Page 19 of Not You Again
Adam slipped on his protective glasses, leaned against the hood of the car and crossed his arms. He didn’t have his usual set of tools, but he had his watch to keep the time. He scanned the ground for the flits of shadow bands, but didn’t see any from his vantage point. No bother, he could still time the eclipse. The moon’s cavernous mouth gobbled up the sun, and the caw of the crow and the hum of the crickets vanished. Adam marked the time on his watch.
In that moment, a gnat flew across his face. He waved the thing away, and Carly popped into his head. Of course she appeared at the presence of something annoying. He sighed, because more irritating was the reminder of their last interaction and how she assumed he was making fun of her career choices. He didn’t think she was silly. Quite the opposite, he was jealous of the kind of confidence it would take to do something as scary as write a movie. What if people hated it? What if she never got a movie made? What would she do for money?
Jesus, he was starting to sound like his dad. Sometimes people pursued their dreams and actually got them. What would Carly think about the fact that unlike her, his passion for astronomy wasn’t one he’d been brave enough to go after?
The realization of that made his stomach clench. Adam clung to what he’d known, and Carly raced toward something she had no control over. Her success wasn’t guaranteed, and she didn’t at all seem bothered by that. While Adam...
He took in a deep breath and let it out. He’d already had one crisis today, and he certainly didn’t need another. He glanced at his watch, then up to the sky. The eclipse would end soon. He waited for the moment when the moon began to cough the sun back out. But as the sliver of light surfaced and Adam looked down at the watch, he froze.
He double-checked the time. Then triple-checked. He ran through the eclipse, when he’d started the timer and whenhe’d ended it. Had there been any deviation? No. He’d done this experiment the same exact way for as long as he could remember.
Four minutes and twenty-two seconds.
How was the eclipse ten seconds shorter?
Chapter 7
Carly
Day 240
Carly sharply exhaled as she appeared in the funeral service room. She stared at her dad’s coffin. Her back was healed and now she could go about her day—this time blissfully Adam-free. She clasped her hands and silently thanked the loop gods, whoever they were.
“So you’re dating that girl now?” Shireen’s muffled voice floated through the air like a piece of bait on the line.
Well,that girlhad to be Carly. The last time Shireen had addressed her, she said she’d liked Carly. Now, though? Her tone suggested the opposite. Carly instinctively slid down in her chair. Whathadshe been thinking by kissing Adam? Er,stagekissing him. She could definitely be impulsive, something she got from her dad—he bought old movie theaters; she tried to rescue men she barely knew...
She was only trying to do the guy a favor while simultaneously fulfilling her good deed quotient for the day. She’d helped him. She was the Good Samaritan of smooching. She hadn’t meant to hurt Shireen, though. Adam’s ex had clearly moved on with Dean, right?
“You gave mesucha hard time for the whole Dean thing, but all it takes is one suicidal leap and you’rewithher?” Shireen tried again. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“The eclipse was shorter,” Adam said. “Ten seconds shorter.”
Carly rolled her eyes. Adam was odd. He was a funeral director, overly tall and obsessed with the eclipse, apparently. The only thing stranger was how soft his hair had felt between her fingers. She unexpectedly got goose bumps and rubbed her hands over her arms. Was she so desperate for human touch that she was now getting excited by someone’s hair?
Shireen let out a disbelieving, “Okay, whatever.” Then, as was always the case, the office door slammed open and her footsteps filled the hall. Carly was tempted to turn in her chair to watch Shireen leave, but had learned her lesson about interfering with these two. When the space went quiet, Carly stood. She came to the hallway and froze as she saw Adam.
He leaned against the office door frame and gnawed on his bottom lip, lost in thought.
She should leave. She should run, actually. Carly was going to be Adam-free today, meaning she shouldn’t interact with him. So she put one foot in front of the other and started toward the exit.
Ten seconds shorter.Adam’s words echoed in her head. What had he meant by that? Was he saying something in the loop had changed?
The alarm bells blared inside Carly’s mind as she turned back, took a breath and said, “You okay?”
Of course he was not okay. This was a man who was perpetually sullen. And hadn’t she asked a similar question during the other loop and been met with nothing but a withering glare?
Carly shook her head. “Never mind,” she muttered, turning to leave.
“Your back is fixed,” Adam said.
She stopped walking. She’d opened the door, and he’d come through it. What else had she expected to happen? She turned to Adam. “What were you telling Shireen just now? I heard you mention the eclipse.”
Adam’s expression changed into something more genuine. “I study the eclipse.” His gaze met hers. “Or, it’s kind of like a hobby. Just something to pass the time, like your good deed thing.”
Passing time was everyone’s prime motivation, as far as she could tell. Apparently, he spent his days fixated on the eclipse. “So you...” She wasn’t even sure what to ask. “Something happened?”
“I time every eclipse, and without fail it always lasts four minutes and thirty-two seconds, but yesterday it changed.”
