“That’s…” I shook my head. “That’s so sad.”
“He doesn’t seem sad.” He shrugged off my hand. “He probably wasn’t that into me.”
I shook my head. “I was there at the airport when you said goodbye. He sobbed, Heath. Don’t say he’s not that into you. That’s bullshit. When I talked to him last week—”
Without warning, Heath’s huge hand swatted down, batting the bowl of popcorn off the couch to bounce off the wall below where the TV hung. Popcorn scattered everywhere—the floor, bouncing off the wall, raining down on the coffee table.
Heath was on his feet, shouting, “Goddamn it, Mia! Don’t fucking preach to me. You messed up your own life and made it a shit show. You got lucky and everything’s fixed. Now you think we all can follow suit?”
I sucked in a breath, sitting back, breathless, as if he’d punched me in the stomach. It took a moment of stunned silence and vigorous blinking through my own hurt to remember that Heath was wounded and he was striking out at me because he could. Because I was a safe punching bag. And he had nowhere else to vent.
“I—I want you to be happy, Heath. That’s all I want.” My voice faded into a whisper, eyes stinging with the beginning of unshed tears. And, as abruptly as his anger had appeared, it evaporated.
He collapsed on the couch beside me and grabbed me to him, crying. “I’m sorry. Fuck. I’m so sorry.”
I returned the hug, almost suffocated by his embrace. Heath was a mountain of a man. That brief display of violence would have caused fear in me from any other source besides my self-adopted brother. I knew I was safe with him. Always.
He was rocking back and forth, his hug tightening, pulling me along with him like a rag doll. “God, I suck. I’m so sorry,” he kept repeating.
Now his voice was breaking and his head was on my shoulder, his chest vibrating with violent sobs. And inexplicably, I started to cry, too. It wasn’t every day that you felt your best friend fall apart in your arms, his heart shattered into tiny bits.
I’d done this before, helped pick up the pieces. And though Heath liked to imagine himself a tough guy, when he loved, he loved with his whole heart. He put everything out there uninhibitedly to be stepped on and crushed. Without fear of consequences. And though that made for more painful breakups, I knew that if I’d been the same way with Adam in the beginning, we may not have encountered some of the huge problems we did later.
Fortunately, as Heath said, I was lucky. Very lucky. Adam and I had a second chance, and we were learning every day how to make this one stick forever. But that didn’t mean that Heath and Connor couldn’t have their own brand of luck, too.
I held him tight and didn’t speak for long minutes—probably longer than a half-hour or so, while he sobbed on my shoulder. I didn’t shush him, didn’t rock him, didn’t coo like he was a baby.
I was there for him. A silent presence. I cried with him. I relived those moments when my own heart had broken. I empathized.
Adam and I had never had to worry about things like family, religion, beliefs, or someone hating us simply because of who we loved. I couldn’t even imagine what that would be like.
Heath’s parents hadn’t spoken to him in almost a decade. Connor had to keep his identity deeply in the closet, never fully being able to reveal who he was to the people he loved most in the world. And I couldn’t help but think about how cruel that was.
Heath was right. I was lucky. And I had no business giving him love advice from my position of never having to worry about those other things. People would never oppose my and Adam’s right to love each other and get married.
So that night, as we held each other, I tried my hardest to be a good friend.
And hoped. Hoped that someday he’d get to be happy, too, with the man that he loved.
We never did get to the movie. After a long talk, a cleanup job, and another bowl of popcorn, we pulled out the Munchkin cards and played that instead. It was great for a much-needed laugh.
By the time I made it home, it was after nine and—miracle of miracles—my significant other had made it home before me. However, he was on his laptop in his home office, likely still working.
And he was exhausted. He couldn’t even hide it from me. He’d changed out of work clothes—looking delicious, as usual, in a pair of gray sweat pants and a black t-shirt (a gift from me) that read I’m a programmer: To save time, let’s just assume that I am never wrong. I swooped up behind him, threw my arms around his neck, and smooched his prickly cheek.
