by Wendy Chen
“Her brother was your friend,” she sighed.
“Once we got engaged, I started calling her parents Mom and Dad.”
“Oh, Adam.” She stroked his knee. “No wonder you went along with it. No one would fault you—”
“I told myself that it was enough, that I loved her enough to marry her to keep the life we’d built together. And for a long time, I really believed it. But then I started feeling like there should be more, that it shouldn’t have been so easy for me to spend so many hours working, away from her. I didn’t want to rush home to be with her, I didn’t jump at the chance to take time off, even when I could have. Hell, I didn’t even come up with a decent proposal. I basically signed the receipt while she put the ring on. Who does that?!” Claudia had just assumed he wasn’t good at showing his feelings, wasn’t good with words. Maybe he wasn’t, but the fact of the matter was, his feelings for Claudia hadn’t made him want to try to be better. “She deserved—still deserves—better than that.”
“Do you still have feelings for her?” Adam turned Kate to face him, knowing it wasn’t easy for her to ask, so that she knew he was serious when he told her, “I’m not in love with her. I do wish we could have been friends, but that’s impossible now.” It was so easy for him to be honest with Kate, and when he saw her eyes fill with understanding and warmth at his words, he felt a surge of relief and excitement at the same time. “A few months ago, Claudia was convinced that I was going through some early midlife crisis, that if she waited it out, we’d be together and everything would be fine again. Hell, all of our friends were convinced, too, and no matter who I talked to, it was all the same advice—just move back into the house and work it out.
“I was so sick of it—I wanted more than ‘fine,’ and I was sick of hearing the same thing from everyone I knew. And I was too much of a coward to tell her that I just wasn’t in love with her.”
“I’m not sure which is worse—I love you, but I’m not in love with you, or I love you as a friend.”
“Exactly. But she wasn’t getting the message until I finally told her about you.”
“Wait, you told her about me months ago?”
“I told her about how I had this great friend from high school that I couldn’t stop thinking about.”
“Well, that would explain the warm welcome when I showed up on her doorstep looking for you.”
Adam grimaced. “It was the second part of my realization—that I’d been thinking about you more than I’d been thinking about her. It was somehow easier to explain that I’d broken up with her for someone else, even though you and I hadn’t even seen each other in years. I didn’t know then that I’d be coming out here to see you, but I didn’t want her to keep hoping that I’d move back in.”
“So I was a prop?” Kate smiled. “To help you get what you wanted?”
Adam’s mouth twisted upward in a smile he couldn’t suppress. “I guess you could say that. Didn’t quite close the deal, though. That’s why I had to go back to Palo Alto this week. I’d finally decided to deal with all of our joint assets—a couple of bank accounts, the house. And yeah, for a while she was really mad at me and she was avoiding my calls. So when she finally called me the other night, I jumped on the chance to meet with her so that we could sign all the paperwork, so she would really know that it’s over. That’s what I was doing at the house—I was removing my name from the title so that it would be all hers.”
“Oh God, and then I showed up?”
“It wasn’t the best day for her.”
“I’m an idiot,” Kate frowned.
“I was going to tell you that I was going, but then you came home and picked a fight with me and I didn’t get the chance.” He kissed her temple. “I’m glad you came after me.”
“I’m glad you came to New York.” They kissed again, and Adam had never been happier. It felt right, being with Kate. This was what he’d been missing—she was what he’d been missing and he just hadn’t known it for a long time. “Speaking of cold feet, though.” He stiffened. He hadn’t said any of that out loud, had he? This was all a lot to lay on her at once. He didn’t want her to feel pressured at all.
“Yeah?” he croaked.
“My feet,” she smiled at him, “are freezing.”
He looked down. “Crap, that’s my fault. I should’ve told you to wear socks.” He shifted so that he could put her feet in his lap and removed her shoes to warm her feet with his hands. She seemed startled at the gesture. “Do you want to go?”
“No.” She looked at his hands and then back at him. “This is nice.”
He smiled. “Get used to it.”
When it finally got too cold to sit around any longer, they decided to leave the park. “Now where to?” Kate asked.
Adam shrugged mischievously and got on the motorcycle. “I heard there’s a nice place to stay around here. One of those old mansions converted to a hotel.”
Kate ran her hands around him from behind and up his chest. “Now this is sounding like my kind of date,” she laughed.
When they checked into the hotel, it was obvious that Adam had been in touch with the management, from the way the staff gushed over “Mr. Ward,” telling him that everything he’d requested had been taken care of.
“Doesn’t exactly sound so spontaneous to me, after all,” Kate teased as they headed to their room.
“Well, I had to check it out first, didn’t I? What if the place had bedbugs?”
Kate smiled, knowing he was only half joking. She gasped as they entered the room. It wasn’t the vases of white roses everywhere, or the petals strewn across the bed, or the bottle of champagne resting on ice, or the delicious smell of food on the little table set for two. It was the sight of her Longchamp weekender sitting next to Adam’s nondescript duffle bag that put the lump in her throat and threat of tears in her eyes. “How did you …?”
