Page 27 of Once Upon a Boyband
I’m not sure I ever understood what my therapist meant until this moment.
“Hey, you okay?” Adam asks. “Do you not like it?”
I look up and meet his eyes. I’m holding my fork over the pasta like I’m debating whether I want to take another bite.
“No, it’s delicious. I’m good. Just…thank you,” I say simply.
Luckily, the pork is equally delicious, and it’s far too much for me to eat, so I end up sliding my plate into the middle of the table so Adam can help me finish it. It adds an intimacy to the meal, sharing a plate like this, fighting over who gets the last bite. Adam wins, and I scowl, but then he holds his fork up tomymouth, his eyes on my lips. I take the bite, and a heat curls in my belly that doesn’t have anything to do with the food.
“So why a dog rescue?” I ask over the crème brûlée we share for dessert. “What made you decide that’s what you wanted to do?”
“It was Goldie, actually,” Adam says. “Mom got her from a shelter after a family purchased her from a pet store, kept her for two months before taking her to the vet, then discovered she was heartworm positive. They didn’t want to have to deal with treating her, so they dropped her off at the shelter. Apparently, this particular pet store was really awful about puppy mills with terrible breeding conditions and wasselling puppies with all kinds of problems. Goldie was actually one of the lucky ones because her heartworms were treatable.” He waves his fork as he talks, and a tiny splatter of crème brûlée flies across the table and lands on the side of my lip.
I flinch in surprise when it hits, and Adam freezes. “That was me,” he says sheepishly. “I just did that, didn’t I?” He reaches over, his hand hovering in the space between us. “May I?”
I lean a little closer, and he slides the pad of his thumb across my bottom lip. I could be making things up, but his hand is moving awfully slowly.
“Got it,” he says, his voice low. I expect him to reach for a napkin, but instead, he holds my gaze as he lifts his finger to his mouth and licks it clean.
My heart starts pounding.
Reallypounding.
Pounding like Adam just kissed me instead of cleaned off my face.
But his look was so pointed. Sosexy.
I clear my throat and drop my gaze to the table because if I don’t, I will possibly climb across the table and kiss himfor real.
“So anyway,” Adam says loudly, an obvious effort to cut the tension simmering between us. “Mom got really passionate about shutting down puppy mills and did all this research and said that shelter dogs needed better marketing so people would adopt instead of shop, and…yeah. I did it for her.”
I did it for her.
It doesn’t surprise me at all that Adam made choices forhis mom. It tracks with everything he’s shown me about himself so far.
“I love that, Adam.” I say. “I’m sure she’d be proud of you.”
A flash of pain flits across his expression. He closes his eyes and his jaw flexes, making me wonder if I said something wrong.
But then he stretches his hand across the table, palm up in invitation.
I slide my hand into his, and a heady sense of longing fills me as his fingers wrap around mine.
“Thank you for saying so,” he says. “Sometimes I’m not so sure.”
I squeeze his hand. “I don’t know how she couldn’t be.”
He nods. “So…speaking of puppies. I was thinking once we leave here, we could go out to the rescue and visit Ringo.”
I let out a happy little gasp. “For real?”
He smiles. “If you want.”
“Yes, yes, please!” I probably sound twelve, but I don’t even care. I don’t have to pretend with Adam. One date in, I can already tell. He’s being nothing but real with me, and I can do the same.
I can just be me.
CHAPTER EIGHT