He leaned back, hooking a hand behind my neck to bring me in for a kiss on the lips. “How was movie night with Heath?”
I straightened, throwing a significant glance at his laptop. “You still working?”
Adam ran a quick hand through his hair, as if smoothing it out. He was trying to eliminate the telltale signs of him having pulled at it or fiddled with it—a habit for him born of frustration.
“Still dealing with all that IT stuff? The IT guy still not coming through for you?” I asked before he could formulate an answer.
He nodded. “I’m really disappointed in Alan. I keep waiting for him to get his shit together, and he’s not rising to the occasion. I get that his personal life is in the toilet, but there’s only so long that I can wait on that.”
“Bet when you sat down to write your first program, you never imagined yourself being more a manager of people than a plain ol’ computer geek.”
He heaved a sigh. “Sometimes I really wish I could go back to those days. Just me and my PC and my source lines of code in C.”
“But…in those days, you hoped to build your dream game and have millions of people enjoy it. And now here it is, reality.”
“Yeah. But one man can’t do it all.”
“Not even you.” I leaned away to get a better look into his face. He appeared pale, drawn. There were circles under his gorgeous, dark eyes. I smoothed my hand across the whiskered cheek. “That’s why you surround yourself with kick-ass, awesome people and jettison the losers. If they don’t share your vision, let them go. Like, sadly, you may have to do with Alan. But if they rock, hold them close. Like…Jordan, for example.”
His jaw tensed under my hand, and those dark eyes hardened like black ice. Nevertheless, I wasn’t sure which mention brought about that reaction—his IT director or Jordan? Maybe both. To ease the tension, I away, tilting my head to see his computer screen. He reached over and closed it. It locked with a final click, and I stared at him, raising a brow.
“Business BS. I really do need to stop for the night.”
“Yeah. Or you’ll never sleep. You’ll toss and turn for a few hours like you did last night. And the night before. Then you’ll finally give up and sneak out of bed at about three or four a.m., hoping I won’t notice.”
He grimaced. “Guilty.”
“You aren’t sleeping. You’re working as hard as ever. You’re starting to look raggedy.”
His brows rose, and he appeared indignant. “Raggedy?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “You’ve got a lot of pressure on you. And with this wedding—”
His eyes narrowed. “We are not delaying the wedding date.”
“I didn’t say we should. I am worried about you, though. About your health.”
He laughed, leaning back in his chair and patting his lap. “I’m perfectly healthy. Want me to prove it to you right now?”
I grinned. “Now, now.” I gently sank onto his lap, settling in to get comfortable as his arms encircled my waist, and he kissed my cheek. “Just don’t take good health for granted.”
“I don’t,” he murmured. He didn’t have to say the rest. After what we’d been through the year before, it didn’t need to be spoken between us. We’d learned the hard way that good health wasn’t something that anyone should assume they had until it was too late.
“Let’s go to bed.” I kissed him. “I’ll give you a massage or we can sit in the hot tub if you want. Nice and relaxing. You need a good night’s sleep fo
r once.”
He smiled. “The hot tub sounds good. I think I can be persuaded if you promise to wear that black and white bikini.”
I winked at him. “Maybe I’ll go commando.”
He bit his lip. “Even better.”
Minutes later, we were in the hot tub off the main deck of our house. We kept the lights off, since that deck looked out on the back bay. In the dark, it was sufficiently private, and we enjoyed the silence, watching the lights on the water while the hot water bubbled around us.
He scooted me next to him and put an arm around my waist, relaxing with a satisfied sigh as my bare skin pressed against his.
“So…was it supposed to be a surprise?” I finally asked one of my burning questions.
“What?”
“The new quest.”
He was quiet for a moment, resting his head against a cushion on the deck behind him. “There are new quests with every game update. You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“Lord Sisyphus’s Wedding Quest.”
He laughed. “That’s actually a good idea.”
“So was it yours?”
