Paige in Progress (Reluctant Hearts #3)

by Brighton Walsh

  “Come on. Let’s go.” I reach up and unlock my door from where I’m squatting in front of it, then push it open, causing Adam to catch himself from falling back.

  He looks up at me, then back into my apartment, then back at me once again. He tilts his head to the side. “You’re gonna let me stay with you tonight?”

  The confusion in his voice at the question should confuse me. Except it doesn’t. I know exactly why he’s asking that…because he doesn’t stay the night anymore unless we have sex. That’s been an unspoken rule since our middle of the night talk a few weeks ago. It wasn’t something I asked for…wasn’t even something I thought I wanted or needed until he gave it to me without me even voicing it.

  That shouldn’t break my heart as much as it does.

  I avoid his underlying question. “Are you going to puke in my bed?”

  “Don’t think so. Can’t be sure, though.”

  “Well, I can’t be sure I won’t shove you off the bed so you puke over the side instead of on me, should it come to that. If you can handle that, come on.”

  I stand, then offer him a hand and try to help pull him up, but attempting to yank up a two-hundred pound pile of solid muscle—solid, drunk muscle—is about as easy as it sounds.

  “Can’t believe you’re gonna let me stay, even if we don’t fuck. I mean, I’ll try. I’m always hard for you, but I can’t guarantee I won’t pass out mid-thrust. You could get on top, though, if you wanna. I love it when you ride me and your tits sway in my face.”

  I laugh, shaking my head as I pat his chest, one shoulder tucked under his arm as we walk in. “You are such a sweet talker, but I wouldn’t want to take the chance of you puking on me. How about we skip it tonight?”

  “This is the first night since the last time.”

  “What is?” But I know before he even says a word. It’s exactly what I just thought about, and the fact that it’s obviously been weighing on Adam, too, but he’s done it for me? Just another knife in my already bleeding stomach.

  “That we’re not fucking when I stay over. Since we had that talk. The R-talk. You know, that word we don’t say. The one you’re still avoiding, even if you pretend you’re not.”

  My stomach churns, dropping at what he says, but he’s right. While I’ve kept up everything with Adam—our non-date dates and our evenings in and our mind-blowing sex—I’ve put him in a very distinct section in my head, and it only got more defined after that talk. He’s in a box that clearly states our relationship is sex-based.

  But more than that, what we have is labeled with bright red Sharpie, permanently marked: temporary.

  as suspected, adam passed out as soon as he hit the mattress. He’s sprawled out on his stomach on his side of the bed, arm hanging over me…still finding a way to touch me even though he’s dead to the world. And here I lie. Eyes wide, blinking up at the ceiling, stomach churning at everything that whipped through my overactive mind tonight.

  I can’t even pretend I didn’t know it was coming. It’s been building. I know that. I can avoid it all I want, but at the end of the day, the shit always catches up with me.

  What’s throwing me for a loop are all my conflicting feelings about it. I thought there’d be relief when Adam’s time came to a close. Instead I feel…sad. Helpless. Like sand is slipping through my fingers, and I have no way of catching it. I’ve been waiting for this abstract day, a time that seemed too far away and yet too close at the same time. I’ve been stashing it away as my get out of jail free card, and it turns out…I don’t mind being in jail so much?

  I don’t know what the fuck is going on with me. I have no idea where my head is, or how to work out this jumbled mess of shit taking up residence there. And since I’m not going to get time by myself to just think, what with Adam’s deep breaths rumbling in my ear, his arm a heavy weight over my stomach, what I need is straight talk from someone who’s seen the shit end of relationships. I need a no BS answer from the one person I can trust to give it to me, especially now.

  Fifteen minutes later, I’m knocking on Dillon’s door, clad in a vintage My Little Pony T-shirt, ripped sweatpants, and a pair of flip-flops. I glance at the time on my phone—4:05 a.m.—and cringe. At least it’s Saturday—or very early Sunday, anyway—so he doesn’t have to work. And he’s always been a night owl. Plus, there’s a blue glow coming from behind the shades in the living room, so I know he’s still awake. Sure enough, thirty seconds later, he opens the door, his eyebrows shooting up on his forehead when he sees me.

