Page 17 of Now or Never

“Isn’t it harder to bike through the sand?” she asked.

Adam shook his head. “The sand down there is compacted. Normal bike tires go over it without any problem, and falling on sand is way better than pavement. You should take the pedals off, too, so he can learn to balance first.”

Chelsea narrowed her stunning eyes. “How do you know these things?”

Adam shrugged. “My dad taught me.”

“And you remember?”

“Well, I didn’t learn until I was ten,” he said, looking over at Ben. “I was scared.”

Chelsea let a smile break as she ripped the paper off the back of the bandage and laid it on his leg, pushing the sticky part into his leg hair. “Thanks for the tips. We’ll take all the help we can get.”

“No problem,” Adam said, staring at the bandage and wondering how much hair it was going to take off with it.

“You got Spider Gwen,” Ben said, pointing at his leg.

Adam nodded in approval. “I always thought she was hot when I was a kid.”

Confusion came over Ben’s face. “Does she shoot fire?”

Chelsea laughed as she cleaned up. “He means he had a crush on her.”

“Ohh,” Ben said with a smile. “Sophia kissed me,” he said, then lowered his voice and added, “on the mouth.”

Adam’s face cracked into a smile. This kid was hilarious.

“Sophia was in daycare with Ben,” Chelsea said to clarify. “He shared his chocolate with her, and she kissed him.”

Adam laughed. “Well played,” he said, making Ben giggle again with that little noise. He turned to Chelsea. “The kid’s got good instincts.”

Chelsea’s smile faded, and the awkwardness that had been simmering just below the surface of all their interactions bubbled up.

He could feel it. Heknewshe felt it. So he decided to just call it out.

“Are we awkward?” he asked.

Her brows inched up for a moment, then she smiled her half smile, which sadly revealed no dimples, and nodded. “Yup. The awkward alien has invaded.”

“Awkward alien?”

Chelsea nodded. “Awkwardness is like an alien invasion. You gotta kill the aliens before they lay eggs. Otherwise, it will just take over, and you’ll never get rid of it.”

Adam nodded. “Have our aliens laid eggs?”

Chelsea nodded. “Yup.”

Adam braced himself. “I’m sorry about how things at the baseball diamonds went,” he said, glancing at Ben, who had focused all his attention on sorting the bandages into neat piles. “I just don’t . . . I don’t date women with . . . I mean . . . I don’t date women . . .”

“The shells are cracking,” she said with a scrunched up nose. “Hatch, hatch.”

Adam laughed, despite the awkwardness. “I don’t date,” he finally settled on.

Chelsea nodded, then silence fell over them. It was a stupid thing to say, since he had asked her on a date. But he couldn’t very well explain that he’d only intended to sleep with her and never see her again. He looked back up at her, and she hadbusied herself with straightening some of Ben’s artwork on the table.

The aliens were out of their eggs now, running all over the goddamn place. He’d need a fucking blowtorch to salvage this.

“Can we be friends?” he asked bluntly, out of desperation.

---