Ms. Sinclair seems comfortable, though she doesn’t seem to be fully aware of where she is. I’m certain she recognizes me, but it’s like she can’t pinpoint exactly where she knows me from. Regardless, she talks to Adam and me about whatever topic strikes her fancy at any given moment. I’m surprised at how often she laughs. I don’t recall her ever laughing at Pine Manor, and I wonder if this new happiness is the result of Adam’s presence. Or maybe mine. Or maybe it’s the concussion. Or the medication. Regardless of the reason, it’s nice to see her so content.
Sometime after lunch, we’re told Ms. Sinclair can go back to Pine Manor in the morning. The social worker assigned to her case will take care of setting up an ambulance transport. She also tells us the doctor has already approved the change in Ms. Sinclair’s medication in hopes of reducing her inclination to climb out of bed by herself again. Adam looks almost too relieved, as if changing her meds and taking her back to Pine Manor means his grandmother will somehow be okay.
About ten minutes into the drive home, Adam turns left where he should’ve turned right. Worry sinks into me immediately, and I can’t help but turn and peek out the car’s rear window, in search of the dark sedan. Maybe it’s following us. Maybe Adam has seen it, too, and I’m going to have to explain it away. But, thankfully, the rear view is free of black cars, and my worry is exchanged for confusion. When I ask him where he’s going, Adam smiles at me and tells me we’re going to his place. It’ll be the first time I’ve ever been there. My place is closer to Pine Manor, and since I have to go to work in the mornings and he doesn’t, it’s always made sense for us to hang out at my place instead of his. I wonder why he’s decided today is the day.
Mount Airy is a beautiful community, especially in the dusky light of a sunset. But when Adam pulls into a driveway, I’m a bit confused. He once described his place as “a decent one bedroom,” but the driveway belongs to a big-ass house, not an apartment building. The house is gorgeous, a gray stone facade with white trim. The landscaping is impeccable, and there are three other cars at the end of the driveway, all parked in front of the accompanying four-car garage. One is a Lexus sedan, the other is a Range Rover, and the third is a Cadillac Escalade. Adam parks his Passat in front of the last garage door on the right. I turn my head to find him smiling back at me. He looks a bit nervous.
“Dude. This is where you live?”
“Yep.”
“Then why the hell have we been hanging out at my place for all this time?”
Adam laughs out loud as he opens his car door and gets out. I follow suit.
“I guess because your place is closer to Gram. And also because the walls here are surprisingly thin. Not to mention the fact that everyone who lives here is a little…let’s just say…less-than-hip.”
I raise my eyebrows at the notion of anyone living in this house being described as “less-than-hip,” but when we walk in the front door, I see what he means.
An older gentleman, maybe around fifty-five or sixty, is standing in the foyer, sorting through his mail. He’s wearing a three-piece suit and very shiny shoes. I immediately match him up with the Cadillac Escalade. Adam says a brief hello in passing, and I see the man’s gaze quickly dart to our clasped hands. His eyes widen slightly, as if he’s surprised such a nice white boy would have a black girlfriend on his arm. The man then offers me a close-mouthed smile and a sheepish nod. I say a bright “hello” and greet him with more charm than he probably deserves. Adam pulls me up the stairs.
Adam Sinclair’s apartment is the entire third floor of what’s essentially a mansion. But when he unlocks and opens the door, it isn’t the closed-off, segmented floor plan I’d expected from an old house. It’s totally open, save for a few exposed columns covered in stone. Someone clearly tore down walls and completely rebuilt the space into something more reminiscent of an artist’s flat than a manor house. The hardwood flooring is polished to the nines, and a two-sided stone fireplace stands to the right-center of the room, with living-room furniture stationed on the side closest to the door and a bedroom suite stationed on the other. It’s hard not to notice the bed is unmade.
Once the door closes behind us, Adam lets go of my hand and walks off to the left, toward the kitchen area. I purposefully cross my arms over my chest and slump my bodyweight down over one hip, like I’m perturbed about something. Even though I’m not.
