Page 18 of One Hundred Lights
“I’m looking.”
“You know you’re a good person, right? The best person.”
“No.” I shake my head, and we’re back to having this conversation. I don’t think we’re capable of small talk. “A good person doesn’t do what I did.”
I still can’t talk about it directly.
“Listen to me. I am telling you, you’re the most authentic human I have ever met. You should not feel bad about what happened. Never feel bad. You didn’t do anything wrong. All you did was remove yourself from the situation, like any good person would do. Reese and I were going to split up. You just made us see it sooner rather than later.”
The breath disappears from my lungs. “That doesn’t exactly sound like something a good person would do.” But hearing him say it is everything.
He lets out a low chuckle. “Being honest with yourself and others around you? You tried to protect us by doing the right thing. Most people would not have done that.”
I furrow my brow and press my lips together. “I messed it all up, Adrian.”
He presses his palm against my lower back and moves his other hand to my waist, flush against him. Adrian leans forward to speak directly into my ear. “No, you didn’t. You did exactly what I needed you to do. Thank you. Reese and I are better off apart. It’s been that way for a long time. You saved me. I just didn’t know it at the time.”
I don’t know how to respond. But my body is doing it for me, melting into his, and we’ve certainly crossed the line to inappropriate at a school function. Thank god for the curtain. I wrap my arms tighter around his neck. He breathes in and out heavily.
“What’re you saying?” My voice is airy, wispy.
“I don’t know.”
Emotions overwhelm me. His lips are still an inch from my ear, so close I can feel his hot breath. His hand holds my hips pressed against him and the hard length against my stomach tells me that he wants me, at least right now.
I love this man.
Oh, no.
In his arms, I can finally admit to myself that I am madly in love with Adrian Whitlock.
Maybe it was too late to stop even six months ago.
I’d kept the feelings in a locked box from the second I left the airport, and now they’ve burst out and grown exponentially. I’d hoped we could make things less awkward between us, so we could see each other at functions—like this one—without it being terribly painful. But now all I want to do is peel his tux off one piece at a time and ravage him.
I love him, but what does he feel for me? What does this mean for us? Can I let myself have this man? This life? What about Reese?
Maybe I don’t have to move on from him. Maybe I can have him. Maybe I’m not a pile of trash for doing what I did.
Maybe I was following my heart, and the universe will reward me for that.
We sway back and forth, and I hope the song will last forever.
8
ADRIAN
The lights are on and the remaining kids are waiting out front for their rides. It’s just the vendors packing up their equipment and late volunteers cleaning up the mess left behind by the students.
I can’t keep my eyes off Britt taking down a strand of lights five feet from me. She’s insisting that she and I dismantle and pack all the lights ourselves, because heaven forbid another volunteer puts our hard-won decor away incorrectly. Slipping off her heels, she climbs a short ladder and reaches above a doorframe to unhook the last light strand. I should stop her and do it myself, but instead, I steady the ladder, watching her stretch her body up high, the top hem of her dress moving down a few inches and revealing more of her back.
I’m frozen until she turns to me and smiles.
“Can you let me climb the ladder next time?” I throw my hands up when she’s back on the gym floor.
“It’s hardly a ladder. More like a step stool.” But she grins and rolls the strand into a neat pile in one of the new plastic bins that is just about full. “And we’re all done, I think.”
When I look at her, I feel all the things I’ve been fighting against my entire life. Emotions so intense they overwhelm me. I’d do anything to pull her behind that curtain again.