“Was?” He lifted his head toward me, brow furrowing. “I’m confused.”
“The quest is in the game already. Heath found it and showed it to me.”
He frowned. “Huh. Maybe I missed that memo.”
“You mean you’re not the one to okay every single new quest that’s implemented?” I teased.
“And you think I’m busy now?” He laughed.
“Did someone sneak it in as a surprise, then?” I leaned my cheek against his warm shoulder.
“I have no idea. Honest to God. Someone must be playing a joke.”
“Well, the wording of the quest describes the imminent marriage of Lord Sisyphus and ‘Princess Emma.’”
He turned to me and grinned, his head sinking back onto the pillow, his arm tightening around my waist. “Lord Sisyphus is a lucky sonuvabitch. Princess Emma is hot, but she’s sassy and smart, too. With a heavy dose of sarcasm. And did I mention she’s hot? Especially when she’s sitting next to me, naked.”
But even with that come-on, I wasn’t about to let this go. It wasn’t every day I could get him talking about in-game quests. “So what do you think the quest is about?”
He shrugged. “How he hires a wedding planner? How his fiancée is apathetic to all his grand schemes and plans to write her name in the sky?
“Pfft,” I said. “Very funny. I’m not apathetic just because I don’t quite share your enthusiasm.”
He paused for a long moment, appearing to be thinking. “I’ll see what I can find out by asking around at the office tomorrow.”
“Okay. I’m very excited. Can’t you tell?” I turned and nibbled on his collarbone.
He smiled, kissing my forehead.
I was suddenly reminded of my earlier conversation with April. “So…”
He turned to me when I hesitated. Should I ask him about Jordan and work right now when he seemed to finally be relaxing? I blinked. If I wanted him to unwind enough to get a good night’s sleep, bringing it up now seemed counterproductive.
I made a note to ask him tomorrow instead.
“So?” he repeated, as if prompting me to continue.
“So, uh, is this helping you relax?” I adlibbed.
“Yeah…it is.” He took a deep breath and then let it go as if to convince me that he was successfully unwinding.
“Good. I thought it might. Maybe all we need is to get you on a relaxing routine at night.”
“You know what else would be super helpful to get me to fall asleep, though?”
I raised my brows. “A massage?”
“An orgasm.”
I laughed. “You are so fucking predictable.”
He tugged on me, pulling me into his lap so that I was straddling him. “You like it that way.”
I kissed him again. “I do.”
And I did…that stability, the predictability, was my home. Adam was my constant, my lodestar. He was the solid rock beneath my ever-shifting sea. And he wasn’t quite himself these days. I knew that. He’d taken too much on himself, and I could tell that we needed to have that conversation, too. But not tonight.
Not tonight.
Chapter 7
Adam
With the weekend finally here, I was stuck at home as a promise to Emilia that I’d at least take one day—twenty-four whole hours, as she put it—away from work. Which meant no phone calls, no texts, no emails, no laptop.
In keeping with the spirit of that promise, I set aside the day for wedding plans instead. She’d try to talk me out of it and divert to some idea of having fun. I’d satisfy her with a trip to the beach or a nice dinner out, later.
But the morning would be all wedding, all the time, whether she protested or not.
Ironically, it was me who caught her working when I popped my head into her study after I was done with my morning workout. “Is that a textbook I see?”
She slammed it shut, lowering her legs from where they rested on her desk. “Pleasure reading. Purely for my own enjoyment, I assure you.”
I padded across the floor, bare toes crushing the soft, loopy carpeting beneath my feet. Snatching up the book she’d been reading, I peered at her. “And how are you enjoying Rapid Interpretation of EKGs?”
She grimaced at me—like she normally did when I called her on her antics. “Uhh. It’s fascinating. Can’t put it down. Can’t wait to see how it ends.”
I raised a skeptical brow, and she began to laugh.
“Know what else is fascinating?” I said with a meaningful grin. “Our wedding plans.”