  “Punky?” He glances behind me, then looks around, like he’s expecting I brought trouble with me right to his doorstep. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah.” I nod, brushing stray hairs away from my face. “Yeah. Everything’s totally fine. Super great.”

  He narrows his eyes at me, one hand resting on the doorknob. “There’s that ‘super great’ thing again.” Pushing the door open wider, he gestures me inside. “When you’re ‘super great’, you don’t show up on the doorstep of your big brother at ass o’clock in the morning.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  “Nah, I was watching some TV.” He doesn’t say it’s because he has a hard time sleeping…has had a hard time sleeping since his tours, and even more trouble since everything that happened with Steph. “You want a beer or something?”

  “No, I definitely don’t need more alcohol tonight.”

  “Ah, so this is alcohol induced,” he says as he sits on the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table.

  I toss my keys on the table and take a seat next to him, tucking my leg under me as I face him. “Yeah, you could say that. Funny thing is, only half of it was my consumption of the alcohol.”

  He shakes his head. “You lost me.”

  I take a deep breath, running my thumbnails over the pads of my fingers. “There’s this guy…”

  Dillon groans, head thrown back against the couch, as he scrubs a hand over his face. “Can’t you talk to Mom about this? Wouldn’t that be more appropriate, anyway?”

  “It’s not about sex, idiot.”

  That only makes him groan louder. “Jesus Christ, why does everyone in this family insist on reminding me you’re having sex?”

  “Dill…I’m twenty-three. What were you doing at twenty-three?”

  He’s quiet for a minute, then he inclines his head toward me. “Fair point.”

  I reach down and pick at the tattered hem of my sweat pants, not able to look at him. “So here’s the thing…I’ve done something stupid.”

  “Gonna have to be a bit more specific, Punky.”

  Glaring, I backhand him in the stomach. “Don’t be an ass. I’m trying to have a moment with you.”

  “All right. I’m sorry. What’s going on? What’d you do that’s stupid?”

  Shaking my head, I wave a dismissive hand, brushing off his question. He doesn’t need to know that I set this thing up with Adam with the full intent of only taking what I wanted—sex—and leaving all the rest—emotions—by the wayside. Or that my plan hasn’t exactly worked. Or worse, that it’s actually backfired. “The details aren’t important. What I need from you is honesty. I need you to tell me that love is a fairy tale. That relationships are a waste of time. That what Mom and Dad have is the exception, not the rule. They’re the one in a million we hear stories about, but they’re the kind of stories that never actually happen to the rest of us. I need to hear it’s nothing but heartache and agony and bitterness when it all inevitably comes crashing down.”

  He stares at me, his face unreadable. “Jesus, he really did a number on you, didn’t he?”

  My brow furrows. “What? Who?”

  “Bryan.”

  I huff out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, I guess he did. But that’s my point, Dill, it’s not just him.”

  “Well, it’s more than just Mom and Dad who have a good relationship. What about Tessa? She’s happy with Jason.”

  Grudgingly, I admit he�
�s right. “Yeah, okay, and Cade and Winter, too, but that’s three couples out of alllll the others. I’ve watched too many people get their hearts stomped on. I’ve seen enough heartache happen around me that it affected me, too. Or have you forgotten Steph?” I immediately feel like a jerk when he snaps his mouth shut and clenches his jaw. “I’m sorry. That was a shitty thing to say. I’m an asshole.”

  “No argument from me.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and looks over at me. “Look, you want honesty, right?”

  Straightening up on the couch, I nod. “Yes. Do your worst.”

  “Okay…honestly, I can say you shouldn’t be afraid of this stuff now, Punky.”