When he gets to the kitchen, he turns around to find me still standing by the door, looking like a mother who’s about to scold her child for lying to the teacher about what happened on the playground.
“What?” he asks, cocking his head to the side in flirtatious confusion.
“Thin walls and less-than-hip neighbors are no longer a valid excuse.” I hold my stance, waiting for his response. He turns and opens the fridge, taking out a couple of beers and placing them on the granite countertop. The whoosh of carbonation when he pops their caps is the only sound in the room. He carries the open beers over to me and tries to hand me one. I keep my arms crossed and raise my brow in question. He smiles.
“Is embarrassment a valid excuse?” he asks.
“Embarrassment? Seriously? This place is beautiful. What in God’s name do you have to be embarrassed about?”
He sighs and drops his shoulders at the sound of my words. “The fact that you’ve busted your ass taking care of people like my grandmother for the past six years and were only recently able to move out of an apartment you yourself described as ‘a dump.’ And here I am, unemployed and living in an apartment that costs eighteen hundred dollars a month. Trust me; it’s embarrassing.”
“This place costs eighteen hundred dollars a month?” I only say it because I have no idea what else to say.
“Yep.” He holds the beer out to me again, and this time, I take it. He turns on his heels, and I follow him over to the sofa.
“Wow. So…if you don’t work, how do you manage to pay that kind of money?” As soon as the question is out, I regret it. It’s not only none of my business, but the answer is also obviously the true source of his embarrassment. As we sit down on the sofa, he looks only at the floor, watching the tip of his sneaker scuff against the hardwood. “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business. I shouldn’t have asked,” I add. Besides, I think I may already know the answer.
“I wish I could say I invented some patented, eco-friendly water filter that’s saving lives in the third world, or even that I invested in some creative dot-com startup, but nope. It’s nothing like that.” He pauses for a long time, clearly uncomfortable with the truth. “I recently aged into an embarrassingly huge trust fund. And the fact that it’s courtesy of my giant dickhead of a father makes it even more humiliating.”
“Oh.” All other words escape me. Except judgmental ones he doesn’t deserve.
“I am going to do something important with it someday, something way beyond spending it on an unnecessarily expensive flat some self-inflated commission-based Realtor found for me. I just haven’t figured out what it is quite yet, and in the meantime, I want to be able to be with Gram. I guess I just didn’t want you to see me differently because of it.” He’s genuinely worried about this changing my opinion of him. But it won’t. Because Adam is still Adam, and I am still me.
I put my free hand on top of his knee. “I have no doubt important things will happen in this world because of you. But it won’t be because of some water filter or a dot-com investment or even a trust fund. It will be because of your heart.”
The embarrassment leaves his body in a surge of visible relief. Everything about him softens as I lean over and kiss him on the cheek.
“Thanks for the faith,” he says, tilting his face to line up with mine.
“Anytime.”
My mouth is six inches away from his and it takes less than a second for him to close the gap, smothering my lips with his. The kiss is not only fierce and lust-driven, it’s also bursting with confidence and sexy, soul-affirming relief. His mouth is warm and sure, and though we
’ve now kissed countless times since the day he showed up at Pine Manor, something about this kiss tells me he has more to share, more information to reveal. And I have more to discover.
But the truth is, just like his trust fund, whatever else he shares won’t change a damn thing about how I feel. He may be embarrassed about who he is and what he has, but I’m not. Because I already know everything worth knowing about Adam Sinclair. I already know what’s right.
As we kiss, my hands move across Adam’s back and tug his shirt up and over his head. His skin is warm against my palms, and when he takes my shirt off and presses his chest to mine, a heady concoction of happiness and bass notes bubble around inside of me. I pull away from him, drop off the edge of the couch, and kneel on the floor, scooting myself between his open knees as I unbuckle his belt and open his zipper. When my mouth slides down over him, he lets out a small, throaty grunt. My head rises and falls in a rhythmic and arousing cadence while my palms grip the tops of his thighs. The soft slickness of my mouth hardens him, and it isn’t long before he gathers my dark hair in one of his hands and slouches down in his seat, settling into my cadence by lifting his hips to meet my mouth. A few minutes later, I hear his voice asking me to come to the bed with him; it’s quiet and gritty, filled with expectation. I lift my head and stand up. Before he rises to his feet, he leans forward and unfastens my jeans, sliding them to the floor. He pulls me forward and his mouth meets my stomach, covering my skin with soft, wet kisses. Adam’s hands latch on to my hips, and as he stands, his lips and tongue glide up my body, enticing me as they go.
