by Susannah Nix
“Do you think people are naturally monogamous?” she asked. “That we’re meant to pair off like swans or penguins or whatever?” It was something she’d always wondered. Was her perfect match still out there somewhere waiting for her? Or was she too broken to see a good thing when it was right under her nose?
Adam’s brow creased, and she felt an overwhelming urge to smooth it with her fingers. “I don’t think people are naturally meant to do anything, and I definitely don’t believe in soul mates. Do you?”
“Not if you mean some sort of creepy predestined coupling you have no control over.” She’d seen enough soul mate fan fiction to be put off by the whole idea. “But I want to believe it’s possible to find someone who fits you perfectly. I think it sounds nice, actually.”
His mouth curved in a semi-smile. “So you’d like to find your matching penguin?”
“I’d just like to fall in love.” She wasn’t sure she’d ever admitted that to anyone before—not even Penny. She’d always tried to pretend she was tougher than that, that she didn’t need anyone else to complete her.
“You don’t think single people can live a happy, fulfilling life?”
“No, I totally think they can. I just…I’d like to see how the other half lives, I guess.”
His face had gone strangely still, and she wondered what he was thinking. Was he remembering happier times when he’d been in love, or was he so scarred and embittered he’d given up on the whole idea? She wanted to ask him, but she was too afraid of poking another sore spot.
“It’s your turn to ask a question,” she said to break the silence, which had started to feel too weighty. The longer it went on, the more she felt like she was going to explode and do something she might regret.
“Okay.” He was quiet for a moment, thinking about it. “Do you still hate me?”
Her insides crumpled themselves into a tiny ball. “I never hated you.”
His eyes darkened with disbelief. “You did a little.”
“I was pissed at you, but that’s not the same as hate.”
“Okay, maybe you don’t hate me, but you don’t like me very much.”
She swallowed and looked away, so he wouldn’t be able to see how very, incredibly wrong he was.
“See,” he said in that know-it-all voice of his. “I’m right.”
“No.” She shook her head. He had no idea, and she desperately wanted to keep it that way. “You’re the one who doesn’t like me, remember?”
“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?” He sounded distressed, and she couldn’t make herself look at him, because she couldn’t stand to see his face looking the way his voice sounded.
“It’s fine.”
He touched her wrist. “Don’t do that. Don’t pretend not to care about something you obviously care about. You should hate me. I was an asshole to you.”
“I don’t hate you.” She couldn’t. She’d tried to hate him, but it was impossible.
“For the record, I think you’re amazing.”
Something cracked inside her chest, and she was pretty sure it was her heart. It was like it had been encased in a thin layer of stone, and he’d just reached out and tapped it, shattering the brittle shell into a million tiny fragments. She stared at him, unable to speak or even breathe.
“I was so wrong about you, Olivia. You’re clever and decisive and good with people. I think you’re going to make an excellent manager, and if you asked me again I’d give you that reference in a heartbeat.”
“Oh,” she whispered.
“But you don’t have to forgive me or lie to spare my feelings.”
“I’m not. I do like you.” She tried to stop there, but the words spilled out of her anyway. “A little too much.”
She thought he’d pull away after that, but he didn’t. Instead he said, “Why don’t you ever look at me, then?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You look everywhere in the room except at me.”
“I don’t do that, do I?”
“You’re not even looking at me right now.”
He was right. She’d gotten into the habit of only looking at him in her peripheral vision, because his face was too lovely to look directly at without being swamped by all sorts of feelings she wasn’t supposed to be having.
Like the feelings she was having now that she’d met his gaze directly.
“I like when you look at me,” he said without blinking. “I wish you did it more.”
She didn’t remember deciding to move or making a conscious choice to kiss him, but she was doing it. Her mouth pressed against his, and for one glorious second she felt his lips soften beneath hers, and it was like nothing else existed in the whole world except the two of them in this perfect moment.
Until he jerked away like he’d been shocked, and Olivia knew she’d done a Bad Thing.
She’d read the whole situation wrong. All his soulful stares and nice words hadn’t meant he was attracted to her. He was just trying to be her friend—her good buddy, her work pal—and she’d gone and ruined it by putting her stupid mouth on him.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” he said, like he was the one who’d just put his mouth on someone who didn’t want it. His eyes were big as saucers, as if he’d accidentally googled something really disgusting and now he’d never be able to bleach the search results from his brain.
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry.” Olivia’s stomach churned in horror as she pushed herself off the bed. “God, what the fuck was I thinking?”
“It’s okay.” He was trying to make her feel better because he was a nice person. But it wasn’t going to work. She was never going to get over this.
“Jesus shit fuck Christ, it’s not okay.” She scrubbed her hands over her face as she paced around the room like a caged cheetah.
“Let me explain—”
“Nope,” she said, putting up a hand to stop him. “Please do not try to explain my mistake. You don’t have to explain anything. I just need—I have to get out of here.”