  I’m so shocked by his answer, I can only blink at him for a few moments. Then I sputter. “What? No. No, that’s not—what about everything that happened? What about last year and all the hours we clocked on Skype? I know it still hurts. I can see it in your eyes. You lived it, just like me. I know what kind of pain that causes.”

  He presses his palms together, looking down at them as he gives a short nod. “I did. And you’re right. It hurts like a bitch…still. But the thing is, I’m thirty-three. I’ve had a decade of living, of wading through the shit, that you haven’t even experienced. You shouldn’t give up before you even have the chance to start.”

  “So you’re saying, what, exactly?”

  “I’m saying…you need to wade through the shit, Paige. Yeah, my marriage was crap, but there were relationships before her that weren’t all bad. Relationships I learned things from—things about myself, and things about how to be involved with someone, and things about how not to be with someone. It’s a mixed bag, but that’s how it is with anything you do. Not everything’s perfect.”

  “You telling me you’re gonna get married again?”

  “Fuck no. What I’m saying is you can’t let the mistakes of others stop you from figuring out your own. You’re a work in progress. Don’t be so jaded that you ignore the parts of you that still need to grow.”

  Shaking my head, I blow out a breath. “Well, fuck. That’s not what you’re supposed to say. You’re supposed to remind me of everything that’s bad about relationships.”

  “Actually, I think you do that fine on your own. I think you need me to remind you of everything that’s good about them.”

  “He’s leaving, Dill. Moving back to Colorado in two weeks. There’s no way this can have a happy ending.”

  “Then enjoy it while it’s here, and then let it go. Just don’t get all tied up in him, and you’ll be all right.”

  It’s great advice. Too bad it’s too late.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  adam

  I wake to an empty bed and cool sheets, a marching band stomping around in my head and a dead rodent in my mouth. Groaning, I roll over on my back and blink at the ceiling in the early morning light coming through the sheer curtains in Paige’s room.

  How the hell did I end up in Paige’s room?

  As I close my eyes, bits and pieces of last night start coming to me. Talking to my dad about not taking over at the shop. Jase showing up at my place unannounced. The Jack he took out so he could commiserate properly. Then Cade coming over, and me spilling my guts to both of them—that I was falling for Paige.

  And at some point during the night, coming to the realization that I’m not falling in love with her.

  I’m already there.

  Which is a cruel joke if I’ve ever heard one. I’ve been searching my whole life for a girl who could be mine. Permanently. And the one I finally find? Doesn’t want to be anyone’s.

  But the thing is, I want more. I’ve always wanted more, and I thought I could pretend otherwise. I thought I could be okay with getting only half of her. Turns out I’m not. I want the whole thing. The good and the bad, the messy and ugly along with all the shiny, near-perfect parts. I want all of her to be mine.

  And I want her to come with me.

  That realization hit me somewhere around my third glass of Jack, but the certainty behind it is still there now, in the light of day. After spending all this time looking for someone like her, someone who fits me so perfectly…someone who challenges me and makes me laugh and turns me the hell on…I know it’s not going to come again for a long, long time. If ever.

  And I’m not willing to throw that away without trying. I’m done avoiding and I’m done tiptoeing around the subject because she needs me to. We’re not putting it off anymore. I’m scheduled to leave in a little less than two weeks, so there’s no better time than now to have the talk.

  But first, I have to deal with this massive hangover and then find out why she’s not in bed with me. Grabbing my glasses, I stumble my way to the bathroom, rummaging for some Ibuprofen to help with this headache, then swallow them with a few handfuls of water from the faucet. By the time I make it into the living room, I still haven’t heard any noise from anywhere in the apartment. Paige isn’t curled up on the couch. She isn’t in the kitchen. Her entire place is empty, and just as I start to get a little worried about where the hell she could be, a key sounds in the lock, and in tiptoes Paige, clad in her pajamas.

  She doesn’t see me as she kicks off her flip-flops and quietly sets down her keys on the counter, before she turns to walk toward her bedroom.

