Page 38 of Not You Again
“Uh, Adam’s friend?” Bill asked back.
“That’s me!” Carly’s voice oozed with an overly sweet tone. “Nice to meet you!”
“Nice to meet you, too!” his dad hollered back.
“We’ll be back later,” Adam sharply called out. Then, in a lower voice only meant for Carly, he said, “Stop being so naughty.”
As the words left his mouth, his soul also left his body. Had he just called Carlynaughty? And had she noticed? He chanced a glance in her direction, but she seemed to be avoiding his gaze entirely.
Then she turned to him, grabbed his hand and looked him right in the eyes as she said, “I’m going to be extra obnoxious, just because you said that,” which confirmed she had, in fact, noticed.
Adam felt his whole face burn with embarrassment. What should he have to be so humiliated about, though? All he’d done was suggest she wasnaughty. Okay, yeah, he was embarrassed.
Even thinking the word sent a jolt to his dick, which he wrestled back as she got out of the car. He watched herapproach Bill, offer a handshake and instead be met with a hug. Her eyes bulged then eased as she hugged his dad back.
Now it was only a matter of time before—
“Sheila!” Bill loudly shouted out. “Carly is here!”
As if ferried in by magic, Sheila appeared and hugged Carly, too. He almost felt like he was watching a happy family reconnect after years of being apart. Then all three of them turned to eye the hearse, and he knew his time was up.
Adam let out a long-suffering sigh, killed the engine and got out of the car.
While Adam had intended for this to be a swift errand to get a camera, his parents made quick work of getting to know Carly. They gave her a tour of the house, made her a tea, got her snacks and sat her down at the breakfast nook.
Adam, however, was not treating this as a social visit, and instead scoured through his dad’s hobby closet to find the camera. He’d hear slivers of conversations and feel the unmistakable urge to pluck his own ears off.
We’re just so glad that Adam is making friends—it’s not right for someone his age to be so isolated. This is a time loop, not the pandemic!
The snippet that ultimately led him to increase his efforts and find the damn camera was a question from his dad.
And your mother...?
She had an aggressive form of cancer and died when I was a baby.
Carly had never mentioned what happened to her mother, but the words made his body clench. She shouldn’t have to bleed out all of her personal details to his parents just so he could find a camera. At that moment, the black camera bag came into view and he snatched it off the shelf. Adam hurried through the hall and toward Carly before his parents could cause any more emotional damage.
“Carly.” His voice came out breathless as he skidded to a halt in the kitchen.
Carly and Sheila were at the kitchen island, adding cheese to a charcuterie board. Carly looked up and gave him a faint smile.
Uh-oh, cheese had been introduced. Now they’d never leave the house.
“Here.” Sheila handed Adam the cheese board, and he had to put the camera bag under his arm to manage it. “You two go eat and we’ll get some wine.”
Adam didn’t argue with his mom. Time alone with Carly meant he could check in and make sure his parents hadn’t pushed her too far. Adam closed the sliding glass door behind them and let out a shaky exhale.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized at the same time that Carly said, “I was so nervous to meet your parents.”
“Really?” He couldn’t imagine anyone being intimidated by Sheila and Bill.
“Yeah.” She laughed. “I figured if they were anything like you, I’d have to call the scowl police.”
Carly popped a grape from the plate into her mouth and chewed. She seemed... okay. Not traumatized, but still.
“They can be really nosy,” he hedged.
“They asked alotof questions,” she said. “But sometimes it feels like there was no life before the loop. It’s kind of nice to be reminded of the past.”