There was nowhere to go but out into the rain.
So that was where she went.
Chapter Fifteen
Olivia heard Adam call out after her as the door slammed shut, but she pretended she hadn’t heard and kept going.
The rain drenched her like a bucket of cold water, which was exactly what she needed right now—a shock to the system to wipe away the memory of her epic blunder.
The shoes she’d hastily shoved her feet into kicked up gouts of water as she ran down the walkway toward the far end of the building. There was a picnic table and a sad little play area with a sandbox, a slide, and a set of old swings.
Since digging a hole and burying herself in the fucking ground wasn’t a viable option, she went straight for the swings. Maybe she’d be struck by lightning. Except the last thunder she’d heard had been a while ago and far in the distance.
She turned her face up to the sky and closed her eyes, letting the rain run down her cheeks as she clutched the chains of the swing.
What the fuck had she been thinking, trying to kiss him?
He was too handsome. She should have known better than to try something like that with someone like him. Just because he was a little bit nerdy didn’t mean a guy who looked like an underwear model was going to be attracted to someone as plain and forgettable as her.
How was she ever going to face him again?
The worst part was how disturbed he’d looked. She’d sexually harassed him. She’d fucking sexually harassed him, by trying to kiss a coworker who didn’t want to be kissed.
She was scum. She was that slimy, crusty stuff that clogged up pipes.
God, and they’d actually had a good thing going. They were getting along and enjoying each other’s company before she’d fucked everything up.
Or at least it had seemed that way. Maybe he’d just been pretending. Making the most of a bad situation by humoring her and acting like he liked her when
really he’d been repulsed all along.
But even as the thought occurred to her, she knew that wasn’t right. He wouldn’t do something like that. He put too high a premium on honesty, and didn’t believe in telling white lies to make other people comfortable.
He wouldn’t have told her she was amazing if he didn’t mean it on some level.
But obviously he hadn’t meant it the way she’d taken it. He’d meant it in more of a platonic coworkers who are forced to spend time together kind of way. Or maybe even a coworkers who have become friends but nothing more than that kind of way.
But definitely not in a let’s smush our faceholes together kind of way.
“Olivia!”
Great, he’d followed her.
The sight of Adam walking toward her caused the raw, red burn of rejection to flare up anew. But even though she’d come out here to get away from him, there was still a part of her that was glad to see him. Even though it hurt to look at him and be reminded of her humiliation, she liked him too much to wish him away.
As long as he didn’t try to talk to her about what had just happened. She’d rather suck on a battery or gargle jalapeño juice than dissect her mortifying blunder and listen to Adam try to console her for being a bad person.
“Can we talk about what just happened?” he said, coming to a stop a few feet in front of her.
“Let’s not,” she said, refusing to look at him. Which was pretty easy to do with the rain running into her eyes and making everything look blurry and gray. “It’s fine. I just have a new most embarrassing moment, is all.”
“Please don’t be embarrassed.”
Her fists squeezed the swing chains until the metal bit into her skin. “Sure, and while I’m at it I’ll just stop having blue eyes too. Because it’s that easy.”
“It has nothing to do with you.”
She barked out a laugh. “Right.” So much for his dedication to truthfulness. Now he was feeding her the oldest lie in the book: it’s not you, it’s me. As if.
“I really do like you,” he said, but he’d lost all credibility. She didn’t have to believe him. “If things were different…” He didn’t finish the sentence, which was just as well, because she didn’t need to hear him describe the impossible possibilities that might lie ahead if only he liked her the way she liked him.
“You don’t have to try to make me feel better,” she told him, hoping he’d take it to heart and stop talking. “Really.”
But he wasn’t going to be dissuaded that easily. He was going to say what he’d come out here to say. “It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just…I can’t get involved with another coworker. I just can’t. Not after what happened with Hailey.”
She did look up at him then, but she had to wipe the rain out of her eyes before she could focus on him properly. He looked as embarrassed as she felt, which only made her feel worse. His eyes were like two hollow pools as they skittered away from hers.
He claimed the swing beside her and sat down, which was much better, because then neither of them had to look at the other, and there was a nice, defined safety zone between them.
Adam’s swing creaked as he straightened his legs out in front of him. “When things blew up between us, it made going to work a nightmare, and I swore I’d never put myself in that position again.”
Olivia watched the raindrops bounce off the picnic table in front of them. “I guess I can understand that.”
“I’m sorry if I misled you.”
“I’m sorry that I wanted to be misled.”
“I wanted it too. But I can’t. Dating a coworker is too fraught. I won’t go there again.”
She dared a glance at him and immediately regretted it. He looked like the walking wounded. He was one of those people shuffling around a hospital ward with his IV stand after surgery. Even though the incision had been all stitched up and wasn’t bleeding anymore, every step was a painful reminder of the wound that hadn’t healed.
