Page 37 of To Hate Adam Connor

The effects of Lion King…

“I won’t, little man. It’s time to go to sleep now.”

“Kay.” He nodded readily and pulled the covers up to his neck. “Lucy cried when Mufasa died, so I hugged her and told her it was all made up and she was being silly. I was right, wasn’t I?”

“She cried?”

“Uh-huh. Like really cried with tears and all, not fake cry like Penny from my class does. I hugged her and patted her back and made her laugh.”

“Good job, buddy,” I said, smiling. “Now, go back to sleep.”

“But I was right, wasn’t I? I did good?”

“You did good, Aiden.”

“Love you, Daddy.”

I pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Love you, too, Aiden.”

In seconds he was out.

As soon as I turned off the lights in Aiden’s room, my feet took me back to Lucy’s side.

So she cried for Mufasa…after all the times she told me how much she hated me, she had a heart after all.

I kneeled in front of her and waited for her to wake up and scream at me. When she didn’t, I surprised myself by reaching up and gently touching her exposed wrist. Maybe I did want her to wake up and scream at me. Maybe I did enjoy seeing that heat in her eyes, that flash of something I couldn’t exactly put a name on. My thoughts strayed to Adeline, how calm she was, how…soft, for lack of a better word. How much she had changed in just a few years…was I missing her? The old Adeline? Is that what this was?

Don’t get me wrong, Lucy looked soft in all the right places, but there was something about her that was solid. Real. For all her crazy, she was also normal, and I envied her for that freedom.

She knew who she was, and she had no problem showing herself to the world.

When she made a soft noise in her sleep, I got up, threw a thin blanket over her, and left her alone.

As much as I seemed to enjoy going head to head with her, I had to stop myself from getting close. Short or long, meaningful or meaningless—any kind of relationship with a fan was a bad idea, and Lucy Meyer was the worst kind of fan, the kind that wasn’t afraid to get in your face and force you to recognize her. My only focus was getting full custody of Aiden and giving him a new normal, and I had to remember that at all times. None of it mattered anyway; I’d find someone to look after Aiden while he spent his week with Adeline, and we wouldn’t see Lucy again.

I wasn’t looking for a quick lay—I’d had enough of those to last a lifetime—and I wasn’t looking for a relationship either. What I was looking for was my bed. I was tired and sleep-deprived. I needed to get at least a few hours of sleep in before another day started and we did all the same things all over again.

Chapter Nine

Lucy

“Olive, are you one hundred percent sure about this?”

“Why? Come out so I can see.”

“Are you sure you gave her my dress size and not some imaginary girl you cooked up in your mind?” I looked down at myself, yet again, and tried to make a decision. “Once you see this, it can never be unseen. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Lucy, come on. Get out of there.”

“As you wish, my green Olive.” I shrugged, tried to take a deep breath, and stepped out of the bathroom.

It was around ten o’clock in the morning and we were in Olive’s bedroom, where she did bad, bad things with her pretty husband that she didn’t share with her friend—share as in tell—trying on dresses for the LA gala for Soul Ache we were supposed to attend that evening.

A short while before, Jason’s stylist had dropped off ten different options for both Olive and me, and we were trying them on until we found the right ones.

“Oh my God.” Olive breathed out when she lifted her head up from her phone, her eyes glued to my chest. “Oh my God. What’s happening to your boobs?”

I frowned at her and put my hands under my boobs, glancing down for a short moment. “This dress is happening to my boobies. What does it look like from there?”

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