Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 30889 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 154(@200wpm)___ 124(@250wpm)___ 103(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 30889 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 154(@200wpm)___ 124(@250wpm)___ 103(@300wpm)
He yawns, sounding content, and I love the sound. Then he lifts his hand, slides it down the ink on my chest, tracing the sunburst then the stars. “What are these for? I wanted to ask the first night.”
A personal question. One I’ve answered reluctantly for others. One that maybe reveals too much about me. But I think, and I hope, Adam will understand in a way others probably haven’t. “Baseball,” I say.
He frowns, confused. “How?”
“It centered me. It felt like the sun,” I say, admitting a scary truth of my soul. I love the game. “It’s my constant. Like the sun and the stars.”
He’s quiet for a second, then he moves over me, kisses the sun, then the stars, then settles next to me. I have no idea where we’re going tomorrow, but for tonight, I’ll take everything he’s offering.
Especially when he says, “I get it.”
That’s the best part of this thing with him. But that’s the problem too.
10
Derek
When I wake up the next morning, the sheets beside me are cold. Again? My guard is up as I leave my bedroom, expecting to find Adam just gone. Old habits. Protective habits. People leave. They just do.
Instead, he’s seated at the kitchen island, dressed, with coffees in a cardboard holder next to him. His face is apprehensively scrunched as he reads his phone. Not a great morning-after look, even if I feel the same way.
Unsure what happens next. Or what should happen next.
“Good morning,” I say.
“Same to you,” he says.
He doesn’t move to kiss me. Shame. “We should probably talk,” he says instead.
We should. I know we should. It’ll just suck. “Yeah,” I say, bracing myself for bad news. How the fuck have I gotten to this point with him in such a short time? I should just shrug him off. But I can’t seem to, and that’s irritating. I wish he weren’t under my skin.
“Last time, we weren’t that clear with each other,” he says.
“We weren’t,” I say, letting him take the lead.
“I really like you,” Adam begins, and I look away so he doesn’t see the stupidly big grin coming from his admission. But I can also sense a but coming on the horizon. “But I probably shouldn’t live here,” he adds.
Ohhhh.
That’s not the but I expected. Maybe he was fooling me twice and running out the door again. But I get where he’s coming from though. We probably don’t need to go from zero to sixty overnight. I turn back to him. “Yeah,” I say, a little defeated.
“It makes things complicated,” he says.
“It does, and they’re already complicated,” I add, then I swallow some too-hot coffee. Because where he lives is fixable. Where he works got a little more permanent when he joined the Pilots. “Same team and all.”
Adam nods. “That would seem to be the problem.”
“It does.”
“If things were different…”
It’s my turn to laugh at the irony of our situation. “You mean, if we weren’t on the same team.”
Adam’s eyes soften, and fuck, this would be so much easier if he wasn’t nice and mature. And also correct that we can’t just slide into a relationship. Even if we both want to.
“Audrey—my realtor—sent me a list of places,” he says. “One’s available today if you want to come see it with me.” A couple-y errand I don’t want to decline, even if we’re not going down that road.
“Sure. Let me call maintenance first,” I say, “then we’ll take off.”
Adam smirks.
I tilt my head.
His eyes travel up and down my frame. I’m only in boxer briefs. I smile at the same time he does.
“Maybe get dressed too,” he says drily.
“This is what I usually wear when I look for apartments. It doesn’t work for you?” I tease.
His smile turns big. Then he rises, cups my chin. “Totally works for me,” he whispers hotly against my mouth. Then he dusts his lips across mine. Mmm. A shiver runs down my spine. The taste of coffee mixed with Adam first thing in the morning is too damn tempting.
When he breaks the kiss, he looks a little dizzy.
Damn, he’s making this whole find-separate-places-thing hard. But the living arrangement issue is the smaller issue.
I need to remember the bigger one.
Later that morning, we drive a mile away to a gleaming apartment building that reflects the clear summer sky. After we park, Audrey meets us in the lobby, holding a leather portfolio and sporting an I’m ready to do business grin.
She strides up to Adam first. “Great to meet you. Glad we could find a time,” she says, then hands him a printout. After a second, she hands me one as well.
“All the details about the apartment specs,” she says.
I take it, because it’s not my job to say I’m not the buyer. But I find it amusing. And I kinda want to see what Adam will say.