“I told you I would take care of it,” he said softly. He put his arms around her waist from behind her, and Kate wondered how it was possible to feel content and excited and relaxed all at the same time.
“Careful,” she said, leaning back into him with a sigh. “A girl could get used to this.” He nuzzled her ear, gently kissing her, running his tongue along her neck. “Yes, a girl could definitely get used to this.”
She turned to him, unable to put off pressing her lips against his any longer. She loved the taste of him, couldn’t get enough of him. He took off her jacket, then his own, and his hands worked to untuck her shirt, unbutton her jeans. “W-wait,” she gasped.
He pulled back. “What? What’s wrong?”
“This is OK, right?” she chuckled, managing to muster a near-normal tone of voice. “Neither of us has slept here before, it’s not my bed, it’s not your air bed. This is it, right?” She couldn’t help it. She had to tease him just a bit, make him wait like he made her wait.
Adam just groaned in mock exasperation, picked her up, and practically threw her on the bed, much to her satisfaction. She wasn’t teasing anymore as he took his shirt off. She took her own off, eager to feel his bare skin on hers. Where on earth did he get that body? For a moment, Kate couldn’t quite fathom that she was with Adam, her old high school buddy. But then it felt so right to be with him, the Adam she’d rediscovered, who knew her better than any man and adored her all the same. The Adam who was all grown up and, dare she say it, sexy as all hell.
They practically tore at one another at first, and Kate couldn’t get enough—not enough of the taste of him, the feel of him, just of him. Eventually they slowed down, and she took the time to savor the feel of his skin beneath her fingertips, the salty taste of his skin on her tongue. She relished the feel of his hands, confidently exploring every crevice of her body, with a touch so new and yet achingly familiar.
It wasn’t until some hours later—how many, she had no idea—when they were in the shower together, that Kate realized what had happened, why she felt so different. S
he’d had great sex before. She’d had amazing sex before. What she had not had before was mind-blowing lovemaking. She wasn’t particularly startled at the revelation. She’d known this thing with Adam was different, that what she felt for him was more than pure physical attraction. She’d never been more satiated, and still left wanting more. She was surprised at the intensity of her feelings, that she was more attracted to him because he was her friend, that she was more in love with him because, well, no one had made her climax four times in one day before. For the first time, Kate finally understood what Suzanne meant whenever she said she could never separate the emotions from the sex.
After their shower, Kate wrapped herself in a towel and glanced at Adam, who was beneath the covers of the bed. She felt a moment of self-consciousness when she noticed he was watching her, watching her face. This is ridiculous, she told herself. But she realized she didn’t know how to act. Usually one person left when the deed was done. Or they just fell asleep. But she was too excited to sleep. Were they supposed to cuddle now? Was that what couples did? She sat on the edge of the bed, her back to him. My God, I’m nervous.
Adam propped himself up on one arm and reached for her. “Are you OK?”
“Yeah, I just want something to wear. Did you pack me any T-shirts?”
Adam got up and moved toward her bag, still completely naked. Kate blushed and averted her gaze. What the hell is wrong with me? He put her bag at her feet, then knelt in front of her. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine, I am. I just … I think … we just need to get some clothes on.”
Thankfully he turned away from her then and dug into his own bag. He put on some clean boxers and a pair of jeans and came back to sit on the bed next to her. Kate couldn’t move and just sat there, staring at her bag, afraid to look at him, afraid of what he would see on her face, that he’d see how much she wanted him now, that her heart was practically bursting with what she felt for him.
He put his arms around her and held her against his chest, using his foot to stop hers from nervously kicking her bag. “It’s just me,” he said against her cheek.
She relaxed against him and closed her eyes with a sigh. “Oh my God,” was all she could say.
Adam chuckled softly. “I know, Kate. I know.”
She stayed there for a few minutes, nestled into his chest, until she felt like she could breathe normally again, when she didn’t feel like she would go weak in the knees from just one look from him. It’s just Adam, she repeated to herself. She kissed him on the cheek and then went to unpack her bag while he investigated the food that was now too cold to eat. “No one’s ever packed for me before,” she smiled.
“Hope I got it right,” he said as he picked up the phone to call for room service. They were both ravenous now, and he ordered way too much for two people.
Kate grinned at the sight of her favorite pajamas, two matching sets of bras and panties, another comfy T-shirt from Uniqlo that was just like the one she had on earlier, her running gear, and another pair of jeans. He’d also carefully folded one of her more casual dresses and packed a matching pair of shoes. She found another pair of shoes tucked into the bottom of the bag beneath her toiletry kit. A pair of black five-inch platform heeled sandals with straps that laced up her calves. They went great with the black minidress she’d worn to a club opening. “And what exactly would I wear these with?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at him as she dangled them from her fingertips.
Adam paused from popping grapes into his mouth to look over at her. He merely shrugged and said, “I thought you might miss your fancy things.” He smiled. “They go with everything—what you’ve got on, for example. Or less.” She went over to kiss him. His mouth tasted sweet from the grapes, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, lacing her fingers through his hair. She let her towel drop to the floor and sighed at the feel of his bare chest against her. She pushed him back onto the bed. “Room service is on its way,” he groaned.