“That’s okay,” she said, trying to make her voice sound light. “It’s cool. How about we just forget all this ever happened? Do a reset and roll back the clock like Daylight Savings Time. The last hour is a total wipe.”
“Sure,” he said. “I can do that.”
“Great. It never happened, and we’ll never speak of it again.”
“Sounds good to me.”
The problem was she didn’t know how to go on from here. How to get back to where they were before she’d ruined it all. What were they supposed to talk about now? How were they going to spend the rest of the day cooped up together in a tiny motel room? How in the holy cheese-covered fuck were they supposed to sleep in the same bed tonight?
“Do you want to go back inside now?” he asked, giving her a sidelong glance.
“Not really.” She pushed off with her feet and let herself swing. The raindrops smacked her in the face as she sliced through the air, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
“Okay. I guess we’ll just stay out here in the rain, then.” He was pitying her, which was almost as bad as being repulsed by her.
“You don’t have to stay,” she told him, turning her face up to the sky to let the rain wash her hair back. “I’m fine.”
“I’m already wet. I might as well. Besides, I haven’t been on a swing since I was a kid.”
“Me too. I forgot how much I liked them.”
She heard him get up, and opened her eyes as the sound of his feet crunching on the gravel drew nearer. “What are you doing?” she asked in alarm as he positioned himself behind her.
“I’m giving you a push.” His hands landed on her lower back before she could prepare herself for it. The contact pressed her wet clothes against her skin, and all the breath rushed out of her lungs as he propelled her forward.
She straightened her legs and leaned back as she flew into the air, her muscle memory instinctively taking over to push her higher. For a moment she hung there at the terminus of the arc, suspended between forward and backward momentum, and felt an exhilarating sort of freedom, like there was nothing tethering her to the earth and all her problems.
When she sailed back toward Adam he pushed her again, harder this time, to send her flying even higher. A laugh bubbled out of her throat as she sliced through the raindrops, and she heard him laugh along with her.
“I really do think you’re amazing,” he said.
Her stomach clenched, and she jammed her feet into the ground to bring herself to a lurching halt.
She stood unsteadily and rounded on him as she wiped the rain out of her face. “You’re not making this any easier by saying things like that. Saying things like that is exactly how I ended up humiliating myself.” Her voice was shaking but it couldn’t be helped under the circumstances. She was lucky she’d been able to get the words out at all.
He hung his head a little. “I’m sorry.”
“We should go inside,” she said, and started back to the room.
She made it all the way to the sidewalk before Adam’s hand closed around her wrist, bringing her to a sudden halt. She spun and found herself looking up into his eyes, which were so dark and deep she felt like she was drowning in them.
Before her brain had time to register what was happening, he took her face in his hands and kissed her.
Chapter Sixteen
Adam’s lips were so warm Olivia could feel them all the way down to her toes. She could feel his kiss everywhere, seeping into her numb limbs and waking them up with tingling pins and needles.
She was kissing Adam. Even better, he was kissing her, and he was doing it like he couldn’t stand to do anything else. Hungry and desperate, but still somehow tender and just a little uncertain.
They were kissing in the rain like two people in a goddamn Nicholas Sparks movie, which wasn’t something she’d thought happened in real life, yet here they were. He was Channing Tatum and Ryan Gosling rolled into one, and she was Rachel McAdams or that other actress whose name she couldn’t remember.
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When Adam pulled away, Olivia was so dazed she couldn’t move. She couldn’t even open her eyes, because she was afraid if she did, it would break the spell and he’d try to take it back. She stood there in stunned silence with her eyes squeezed shut, waiting for him to push her away again as the raindrops slid down her face.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he pulled her even closer, and his thumb stroked her cheek as he murmured her name. He was breathing hard, all erratic and shaky like he’d just run a marathon. His forehead touched hers and their noses rubbed. Then his mouth found its way to hers again, and this time she gave herself up completely.
Her hands wrapped around his waist as her lips parted for him. Their tongues slid together in a kiss that was hot and wet and urgent, and he clutched at her with the ferocity of a drowning man who’d found something to grab onto. She didn’t know what had happened to change his mind, but kissing him felt too good to worry about that right now.
The pressure of his mouth was bruising as it slanted over hers, and she rose up on her toes, craving even more. Her hands explored the broad plains of his back, her fingernails curling into his wet shirt as she strained against him. He hadn’t shaved that morning and his stubble burned as it scraped over her lips, but it only made her kiss him harder.
His teeth caught her lower lip, and it took her a moment to realize the moan she was hearing was coming from her. It seemed to excite him, and his hands slid down to her ass, squeezing and caressing as he held her even closer.
And then he was lifting her up, his arms banding around her as he settled her on his hips. She wrapped her legs around him as he carried her back toward their room, not breaking the kiss until they’d made it to the door. He had to set her down then so he could wrestle the key out of his pocket and shove it into the card reader. He pushed the door open, dragging her inside as their mouths crashed together again.
