Page 44 of What You Own
Then it pissed me off. And I couldn’t say anything, because Susan and Larry didn’t know Adam was with me. Adam glared at Ellie, enough poison in his eyes to kill a charging bull. Maybe Adam was running himself into the ground, between the internship, the fundraiser, and me. Was I being selfish, always inviting him over when I wasn’t working? I wanted him back every minute we weren’t together, because I didn’t know if the other shoe was gonna drop and rip him back out of my life. I wanted to drown in him, but maybe I was just drowning him.
I didn’t know what anyone said the rest of the meeting.
We pooled our cash for the bill and tip and left as a group. My belly was full of pancakes and bacon, but my brain was heavy with other stuff. A lot of it guilt. Adam’s car was parked one over from mine, and he paused by my bumper, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his cargo shorts.
“You sure you’re okay?” I asked now that we were alone.
“I really am just tired,” he replied. “Long day.”
We’d made tentative, texted plans for him to come over tonight around eleven. It’d make getting up for his internship a bear, and I saw how selfish I was for asking. He looked like he needed a good night’s sleep more than he needed his dick sucked. And even though I could offer a good night’s sleep in my bed, he’d turn me down because he’d never once spent the whole night, and we’d end up doing something to burn up those sleeping hours. In private, I couldn’t keep my hands off him.
“You wanna skip the date tonight? See each other on Friday like we already said?”
Adam blinked slowly, several times, like a drunk trying to focus on a hard question involving arithmetic. “Are you sure?”
Hell no. “Yeah, real sure. You get a long sleep. Last thing I want is you gettin’ sick.”
His grateful smile made it all worth it. His elbow jerked, like he wanted to touch me, only we were in a public parking lot, and he’d never do that. Not yet.
Maybe never.
In ten days he’d either brand me his, or he’d (metaphorically) take me out back and shoot me. One way or another, I’d know.
“Thanks, Rye,” Adam said. “I’ll see you Friday.”
I watched him get into his car and drive away. Something felt weird about that, and I didn’t know why. I’d seen him drive away from places dozens of times and never had this little buzz in my head that told me to go after him.
I went to work and wondered on it all night long.
Adam
RYANLETTINGme off the hook for tonight was a relief I didn’t expect, like a heavy blanket had been taken off my face, and I was able to breathe freely. Sitting next to him at the diner for ninety minutes had been a special kind of pain after my conversation with Joe. I couldn’t tell Ryan about it in front of Ellie and the Bishops, and what could Ryan do anyway? He’d likely be grateful to know that Joe was in our corner. And then he’d worry we weren’t being discreet enough, that my father was going to find us out.
My father was my problem to own and to manage, not Ryan’s.
The sight of Dad’s car in the garage when I parked made my pulse jump. He rarely made it home before eight most nights, and it was only a few minutes before seven. I went into a silent house. Lights blazed in both the kitchen and the living room, but they were empty. Curious and worried, I crept down the hall toward Dad’s home office. The door was half open, spilling light out in a yellow glow that looked sickly and cold, instead of warm and inviting.
“Adam?”
He’d heard me. I continued forward, into the office doorway. Dad sat in his big, leather desk chair, a glass of amber liquid in a tumbler on his blotter. Probably scotch, his favorite evening drink. He didn’t ask me inside, and he didn’t get up. He simply stared at me, and I recognized his business poker face—the face he used when sizing up a new client, deciding which way was best to proceed.
My heart was pounding loudly, and I needed to shatter the silence in the house before he heard it and declared me guilty. “You’re home early,” I said.
“I’m not going to accuse you of lying, Adam, because you’ll argue that you didn’t lie, and you’ll be technically correct,” Dad said. His voice was flat, cold, one tonal shift from utterly furious.
You’re fucked.
I stood my ground, even though my insides started shaking. “What did I not lie about, exactly?”
“The people on the center’s fundraiser committee with you.”
Shit, fuck, and damn it all to hell.
“You’re right, you never asked.” His eyes narrowed, and before he could explode, I went on. “Ryan Sanders is on the committee with me. He’s been volunteering at the center for years and if it helps”—now I’m lying to your face, Dad, sorry—“it’s not exactly been a picnic for either of us. He hates me for everything that went down senior year. Hates you too.”
“Hates us both so much that he came begging to our door for a donation?”
“We were on the list of places to ask. Ryan and Ellie randomly ended up with LQF. Ellie sold me on the fundraiser, and she sold me on the importance of the center to the community. That’s why I brought it to you and Joe.”
