and went to the kitchen to pour some of Logan’s rehydration drink into a sippy cup.

  Adam and Logan weren’t in the living room. And they weren’t in Logan’s bathroom or bedroom. She finally found them in the sitting area of the master bedroom. The lights were still off, but Adam had turned on the gas log in the fireplace. He was stretched out on the chaise lounge, holding Logan against his chest.

  Adam had evidently cleaned himself up, and he’d put Logan in a new diaper and set of pajamas.

  Adam looked absolutely exhausted.

  She smiled at him as she gave Logan his sippy cup and then went to pull out a pair of cotton pajamas for herself. After she put them on, she went over and curled up beside Adam and Logan on the chaise, pulling a throw blanket up over them all.

  She kissed Adam on the cheek as he put his arm around her, adjusting Logan a little so he could hold them both. “Thank you,” she whispered, after ascertaining that Logan wasn’t feverish or too pale.

  Adam gave a half-shrug. “I think he’s all right.”

  “Yeah. It might just be a virus. Or something he ate.”

  Logan had been sucking on the sippy cup, but now he lifted his head from Adam’s chest. “Lo-gen poopy,” he informed her gravely.

  “I know,” she said. “You poopied a lot. Do you feel all right now?”

  After a brief pause, he gave a nod. “Right. Now.” Then he babbled a little, the only clear words being “Un-Cla Lala” and “bath.”

  “Yes, Uncle Adam gave you a bath. It was very nice of him.”

  Logan had his sippy cup in his mouth again and he nestled into Adam’s arm. He was asleep before he finished his cup.

  Zoe felt rather dazed by an intensely romantic evening followed by a very nasty bout of childcare. She could tell Adam looked a little dazed too.

  She wondered what Josh would have been like as a father, if he would have been as loving and careful as Adam was with the little boy.

  She was sure he would have been. He’d just never been given the chance.

  Adam shifted slightly beside her, and then she felt his breath against her ear. “You okay?” he asked, very softly.

  Zoe smiled up at him, touched by the concerned question in his eyes. “Yeah. I am.”

  * * *

  A few weeks later Adam picked up Zoe and Logan on a Sunday morning, after telling her he wanted to take them to brunch.

  Zoe didn’t question this plan. She had no reason to question it, even though it was a little early in the morning for brunch.

  Both Adam and Logan were in very good moods, and Zoe felt quite pleased with the day as well. The weather was sunny. The weekend was only half over, and things were going very well between her and Adam.

  Adam wouldn’t tell her where they were going to brunch. She tried to tease it out of him, but he was as stubborn as she was.

  So Zoe had absolutely no clue when Adam’s driver drove them to the airport, and then a private jet flew them to Memphis.

  They went to the lobby of the Peabody and were given the very best table for seeing the Duck March.

  Logan was ecstatic as he saw the line of ducks walk through the lobby of the elegant hotel and wade into the marble fountain. He stood on his chair and clapped his hands with joy, babbling so rapidly he was incomprehensible.

  Zoe was charmed and delighted by the novelty of it all, and she had trouble repressing ripples of happy laughter as she watched the ducks and her son.

  Adam kept his hand on Logan’s back, keeping him from falling off his chair. And he seemed to be more interested in watching Logan and Zoe than he was in watching the famous ducks.

  The ducks finally started to march out. Zoe was trying not to giggle like a girl—out of pure joie de vivre. And Logan was so entranced by the ducks that he clung to the back of his chair and leaned over way too far, in an attempt to keep them in his sight.

  Adam grabbed the boy’s shirt before the chair toppled over.

  “Mommy,” a little girl said from the next table. The lobby was loud and full of people who had come to watch the ducks. There was no particular reason why Zoe would have tuned into that childish little voice. But she heard, “That little boy almost fell, but his daddy caught him.”

  Zoe’s breath hitched painfully.

  She was quite sure that, for someone outside, Adam looked and acted like Logan’s father.

  But he wasn’t Logan’s father.

  She pushed the conflicted thought from her mind, not wanting to spoil the happy day. And soon they went the hotel restaurant to have an absolutely delicious brunch, Logan particularly enjoying the gingerbread pancakes. And then, since they'd flown all that way, they walked around some and went to the zoo.

  Logan was so tired that he fell asleep as soon as the plane took off on the ride home.

  Zoe stared out the window and couldn’t help but remember what that little girl had said earlier.

  She wanted Adam to have a great relationship with his nephew. She wanted him to be the male influence Logan might not otherwise have. She wanted Adam to love him. And Logan to love Adam. She wanted them to spend as much time together as possible.

  But it still occasionally made her kind of sad that Adam was having the relationship with Logan that should have been Josh’s.

  She hated herself for the thought. It wasn't fair to Adam, and there wasn’t any good to come out of that way of thinking.

  So she made herself stop.

  Adam had been talking to the pilot, but now he cam
e over to sit beside her.

  She smiled at him and said, “Thanks so much for today.”

  “You’re welcome. I had a good time.”

  “Me too.” She sighed, trying to stifle the bittersweet ache that wouldn’t seem to go away. “And Logan had the time of his life.”

  They were silent for a minute. Then Adam said, “I’ll never pretend to be his father, you know.”

  “I know. I know that.”

  After another long moment, Adam glanced away and asked, “Would you like me to...back off a little? Spend less time with him?”

  Zoe shook her head immediately. “No. No, Adam. Logan needs you.”

  She didn’t say it out loud, but she knew Adam needed Logan too.

  Seventeen

  They’d been dating for three months, and Adam had fallen into the routine of coming over Saturday evenings and spending the night.

  Zoe always enjoyed having him in her big antique bed on Saturday nights, and she and Logan both loved spending Sunday mornings with him.

  But this evening Adam was in a bad mood, and Zoe ended up taking a bath before bed, mostly just to get away from him for a little while.

  He’d been in a bad mood for the last week or so. It wasn’t like he ever snapped at her or started arguments or even ignored her. He was always as meticulously polite as ever.

  But Zoe wasn't a fool. She knew he was in a bad mood. He'd always withdrawn, got distant, when something was bothering him. And, although he didn't stop spending time with her, for the last few days he didn't seem to really be with her.

  She went out of her way to be nice to him. She’d cooked him dinner and then let him pick out whatever movie he wanted to watch after Logan went to bed. But during both dinner and the movie Adam kept lapsing into broody silence. She’d even offered to give him a back rub afterwards, since she thought maybe his back was bothering him.

  He’d refused.

  That was when she decided to take a long bath and leave him to his brooding and his laptop.

  After a very nice bath, Zoe put on her favorite set of soft pajamas. She’d been going to wear a slinky new chemise she’d just bought for him, but now she wasn’t really in the mood for it.