by Stella Rhys
I was sitting all the way up now, my sunglasses pushed up to my head as I stared ahead at the ocean. It was more of an acknowledgment of the past than I’d ever heard from Adam, and a part of me was rejoicing. Spilling over with gratitude for what my brother had just said.
But there was still this vague stress gnawing at me—one I couldn’t figure out until he started talking again.
“Anyway, long story short,” he laughed, reaching his limit of being serious. “I need to get my shit together. I know I like to say that to you, but I think it’s been projection this whole time,” he joked. “I mean I didn’t even know your roommate or boss’s name until this morning. Iain knows more about your new life, for Christ’s sake.”
I was still stunned, but at the mention of Iain’s name, I figured it out.
Why Adam’s early visit was stressing me out.
“Speaking of Iain, it’s his birthday today,” Adam said. “So you, me and a bunch of the guys are going to party our asses off tonight. I already reserved a table at The Terrace. You know that famous bar with the infinity pools at the top of The Victorian Hotel?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and frowned. “Wait. Hold on, Adam. What are you talking about? Who are the guys?”
“Oh, just some of our law school friends. It all fell together so perfectly somehow,” Adam said just as I heard him say “yeah, right here’s good” to presumably a cab driver. I was about to ask him what fell together perfectly, but then he went on himself. “Basically, I’ve been busting my ass since the whole Mom drama happened so I could hopefully come to New York early. And then I realized I was getting in on Iain’s actual birthday, so I called his assistant to pry out some info on his meetings for the weekend,” Adam explained, making me already shake my head and think no on repeat. “And crazy thing—Erica said he actually took off most of the weekend. She’s not on call or anything, so I took it as a sign. Rounded up six of the guys, told them we had to go big this year since Iain’s finally free of Keira. I made the reservations and boom. Party central tonight.”
The happy grin was audible in his voice as I exhaled long and hard.
Goddammit Adam.
“And I really want you to come to everything tonight,” Adam said sincerely. “I mean have fun at your boss’s thing, but when you come back, hit me up so I can tell you where to meet us, because we should definitely both be celebrating Iain since he’s made both our lives significantly better since basically day one,” he laughed, giving a quick thanks to his driver before getting out of his car and shutting the door. I could hear his suitcase wheels on bumpy cobblestone as he started walking and suddenly I knew where he was. “So you in for tonight?” he asked.
My eyes were still closed, my hand over my face.
“Yeah. I’m in,” I said, swallowing hard before I asked, “Where are you right now?”
“Well, you’re off at the beach so I figured I’d go surprise Iain,” Adam said. Then he gave a laugh. “Which means if your coworkers are drinking right now, you should join them—so you can be on our level by the time you get back into the city.”
And then I heard his suitcase wheels rolling on marble as he got into the lobby of Iain’s building, giving his name to the desk before telling me he had to go and to call later.
So we hung up, and once we did, I found myself already reaching for my tote bag because I no longer felt like I wanted to leave, I felt like I needed to.
But just then Freya’s assistant came back with the plastic cups for the toast. There was a round of cheers and already tears as Freya’s face started to crumble with emotion.
And just like that, I knew I was stuck here for a little longer, smiling for my boss but quietly cursing out Adam, because I loved my brother. I loved him with all my heart.
But God, his timing really sucked ass.
31
IAIN
Well, this was unexpected.
I’d been prepared for a surprise today, but it hadn’t been this.
With Holland set to leave her boss’s party around one, I had planned on making a few light work calls before she got into the city. Just a quick round to check in on some clients. I was in the middle of mollifying one about an apparently underwhelming endorsement deal when my intercom got a ring from the desk downstairs.
“Hello, Mr. Thorn. Adam Maxwell is here to see you.”
And just like that, my day—potentially my entire weekend—had been hit by the human path of destruction that was Adam Maxwell.
Sitting in front of him now at The Oxford Social, our third round of beers between us, I eyed him, letting him talk with the flirty waitress before checking my latest text from Holland.
HOLLAND: Trust me I want to. I really really do. But I’d feel terrible Iain
I winced.
Mostly because I knew she was being more rational than I was.
With Adam at my side since eleven this morning, I couldn’t call her, so we’d been texting, and for the past half hour, I’d been trying to tell her we could still go through with her plans. She’d spent a good week making them and it didn’t matter how low-key they were compared to Adam’s. They were still her plans.
And beyond all that, I wanted to be with her more than anyone in the world right now.
HOLLAND: He worked overtime this week so he could surprise us and it’s not like it’s just him. He had a bunch of your Stanford friends fly out from Cali and other parts of the country to celebrate you.
HOLLAND: Trust me there is nothing I want more than to be with you right now. But per your rules my birthday plans cost me about $12
I smirked at the sequence of laughing and silly emojis she added—I suspected for the sole purpose of making me laugh, because as disappointed as she was herself, she knew I was upset too.
