Page 69 of Now or Never

Adam let out a long breath. “Same.”

Chelsea smiled, but only one dimple came out. “Do you think we’ll get past it? Or is the invasion too dire?”

Adam smiled, remembering her alien invasion analogy. “I’d like us to be friends. I like you. Your friendship, I mean.”

Chelsea laughed, and he calmed down a little. What was it about her that made him so . . . content. Wascontentthe right word?

“Cool, I like your friendship, too.”

They fell into a slightly less awkward silence as she peered into the distance at the cottages passing by. “Wow,” she said. “Would you really call thesecottages? They’re mansions.”

Adam nodded. “I know. It’s kinda surreal.”

Chelsea looked up at him. “This is like the premiere. You don’t feel you belong here, do you?”

Adam shook his head. “No.”

She nodded, looking around, and he wanted to explain why, even though she didn’t push. Maybe that’s why he liked her so much?

“After my accident, I just felt like all of this was so fake,” he said with a shrug. “It was impossible to tell who actually liked me and who just wanted to be friends with a Hartley. None of my ‘friends’ even came to visit me in the hospital. I lost touch with all of them.”

“I’m sorry.”

Adam shrugged. “Don’t be. I have great friends in Mapleton. Ethan came to all of my speech therapy sessions. He would sit with me for hours, going through pages and pages of text and helping me relearn it all.”

Chelsea’s eyebrows rose. “Wow,” she said, glancing back to where he and Natalie sat together, holding hands.

“Max, too. He brought me to every single one of my physical therapy sessions, since he’s big enough to catch me if I fall. But he wasn’t as patient as Ethan. He yelled a lot more.”

Chelsea laughed. “I can see that.”

Both dimples. He loved those dimples.

“He’s a good friend. He yells because he cares,” he said, getting a giggle from her. “Anyway, I mostly ignore this side of myself, except for my Uncle David. He wouldn’t let me ignore him.”

Chelsea smiled. “He loves you.”

Adam nodded. “The feeling is mutual. We’re here.”

Adam brought the boat around, steering toward the dock.

“Oh, it’s actually smaller than I imagined,” Chelsea said. “Not that it’s small.”

Adam cocked an eyebrow, not sure what she was talking about. The Hartleys had the biggest cottage on the lake in a prestigious area dubbed “Billionaires Row.” He leaned down to her height to look from her vantage point.

“No,” he said. “You’re looking at the boathouse.”

“The boathouse?”

He pressed a button, and one of the garage doors opened. “Yeah, that’s the boathouse.” He pulled around a little moreuntil the cottage came into view. All three stories, five million windows, and multiple decks.

Chelsea’s jaw dropped. “Oh my God.”

“No judgment, remember. You own a mansion.”

She snapped her mouth closed. “It’s nice,” she said.

Adam laughed and pulled the boat into the boathouse, then hopped out and started tying it up, Max and Ethan helping. Everyone got off the boat, including Chelsea, holding a box filled with peach-coloured roses arranged into bouquets and boutonnieres that she’d picked up that morning from the florist in Mapleton. They were her favourites, but Natalie seemed pleased with them, too. He hoped she’d like the cheesecake they’d chosen for dessert because it was Chelsea’s favourite, and the champagne cocktail they’d drunk at TIFF.

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