Page 86 of Not You Again
“Apple?” Carly called out, and the puppy appeared in the yard, wagging his tail. She picked up Apple, whom she’d found at the adoption site. She couldn’t leave Julian without him, too. “Time to go home.”
Carly got into the driver’s side and handed Adam their dog as he slipped into the passenger seat. He’d agreed to come with her to Burbank. Carly spent so much time exploring where he was from, and now she was ready to show him her little corner of the world.
“What do you actually think broke the loop?” Adam asked as he buckled his seat belt.
“Oh, God,” Carly said as she started the car. “I was sort of hoping we’d never talk about this again. Like, we tried out a weird sex thing and it’s just never going to be addressed because it didn’t go as planned.”
“We haven’t even explored my weird sexual things.” He raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t know what broke it,” Carly said. “I mean, I’ve been thinking about the wormhole theory. About negative energy. Negative mass? Whatever it is.”
“Well, negative energy makes antigravity, which is therealthing that keeps a wormhole open.” Adam sipped from the bottle of water in the cup holder.
“God, you’re cute when you’re nerdy.” She gave him alittle cockeyed grin. “I don’t think you and Shireen were the negative mass, but I do think it’s tied to you and to me. You told Shireen you wanted her to move on, and then she vanishes. You confront Dean and your parents, and then Shireen returns, but you vanish. I finally found my dad. I acknowledged he was really gone, and now... no more loop.”
“Grief is a powerful emotion,” Adam acknowledged. “But I think we need to address the elephant in the room, which is the aliens.”
Carly cackled as she pulled them out of the driveway of her dad’s bungalow and onto the road that would take them out of Julian.
“Seriously, though,” Adam said. “When I went to talk to Dean, that conversation was hard for me. I realized we were no longer friends. The loss of that friendship, I think, is almost harder for me to fathom than the end of my marriage.”
“Maybe it never was a wormhole, or shadow bands, or aliens, or a hole in the bubble.” Carly was spitballing, but that was kind of what she was good at, and what Adam liked about her. “Maybe it was something else, like we needed this time to let go of what was.”
“You always said people were powerful.” Adam handed Carly a potato chip and she crunched the salty perfection of it. Then he fed one to Apple.
As they drove down the streets of Julian, her heart began to race. “Is this really going to happen?” she asked. “What if we just... reset.”
“At least we’ll reset together. I hope.” Adam grabbed her hand as they came to the Leaving Julian sign, painted sky blue and dotted with red cartoon apples.
Carly was scared, though. She’d just gotten Adam back. What if they reset and she lost him again?
She pulled the car to the side of the road and took deepbreaths in and out to try to steady herself. Adam took her face in his hands and stroked little lines across her cheek.
“Hey.” His voice was calm. “You are the only thing I see right now. You’re the only thing I want to see for the rest of my life. I lost ten days with you, but I’m not going to lose any more time. If we reset, fine. If we get to leave, even better. As long as I’m with you, I’ll be happy. But as a very smart woman once said to me, ‘What do you want?’”
Her gaze met his honey eyes, and her eager body melted for this man. “I want you,” Carly said.
Adam brought his lips to hers and kissed her, slow and deep to show how much he loved that sentiment. He belonged to her, and she to him. And when they eventually pulled apart, he smoothed his thumb over her cheek and said, “I love you.”
And her lip trembled in shock because, she realized, she felt the same way. “I love you, too.”
They kissed again, and Adam wrapped her in his arms and pulled her close. She loved him, and he loved her. Was there ever a feeling more sweet and wonderful than this one? She knew that she could loop this moment for the rest of her life and never be done with it. So when she pulled the car back onto the road and drove past the Leaving Julian sign and away from the bubble, they both kissed again with the knowledge that their life was only just beginning.
Epilogue
Carly
December 31
“What are you doing?” Carly asked.
Adam and Carly sat on a flannel blanket in front of a bonfire. She burrowed herself into the blankets to keep warm. She’d never experienced a Julian winter, but the place got cold.
The flames of the fire licked the air and sent whooshes of heat toward them. Adam trailed his index finger slowly up her spine and then, when he got to the top, trailed it right back down. Little goose bumps erupted across her.
“I’m getting ready for tonight,” he said and nipped her neck.
“You’re getting ready for the New Year by...touchingme?” Carly’s voice had gone husky from the buttery scent of him.