Really upset, considering the first long text I’d sent her.
Which was why she was taking on the role of the calm one right now.
Because just as I took care of her, she always tried to take care of me.
HOLLAND: And Adam already went all out. Plus I think he’s having some kind of brotherly epiphany right now so I feel like it’d be terrible to hang him out to dry this weekend when we could easily make this up next weekend or another time. Right?
My chest expanded as I breathed in deep.
But then I let out an inaudible sigh and texted back “right”, because that was exactly what she was.
We had plenty of time to get to her plans since we’d agreed to extend our two weeks. To do this for as long as we wanted. Everything was fine and she was being perfectly reasonable right now. The adult. I just had to take a deep breath and reset my mind a little, because it wasn’t like I wouldn’t be seeing her tonight. I would still be seeing her as soon as she got back from the beach.
I’d just be seeing her in the presence of her brother.
Blinking, I suddenly frowned, finding myself with a brand new question.
But before I could ask, she beat me to it.
HOLLAND: How are we going to act in front of Adam?
A version of my question, at least.
Mine was whether or not we were going to tell him.
The rational side of me knew it was premature, despite the fact that Holland and I had agreed to keep seeing each other. The fact of the matter was that it had only been three weeks and we had yet to even speak explicitly about what we were doing. The rational side of me knew it was best to tell Adam once things were stable. Serious.
But the other side of me—which was long-suppressed and had been steadily fighting its way back through the whirlwind that was the past three weeks of my life—told me that he could afford to know now.
Because I knew in my heart what I felt for Holland.
And I knew it was real.
It was more real than anything I knew I was capable of in my head, my heart and in every fiber of my being, and I was ready to tell him as soon as he turned back to face me.
But the moment he did, he dropped a
surprise question on me.
“So you’re still doing that bullshit, huh?”
I looked at him, my eyebrows pulling tight in confusion. “What?”
He looked serious now.
“I know you’re still seeing Camila,” he said, making my heart slam against my ribs like it was trying to break them.
I was still reeling from the lurch, feeling instantly heated as I looked at him.
“Okay,” I said slowly, trying to figure out where this was coming from. Trying to fight off the sick feeling in my stomach as I was forced to think about this right now. I flipped on my poker face as I asked, “How do you know?”
Adam took a drink of his beer, and as solemn as he was being with me right now he still managed to toss a wink across the restaurant at the waitress, who was no doubt giving him eyes from across the room.
“I talked to your assistant,” Adam finally said, his voice hard despite the playful look in his eyes directed behind me. “Erica.”
My secretary.
I clenched my jaw, wanting immediately to be pissed at Erica for being so uncharacteristically unprofessional. But Adam had a way with charming women senseless, whether it was in person or over the phone, and it didn’t help that Erica had an obvious crush on him since he visited my office early this year.
“Yeah, I was calling to see what your schedule looked like this weekend, and I was surprised to hear that your workaholic ass took a whole weekend off for once,” Adam explained, still smirking and shaking his head at whatever the waitress was indicating to him. “And Erica told me it was probably because you had a really rough week.” The smile was gone from his lips by the time he turned his eyes back to me. “Because of Camila.”
I knew I wasn’t doing a good job at disguising my emotions anymore, because Adam’s solemn look shifted to something tinged with sympathy.
“Look, I’m not judging, Iain. Lord knows I make some questionable decisions in my own life, and we’ve been through enough together that I will never judge you,” Adam said seriously, looking me dead in the eye to tell me that he was coming from the place he always was when shit got serious. From a place of brotherhood. “All I’m saying is that I think it’s time you made a decision on that shit already. Get some closure. Hell, do it tonight for your birthday, because we both know it’s slowly killing you. It’s fucking poisoning you every time you go.”
I felt my jaw tick as my pulse rose, but I made sure to keep my voice even as I spoke. “You never said anything for years. Why now?” I asked.
“Honestly?” he laughed weakly. “Because I’ve been doing a lot of shit I never do this week.”
“Like what?” I questioned.
“Reflect,” he said sincerely. “And think.” The faint hint of humor faded from his face as he frowned down into his drink for a second. “I saw this week the way my little sister handled her demons, and it just made me realize that she’s been so much fucking smarter than me this whole time.” His voice and his eyes glimmered with a mix of pride and remorse as he looked up at me. “I mean it’s kind of crazy, right? We thought she was just this shy little girl, but she’s actually been a fighter for a really long time. Longer than either of us. She suffered in silence for twenty-two years with my crazy, toxic asshole of a mother, but she just kept going and going. She busted her ass to figure out the right way to live, and now she’s finally doing that. She finally has the peace she deserves, because she cut out the bad people in her life. The people who were only ever going to hurt her in the long run.” Adam’s shoulders went up then fell harshly back down as he heaved a big sigh. “Which I’m pretty sure is what we’re all supposed to be doing,” he said, hitting me with a pointed look before finishing his beer and nodding behind me at the waitress for another round.