“No time for the shoes then,” Kate responded, kissing his neck and chest.
They’d made the bed into a picnic spot, with plates of food spread out on all sides of them. Kate had thrown on Adam’s T-shirt, the closest thing she could find when room service came knocking on the door. She sipped some champagne. “Your shirt’s comfy. I could get used to these.”
“No one makes them quite like Hanes,” Adam said, his hand slipping beneath the shirt to caress her hip. She knew how he felt because she couldn’t stop touching him either, finding pleasure in even the most innocent touches—when her knee touched his as they sat cross-legged on the bed, or when their fingers touched as they both reached for the same bread roll.
“I still can’t believe we’re here,” she said, studying his eyes, every angle of his face in a whole new way. “How did you know?” she asked softly.
“That I was falling for you?”
“That I would fall for you.”
“Isn’t falling in love what everyone wants?” He leaned back against the pillows with one arm behind his head, pulling her down to lie next to him.
Love. He’d said it. She waited for that familiar feeling to come, that urge to flee as soon as a guy started getting too attached. The feeling never came, just an odd warmth in her chest, a sensation that felt safe and intoxicating all at once. “I thought love was for other people.”
“You didn’t always think that way.” She looked at him quizzically. It had certainly been that way for as long as she could recall. “You used to read romance novels, remember? Those Harlequin things?” She laughed, she did remember now, especially about how her mother would tell her that smart girls didn’t read those kinds of books. “You must believe in love. Somehow you just stopped believing it could happen to you, and I decided to prove you wrong.” He gave her a self-satisfied smile.
She looked into his eyes, so filled with the happy disbelief that there was someone who knew her so well—and liked her anyway. “I can’t believe you remember I read Harlequins. It’s been years since I picked one up.”
“You hid some in my backpack that time, remember? So Linda wouldn’t see them. My father almost got the belt out when he found them, until I explained they were yours.”
Adam’s expression darkened at the mention of his father. She shuddered at the image of scrawny high school Adam getting hollered at by the giant of a man she remembered. “Sorry. I don’t think you ever told me that part.”
“My father was—still is—a Neanderthal.”
“Must not have helped that your best friend was a girl.” She didn’t take her eyes off him, not wanting to miss anything his expression might tell her, even if she had to interpret what he didn’t say to know how he felt.
He shut his eyes for a moment, as if closing them against the bad memories. He shook his head no.
“My parents always liked you,” she said. Whether she was trying to make him feel better or to shift the topic from something clearly still so painful to him, she wasn’t sure. “Dad thought you were such a gentleman, and Linda thought you were smart as a whip.”
“Your parents saved me, you know. Sometimes the snacks your dad would make for us after school were the only reason I didn’t feel hungry that day. And your mom wrote a recommendation for me when I was applying to colleges.”
“I kind of knew about the food—it was hard not to see that you practically shoveled sandwiches into your mouth! I never knew about the recommendation, though.”
“She didn’t want my dad to find out since he would have twisted it into being a handout of some sort and gotten mad. I didn’t even ask her to do it; she just handed me an envelope one day with a letter inside.” Kate felt a swell of pride about her mother. Linda may not have been the most maternal parent in the traditional sense, but she did her best with what she was good at.
“Will you go back to Ann Arbor for Thanksgiving?”
“I haven’t spent the holidays there in years, but I guess i
t depends.”
“On what?”
“On whatever you’re doing.”
He said it so nonchalantly, as if making holiday plans weeks in advance were a perfectly natural thing to do. Maybe it was for some couples, and Kate knew that they were indeed a couple now. But she couldn’t recall the last time she’d made plans so far ahead of time with a man before and felt her body tense against his. “You should do whatever you usually do …”
Adam ran his fingers along her hairline and cupped her face in his hand. “You’re mine now, Kate,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’m not going anywhere, so you may as well get used to me.”
Kate snuggled back into Adam’s chest so that he couldn’t see how much she was grinning now. She wondered when this giddiness would fade. Maybe when he went back to California, she realized. He couldn’t stay in New York forever.
“I’m not going back, in case you’re wondering,” he said, once again startling her with his uncanny ability to read her thoughts. “Not permanently anyway, so you really can get used to me.”
“Don’t you have a business to run? Computers to build?”
“I haven’t built a computer in years,” Adam smiled. “Anyway, I’ve found that teaching agrees with me. And the school seems to like me enough, so I’m going to be teaching two courses next semester.”
She wrapped her arm around him tighter; she couldn’t be any happier. “You won’t miss sunny California?”
“I’m still going to wear my flip-flops, no matter what you say.”
Kate chuckled and put one of her legs over his. “I’ve decided I like your toes after all.”
Chapter 21
On Monday, Kate was resolved to get her head out of the clouds and back into work. She was almost successful until she got a text from Adam:
Mom broke her leg. Going to Ann Arbor tonight.
It must be serious for Adam to go back. He tried to find any reason to stay away. She barely thought about it before typing back:
