Page 111 of Now or Never

“Congratulations,” Adam said, “on going for it with your film. And for telling Jasper to go fuck himself. I tried to call, but . . .”

Chelsea met his eyes. He looked sad. He probably knew she’d blocked him. But he deserved it.

Didn’t he?

“That’s why I came here, actually.”

Adam’s eyebrows lifted. “I know you’re mad, but I really think you should reconsider blocking—”

“Not the blocking, Adam.”

Adam looked down. “Oh.”

Chelsea sighed. “Did you ask your uncle to offer me money? Because if you think that will make me forget about you walking away from me—”

“No,” Adam said, shaking his head. His eyes linked to hers, and she knew he was telling the truth. “I didn’t know about that at all. He likes you, and he trusts Vincent, so he wants to invest in your film. It was a business decision.”

Chelsea narrowed her eyes at him, but she wasn’t really sure why. She believed every word that came out of his mouth.

“I swear, Chelsea.”

A smile slipped on her lips, and she turned to look at his workbench to hide it. And that’s when her eyes landed on the familiar stack of bound papers. She walked over and picked up her script.

“Why do you have this?”

Adam huffed out a breath, stuck his hands in his pockets. “Uncle David called and told me about you walking off the set and taking Vincent with you. I just asked for a copy.”

“Why?”

Adam’s shoulders stiffened. “I want to help you.”

“Help me how?”

He shuffled his feet, looking more nervous than she thought possible for him.

“Well, I can build almost anything, and I know a lot goes into the sets . . .”

He trailed off as Chelsea flipped to the dogeared pages of the script, read Adam’s notes in the margins, then stopped.

“Are you building my sets?” She looked up at his eyes. He looked worried.

“I don’t have to. I can think of something else. There’s always the stereo.”

Chelsea shook her head. “Stereo?”

Adam nodded. “’Fraid so. See?” He pointed at a ridiculous eighties-style boom box on the floor by the sawhorses. “I was going to hold it up outside your window if the set building thing didn’t work out.”

Chelsea laughed. “That is so . . .”

Adam.

She couldn’t think of anything more Adam. Except maybe offering to build her sets. He would do anything for the people he cared about.

“The boom box thing doesn’t work for John Cusack,” she said. “Ione Skye’s character ignores him.”

His posture sagged. “I fucked up so bad,” he said, out of the blue, but also not. “I hurt you when I walked away, and it’s my biggest regret. Actually, I regret not showing up for Ben’s birthday. And the baseball diamonds when I ran off . . .” He let out a long, low sigh. “I have a lot of regrets when it comes to you. Literally everything I did was wrong.”

Chelsea hugged the script to her chest, completely overwhelmed that he was in his garage building something for her. Something that meant the world to her.

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