Her smile drooped, but she didn’t say anything.
I held out my hand. “Come with me, young lady.”
When she locked her fingers around mine, I tugged her out of her chair. She followed me across the hall into my office. “I’d be more excited if you were taking me into the bedroom for a booty call.”
“Later.”
“Pfft.”
“I wanted to know your thoughts on colors.” Pulling out the wedding planner’s notebook, I turned to her.
“Colors?” Her expression clouded. “Let’s do something simple. It’s the whole reason we decided to fly people to St. Lucia in the first place, remember? We have the hotel all to ourselves for our party.” She turned pleading eyes on me—big, brown, beautiful pleading eyes that usually got her exactly what she wanted. Usually. “Wouldn’t it be so much better to have the wedding planner connect with the events coordinator there? Since both of us are so busy. Those two can get it all done. We show up and have a blast. Simple as that.”
Frustration rose up inside me, and I clenched my jaw, trying to be patient. “It’s our wedding, Emilia.”
She drew away, running a hand idly up and down my arm. “Okay. I’ll be good.”
I smirked at her. “I don’t believe that for a second.”
“Well…” She gave me a flirtatious wink. “Win-win for you, then. You like it when I’m bad.”
“I do…but not right now. We have to make some important decisions.” I pointed to the chair beside the one I was sinking into. “Sit.”
“The most important things are that we share with our family and friends, we have fun, and we come home husband and wife. Right?”
I fumbled through the binder for the correct page. “It should be the perfect day. It will set the tone for the rest of our life together.”
And she didn’t know this yet, but the ceremony and party afterward were going to make up for all the other bullshit surrounding this wedding. I would make sure of that. If we ended up having to sign that piece-of-shit document after all my struggles against it, I was determined that a spectacular wedding would ease that difficulty.
She sighed, crossing her legs and slouching in the seat beside me like the impatient student at the back of the classroom. “It’s a party. People are going to eat, dance, and get drunk. Take a lot of funny pictur
es. Then you and I are going to say some very sweet things to each other, dance, force-feed each other cake, and drink champagne before going up to our room alone to screw like bunnies.”
I threw her sharp look, and her brows rose halfway up her forehead. This was the disapproving glance I gave an underperforming employee or a friend who was being annoying or over the top (cough—Jordan—cough). The woman with whom I planned to share the rest of my life didn’t typically receive it.
She blinked, appearing puzzled at my reaction. When I remained silent, she stammered, “I—I was—I was thinking. Wouldn’t it be fun to randomly show up at the airport with only our passports and the clothes we’re wearing? We could pick any destination and fly off there…a few weeks later, we return rested, tanned, and married. Wouldn’t that be cool?”
Tense silence hung in the air between us, and she frowned while I simmered with irritation at her words.
I finally set aside the notebook and folded my arms across my chest. “So your mom would be okay with that? And my family? You, yourself, said that the most important thing is that we share this day with our family and friends. You actually think they’d be fine with missing that moment in our lives?” I clenched my jaw so that my head hurt. “Or maybe it’s not as important to you?”
She flushed. “Of course it’s important to me. And—” She took a deep breath and let it go, as if trying to curb her anger before it flared up. Not unlike what was happening with me. “I’m sorry. I was spitballing. I didn’t mean to make you mad.” Her eyes flicked away from mine to focus on the notebook I’d set aside. “It is very important to me. But the wedding planning kind of stresses me out.”
“That’s why I’m handling it,” I said quietly.
She nodded, silent. I relaxed my arms and picked up the notebook again.
She leaned toward me and put her hand on my leg. “You okay?”
Yeah, I was stiff. These days, tension was a constant. Her eyes opened wide, and she licked her lips.
“It’s the most important day of our lives.” My tone of voice cut like a knife. Even I could hear it. She visibly swallowed.
“There will be a lot of important days in our lives.” She tilted her head.
Worth Any Cost: (Adam & Mia #4) (Gaming The System Book 6) Page 8
