Page 33 of Not You Again
His mom visibly brightened. “We should celebrate you being home, then. Bill, you make some homemade pasta, and Adam, we can do a bonfire with s’mores?”
Adam didn’t consider himself an outdoorsy type necessarily, but he knew how to build a fire. His mother had taught him the basics. She’d also built the tree house, taught him how to change a flat tire and taken him camping in Yellowstone for his twelfth birthday. So when he looked at her, he could only say, “Sure, I’ll get it set up.”
The eclipse wasn’t for a few hours, so Adam collected sticks, big branches and dry leaves that would provide kindling. He’d started the pile about two hundred feet from the back door of his parents’ house, past the patio and in a clearing where the smoke would have room to billow up and not touch nearby trees. When the pile reached up to his chest, he stretched his back and marveled at what he’d built.
“Your mom usually saves bonfires for the New Year.” Bill came down the patio steps toward Adam, one hand on the railing and the other wrapped around a coffee mug. He moved carefully, and Adam was reminded of the fact that he was getting older—not in the time loop, but in general. He’d noticed small markers of his dad’s age on occasion—more forgetfulness, a slower pace to his movements—but it was still jarring. Maybe if there was one silver lining to being stuck, it was that his parents ages were, too. “A new year can mean new goals. New intentions to set,” Bill added.
For all of Adam’s logic, his dad could be whimsical, like the hidden squirrel art Carly had noticed on the walls of Rhodes Funeral Home.
“Maybe it’s time you had a new start and leave some of the past behind.” Bill’s honey eyes, the same ones Adam had, were surrounded by the crinkles of age. “Shireen might be a good one to say goodbye to.”
“Yeah, I kind of got that suggestion without you having to spell it out,” Adam chimed back. He’d never be able to fully say goodbye to Shireen, not when he had to see her every single loop. But he also knew his dad wasn’t happy with this part of Adam’s life—his failed marriage—and wanted him to move on. Bill had never been cheated on, though, never watched his own life dissolve in front of his eyes. What right did he have to dictate how Adam navigated these things?
“Think about it,” Bill simply said. Then he clapped a hand on Adam’s shoulder and made his way up the steps to the house.
His mom wanted Adam to move on. His dad wanted that, too, apparently. But what really didn’t make sense to Adam was move on towhat? Adam had spent his adulthood trying to build a life—just as they had. He’d found and married Shireen, they’d been on their way to buying a home, he’d studied mortuary science in college all so he could take over the family business and keep his dad’s legacy alive.
He’d done everything he was supposed to, but still they wanted more. And there it was, the thing Adam kept dancing around but knew in his gut: All of his decisions had been based around the basic need to make his parents happy. It wasn’t Shireen holding him back; it was his own innate fear of disappointing everyone around him.
In that moment, Adam thought of Carly. She was his opposite in this respect. She’d gone after her dream of writing for a living and taken a risk he never could. While she had no fear, Adam still needed to let go of his. He hoped that even though the loop would reset his world, it wouldn’t undo the hope hehad to change. That was a hope that Carly had unexpectedly given him.
Adam’s entire body was heavy from the discussion with his dad. Bill wasn’t an emotionally revealing man, but he had forced Adam to examine himself.
When the eclipse came, Adam timed it from the yard. Unlike the day before, it stayed at 4:02—no change.
Carly’s theory—however nonsensical—had for now been proven right. Maybe a coincidence, or maybe she was on to something. Adam wasn’t banking on her theory, though, and he was certain the time would shift on the next loop.
So when he reset in the funeral home, he planned to more or less count down the hours until the eclipse. Carly snuck out before they could see each other again, and Adam went back to his parents’ house. He timed the eclipse from the tree house and waited for the revelation that everything wasnotthe result of their interactions.
Imagine his utter shock, then, when he checked his watch and saw that for the second loop in a row, there had been absolutely no change.
Chapter 13
Carly
Day 245
Carly reset in the funeral home, which would’ve been just like any other reset, except for the fact that she started this one off smug.
So smug that she felt entitled to dictate that she and Adam go eat a fancy, celebratory lunch in her honor. Yeah, that was right. She—the underdog in the plot of her own movie—had come up with a theory that, lo and behold, had legs. Killer legs, if she could say so. Not the rocket scientist guy, but the gal who had barely squeaked by most science classes with a passing grade.
If Carly had been a big drinker, she’d have opened champagne or a good whiskey, but she liked cheese. And this was an occasion that called for a visit to Le Petit Coeur, a small French bistro just off Main Street with a blue-and-white motif.
Carly held a cheese croissant at eye level and said, “Cheers to me being right.” She waited for Adam to clink his chocolate croissant to hers, but he just took a big bite instead. She shrugged and bit into the layered bread, letting the melted cheese remind her what winning felt like.
It feltfantastic, for the record.
The timer stopped at 4:02 for the previous two loops, which meant her theory was correct. Something about them being together had changed the eclipse.
Carly smiled through her chew. “I keep waiting for you to congratulate me,” she said. “But it’s okay. The pastry is a close second.”
She watched, waiting for acknowledgment, but Adam was doing his far-off gaze thing. She snapped her fingers and he gave her a bewildered look. God, he was cute.
“The thing is,” Adam said, “we don’t know if you’re right yet, because we have to see if there’s a change in the eclipsetodaynow that we’re back together.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, Adam, you’re a sore loser.”
Adam sipped his bottled water and leaned back in his chair. Admittedly, as she took in the way his lean muscles popped under his shirt, he didn’tlooklike a sore loser. He looked attractive. She readjusted her glasses, as if that would fix her problem of finding his face, throat and forearms handsome.