The unmade bed is soft and welcoming, and Adam doesn’t waste a single second of our time there. He touches me for what feels like forever, teasing and seducing me until I can’t hold back any longer. He’s in complete control of my body, of every nerve ending in my skin, of every note in my head. Even before the rapid, euphoric pulse of my own happy release leaves my body, Adam is on his back, lifting me on top of him and entering me as if he’s been given full and exclusive rights. We move together for a long time, flexing and arching and bending. I look down at the place where our bodies meet, where dark melts into light, and I realize the perfection of us, together.
I fall asleep snuggled into Adam’s side, staring at my own hand splayed out on his chest until my breath steadies and my eyes drift closed. I don’t sleep for long, though, because the sound of my phone ringing startles me awake a short time later. I look up at Adam who’s now turned toward the digital clock on his bedside table. It says 12:56 a.m.
“Sorry,” I say, climbing out of bed and heading out to the living room with a knot of curiosity and apprehension in my chest. I pick up my jeans and pull the phone from my pocket.
It’s Jarrod.
“Hey. What’s up? Everything okay?” I try to mask it, but I’m sure he can hear the concern in my voice. Late-night calls from Jarrod are seldom a good thing.
“Hey, Kace. Sorry to bother you.” He’s drunk. Actually, from the sound of it, he’s super drunk. “But I’ve got a problem.”
“What is it?”
“You’re not home.”
What’s he talking about? “What makes you think that?”
“Because I’ve been ringing your door buzzer for like fifteen minutes.”
“Oh. Why? What are you doing there?”
“Are you finally having a sleepover at The Mister’s? It’s about time, woman.” The lilt in his voice is telling me he’s quite pleased with his own little joke.
“Very funny. Seriously, why are you at my place?”
“Because I have some news to share with my best friend. It’s good shit. But you’re not here. So…I guess it’s gonna have to wait.”
What is he talking about? “The hell it is. Spill it.”
Adam, wearing only his boxer briefs, walks into the room and narrows his eyes at me in confusion. I mouth “Jarrod” and “he’s drunk,” and he nods his head in understanding.
“Nope. And you can’t make me.”
“Jarrod, you do know that if you don’t tell me, I’ll sneak into your apartment and stab you in your sleep, right?” Adam’s face recoils in surprise and a light smile touches both of our lips. I can hear a smile in Jarrod’s response, too.
“The gig at The Upstage is an official sell-out, and Stevie says a rep from Naysayer Records is gonna be there.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. It’s awesome, right?”
I don’t even know how to respond, because I don’t quite know how to feel. I don’t want to get my hopes up. A prolonged silence is all I can give him.
“Anyway, so…me and Stevie went out to celebrate, and I wanted to tell you in person, but you weren’t here. So I called. But now I have another problem.”
“And what’s that?”
“Buses stop running at one o’clock on a Sunday night, and I don’t have enough cash for a taxi.”
“Drank up all your money, did you?”
“I blame it on Stevie.”
“I’m sure you do.” Adam walks up behind me and slides his hands around my waist. “Key’s taped behind the picture on the landing. And please don’t leave the toilet seat up.” I feel Adam’s chest shaking with light laughter against my back.
“You’re a doll, Kace.”
“I’ll be home at seven to grab a quick shower and a change of clothes on my way to work so sleep with your clothes on, okay? Please.”
“Yes, ma’am. Oh, and tell The Mister I said hello.”
“Good night, Jar.”
“Night.”
I press the end icon and drop the phone onto the couch. Adam unwraps his arms, takes me by the hand, and leads me back to the bedroom. Just minutes after I share Jarrod’s news with Adam, we're both sound asleep.