  “Did I actually manage to scare you out of your own apartment last night?”

  She screams, jumping and spinning to face me. I can’t help but laugh, and that, mixed with her scream, does nothing for my raging headache.

  “Holy shit, Adam. What are you doing up? It’s not even six.”

  I rest my ass against the back of the couch, bracing my hands on either side of my hips. “I could ask you the same thing.”

  “I…” Clearing her throat, she avoids eye contact, glancing off to the side. “I, um, needed to talk to Dillon.”

  Raising my eyebrows, I ask, “You needed to talk to your brother in the middle of the night?”

  She nods, running the pads of her pointer fingers over the tips of her thumbnails, but otherwise doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to, though. Her nervous gesture speaks volumes.

  “Ahh…” I nod and glance down at my bare feet before looking back to her. “About me, huh? Guess I should take that as a compliment. What horribly awkward things did I say to you in the name of Jack? Because I have to be honest… I don’t remember a lot after my fifth glass.”

  “You called me baby.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  She laughs and her posture relaxes, and I feel my shoulders lose a bit of tension. “That’s what you said last night.”

  “What else did I say? Because something sent you to your brother, and I’m guessing it’s not me calling you baby, despite your aversion to it.”

  A small smile graces her lips, and she shrugs. “Not much else. Just something about how you never stay the night unless we have sex.”

  I clear my throat, scrutinizing her. “Well, that’s true.”

  “It is.”

  “Anything more?”

  “Um…you said Mrs. Connelly was going to steal you away from me and how I wouldn’t even put up a fight. That I wouldn’t fight for you.”

  I swallow, tightening my grip on the back of her couch and brace myself for the answer to the question I need to ask. “And what about that? Is that true?”

  “I…I don’t know. Does it even matter? Our time is almost up.”

  “It matters to me.”

  “Adam…” She exhales and looks down, her words tinged with a sadness I haven’t heard from her before. “We only have a couple weeks left.”

  I’m silent as I study her, trying to read the quiet cues she’s giving. I know I’m not misreading the resignation I heard in her voice when she mentioned me leaving. That gives me the encouragement I need. “That’s not all it has to be. It can be more, if we want it to be.”

  She snaps her head up to look at me, her eyes flitting back and forth between mine, and she takes a step to
ward me. “What do you mean? Are you…I mean, do you think you might move back here?”

  I let the hopeful tone in her voice reassure me and take a deep breath, ready to lay my heart on the line and trusting she won’t stomp on it. “Actually, I was kind of hoping it could be the other way around.”

  Her brow furrows, and she shakes her head. “I don’t understand… What other way around?”

  “I was hoping you might want to move. To Colorado. With me.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  paige

  Jesus. This can’t be happening. No, seriously, this cannot be happening. How much growth is one girl expected to do on any given day? Because this? Adam asking me to uproot my life? To move with him? After I just decided I could throw caution to the wind and go all in for the two whopping weeks he has left here?

  What in the actual fuck.

  I sputter, soundless words falling from my lips as a million scenarios fly through my mind, the dozens of reasons I can’t go whipping behind my eyes. “But…I have to finish my master’s. And then there’s the full-time analyst position I’ve been working toward.”

  “Your master’s is done, though, right? You just have to finish your internship and defend your thesis? And there are analyst positions there. Denver has a police department, you know.” He’s teasing, the lilt in his voice and the smirk on his face telling me so, but none of that soothes me. Because all I can focus on is how he’s rewriting all my plans.

  And all I can think about is the fact that I’ve been here before.

  When I was seventeen and too stupid to know any better. When I let a guy take an eraser to everything I worked toward, to my life plans, and scribble his in over top of them. Then I stood by when he decided he had enough. I watched him crumple up the paper with my new life scrawled in his script and throw it away when he didn’t have a use for me anymore, taking all my plans—the ones I made with him, and the ones he erased that I’d made for myself—with him, making me scramble to put myself back together in the end.