Page 108 of Now or Never

“Are these all for me?” Ben asked, looking at her with wide eyes.

She wanted to scream. “Yes.”

“Can I open them?”

Chelsea sighed and nodded. What was she going to do? Load them back in her car and throw them onto Adam’s porch? That seemed kinda low.

“The Hartley kid isn’t one for subtlety, eh?” Vincent asked, closing the door behind Ben after he’d brought in the last of them.

Chelsea reached to her ears and pulled her fancy earrings out. Her sadness was turning into anger. She’d spent an hour and a half getting ready for that date. Then Adam showed up on her doorstep and cock-blocked her. Subtle? No. He was anythingbut. He’d blown his chance, and now he was just fucking with her.

“He’s a nuisance.”

Jae finally got over her shock enough to speak. “So, Adam said he loves you and wants to get back together? And he said you were perfect, and he was heartbroken, and he looked like he was going to cry?”

Chelsea nodded.

“And you didn’t run into his arms and forgive him?”

“Of course not.” Chelsea turned, making her way to the stairs. “I’m not scootering anymore. Remember number five?”

Jae guffawed, too shocked to speak.

Vincent spoke up for her. “I don’t thinkanyonewould consider Adam a scooter, including those who don’t know he’s a billionaire.”

Chelsea paused, considering his words. “Walking out on me is something a scooter would do.”

Vincent narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure about that? Hedidhave reasons. And no matter how misplaced, those reasons came from a place of love.”

Chelsea glanced over at Jae, who was now shaking her head violently, then looked over at Ben tearing into the zillions of presents. The Spider-Man wrapping paper was all but swallowing him up on the floor.

She’d convinced herself that Adam, and her situationship with him, was a broken-down, rusty old scooter.

And she was right.

Right?

Maybe hehadchanged. Had he somehow morphed from a scooter into a bike? God, if that were true, she wanted to hop on and ride him forever.

She shook her head at how that sounded, happy she hadn’t said it out loud.

She had no reason not to believe him. He was a great many things, but a liar wasnotone of them. But could she really trust him to be there for her after everything that had happened?

“I need some time to think,” she said, lumbering toward the stairs.

“Careful,” Vincent said, giving her a pointed look. “Don’t spend too much time on the wrong path. The clock is always ticking.”

thirty-four

Adam took a utility knife from the workbench in his garage and opened a box that had just been delivered. He’d gone a little wild that week, ordering all manner of things, hoping one of the many plans he’d concocted to get Chelsea back would actually work.

He’d sent her chocolates, and flowers, and even a note telling her he’d reserved tickets to TIFF for next year and hoped they would be a couple by then. If they weren’t a couple by then, and it took years and years to get her back, he was determined to convince her that he was in it for the long haul.

He pulled a huge vintage stereo from the box and laughed to himself. He was going to look ridiculous holding it over his head in front of her house, like the scene fromSay Anything. At least she would laugh.

Probably.

She was always quoting movies, and would probably find it funny.

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