He said something about doing the right thing.
And then he went right into talking about baseball.
Outwardly casual, I nodded along. Shot the shit about our crazy line of work. Diva clients and the new collective bargaining agreement.
But underneath the table, I was wringing them so hard I thought I might break my own fucking fingers.
Because my mind had yet to actually move on from what Adam said.
From the fact that he was absolutely right.
About Camila.
About Holland.
He was so right in fact that I was smarting from the truth. Pissed off and wounded. Like he’d just sunk his fist into my face to wake me the fuck up.
It was a reality check.
A bucket of water dumped over my head to wake me up from the dream.
The bitter cold still stung as I sat there with Adam, talking away, shifting seamlessly back into the Iain who could so effortlessly pretend that everything was fine when it wasn’t.
Of course, my muscles tightened when my phone buzzed in my lap with a new text from Holland, and all I could do was be grateful right now that what she sent me wasn’t anything with words.
It was just a single question mark.
32
HOLLAND
I made the crucial mistake of waiting for a coworker who insisted I skip the train and let her drive me home, because she wound up getting caught up in a long heart-to-heart with Freya, and I missed the train I would have taken home, which was why I was now, at nearly 5PM, hustling back to my apartment with the straps of my tote repeatedly falling off my shoulder, and my chest still heavy with the weight of the last text Iain had sent.
IAIN: Adam can’t know
It had come forty-five minutes after my question, despite the fact that we had been texting steadily for a full hour before with barely any wait time between messages.
And it wasn’t technically unreasonable. I wasn’t fully sure myself that I wanted to tell Adam yet anyway. It already felt like I was constantly trying to catch up on telling Mia everything she wanted to understand about my relationship with Iain, so I could only imagine how much more I’d have to talk about if Adam knew, because if Adam knew, A.J knew, and I just wanted to enjoy the peace for a little. So I could understand not telling Adam.
But something about Iain’s text made me nervous.
Enough that I’d texted after if he was okay, and his response to that was quick: I’m okay.
Oddly enough, not comforting.
Because he had never been a man of many words but still—something about it felt so off and all I wanted was to call and hear the sound of his voice. To gauge how he was feeling. But he was with my brother.
So I called my brother.
Of course, timing had it so I caught Adam just as Iain was in the middle of saying hi to all their law school friends who had just come in to meet them at brunch. I could actually hear all they boisterous greetings and fanfare. I had heard bits of conversation, how happy they were to be in New York. I heard Adam tell everyone to say hi to me, and everyone chorused “hiii Holland.”
But then Adam said he had to go and hung up.
And since I didn’t want to come off as a clingy, needy kid sister, I refrained from calling back or texting Iain, realizing that what I needed most was to just see them in person to figure everything out face to face.
Which was why I was now standing in a full train in a sandy beach cover-up with a bag full of towels and sunscreen, eagerly waiting to get home, get showered and get dressed so I could text Adam to send me the location of where he was at that point.
Because I couldn’t help feeling vaguely worried and wishing I could see what Adam and Iain were up to. But Adam had deleted his Instagram since becoming a senior agent.
A.J, however.
I paused, suddenly remembering seeing her Instagram story last night. It was a silly picture of her fiance sitting in her open suitcase with the caption “when he doesn’t want you to leave.”
Thank God, I thought when I realized she’d come on this trip too.
I was a stop from my house at Third Avenue when I went to look at A.J’s story.
Updated twelve minutes ago
.
Yes.
Holding my phone close, I clicked on the story, watching the video set inside a flashy, arty, part-wild, part-fancy lounge that I didn’t recognize and would never know without the likes of Adam or Iain. The caption was “nights on The Bowery” but there was no location tag to show exactly where on Bowery they were.
I squinted, watching closely as the video surveyed the enormous space, going from the mural-painted walls to the funky sculptures to the cocktail waitress leaning over their very long, very crowded U-shaped booth.
And what I saw a flash of just before the video ended made my stomach lurch.
I stared, unblinking, but by the time I tried to replay, it wouldn’t load because my service dropped out, leaving me to curse the train I was on for the tenth time today—and to wonder what the hell could’ve possibly happened since my last text to Iain.
I knew I’d run into Mia when I got home since her shift didn’t start for another two hours, but I didn’t plan on telling her anything until I got into the apartment and saw her coming out of the bathroom in her robe with her hair wet.
“Inappropriate, but I thought about your boyfriend the whole time in there. Do you think he used the coconut body wash or the grapefruit?” she joked. But when I couldn’t laugh or respond she frowned. “Oh God. What’s wrong?”
“He’s out with my brother and their law school friends and I saw in A.J’s Instagram story that he’s with a woman.”