MS. SINCLAIR IS BACK at Pine Manor just before noon on Monday. She’s bright-eyed and bushy-tailed during lunch. I overhear her talking about her hospital stay to the other ladies at the table. Some of what she says is true, but most of it is muddled. She tells them she was there because of a bee sting. Apparently, she’s allergic. Still, despite her confusion over the details, I’m glad she remembers being in the hospital at all. It makes me wonder if she’ll remember me being there with Adam.
Later in the day, it’s clear Ms. Sinclair is in need of some rest. As I’m wheeling Mrs. Thompson through the lobby on the way back to her room for a nap of her own, I see Adam taking his grandmother from her bird-watching spot by the front window to her room. He winks at me on his way past. It makes me happy inside.
After Mrs. Thompson is settled in her bed, I head back out to the lobby to straighten up, hoping I might see Adam. He often heads out to get his own lunch while his grandmother naps. I’m collecting and organizing the pile of magazines and newspapers on the lobby table when a car pulls up and parks just outside the glass doors. I can tell from the hood emblem it’s an old Jaguar.
My father was quite keen on pointing out fancy cars whenever we’d see one driving around Houma. Every time he’d spot an expensive classic car like this one, he’d declare that “a man can dream.” His boss at the quarry, Ronald Chapman, drove an old Mercedes, and my father would sometimes talk about it as if it were his own. I remember seeing that car parked outside the funeral home the day Mr. Chapman buried his daughter, Lindsay. Daddy didn’t even know the man had a grown daughter until he’d heard she died from an inoperable brain tumor.
My father made all of us go to the funeral, saying we needed to pay our respects as a family. After all, Charlie and I had met the young woman in the quarry parking lot just a few months before. I was five, and it was the first time I’d ever been to a funeral. I’ll never forget her carefully pinned-up hair and bright red lipstick, and how “alive” she still looked, even lying in that glossy casket.
I’ll also never forget the way my daddy looked at me that day. It was like he was frightened for me. Maybe even of me. Later that night, I heard him talking to Momma about how I must’ve overheard Lindsay telling he
r father she was dying the day we saw them in the quarry parking lot. He told my momma what I’d said that day, trying to explain it to himself as much as he was to her, I suppose.
I never told my father about those sorts of things after that. Because I didn’t want him to look at me that way ever again.
A man in a suit gets out of the rear passenger door of the Jaguar and starts walking toward the entrance. The glass doors slide open just as the car pulls away from the curb. The man walks in and heads straight over to Marie who is shuffling papers on the reception desk, her sour face aimed down. The man does not make eye contact with me or anyone else in the room. He coughs lightly to get Marie’s attention. They talk quietly for a few seconds, and he writes his name on the sign-in sheet. I can tell from Marie’s gestures she’s directing him to someone’s room.
Just as the man is about to head back the hallway, Adam rounds the corner and stops in his tracks the moment his feet hit the lobby carpet. He’s face-to-face with the man. The instant their eyes connect, Adam’s posture changes. He straightens himself, puffs his chest, and raises his chin, as if he’s preparing himself for a punch to the gut.
“Adam,” the man says flatly. “So this is where you’ve been.”
CHAPTER 18
Robert McGee—2004
There’s nothing in this world more unpredictable than a teenaged girl. One minute she’s looking at you all doe-eyed and sugar-tinged, and the next, she’s scowling at you like you just ate her best friend for breakfast. There ain’t nothing in the world that can prepare a man for life with a teenaged girl. I got two of ’em living under my roof right now, and when I walk up to the door after a full day working at the quarry, I’m never sure what’s waiting for me inside.
Today is my fortieth birthday, which seems kinda funny because, most days, I don’t feel a lick over twenty-five. And here I am, a single father of two girls who are nearly women themselves. Charlie’s aiming to get her driver’s license in a few weeks, and K’acy’s already taller than her big sister. The two of them together are trouble-on-a-stick: beautiful and spirited and uninhibited by the rules of the grown-up world.
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