Page 9 of To Bring You Back
“If you think there’s going to be a repeat of—”
“No.” He couldn’t get the word out fast enough. Did she really think so little of him? He struggled to stay calm, be the kind of man who deserved a chance. “We need to talk about Fitz. That’s why I’m here, and I’m not leaving until we do.”
Anger hardened her expression. “His name should not be in your mouth. Ever.” With a shake of her head, she cut across the grass to return to the church without coming close to Gannon. “Just go back to LA.”
As she went in, others exited, eyeing him with interest. Before he drew a crowd, he retreated to the car.
Tim steered out of the lot’s back entrance, loose asphalt snapping under the tires. “Who’s Fitz?”
Gannon sighed. “Before your time.”
Adeline madea beeline for the office.
Gannon hadn’t left. He wasn’t going to.
She pushed the office door shut behind her, but someone caught it. He wouldn’t have followed her back inside, would he?
She’d make quite a scene if she locked him in the hall, and prying eyes and rumors would only make everything worse.
She pressed a hand over her pounding heart and stepped away from the door, allowing the other person entrance.
“Are you okay?” A crease marked the space between Tegan’s eyebrows as she slipped into the office and finished closing the door. “Who was that?”
Adeline shook her head and clenched her teeth to stop from crying. At least he had given up for the morning.
“There’s a rumor it’s Gannon Vaughn.” Tegan pulled out the chair behind the desk and motioned for Adeline to sit. “People saw him with you on Main Street last weekend.”
Gannon Vaughn. First and last name. The way people referred to him when they knew him as a celebrity.
Usually, any emotional talks with her roommate involved Tegan opening up and Adeline listening and offering advice. She wasn’t ready to reverse that. “He’s a guy I went to high school with.”
“How in the world is this the first I’ve heard of this?”
Adeline cringed at the tone of offense in her friend’s voice. “I’m sorry.”
Tegan’s expression softened. She leaned against the desk, studying her in the dim light from the window. “If you tell me where he is, I’ll go beat him up for you.”
Adeline laughed and blotted her cheeks with a tissue from the desk.
“Seriously. Who does he think he is, parading around, upsetting you? What did he want? I mean, high school was how many years ago?”
“I saw him a couple of times after graduation too.” Understatement of the decade.
“I take it he’s a jerk in real life?”
She tossed the tissue, grabbed a new one, and shook her head. Where would she even start the story about Fitz and Gannon? She’d tossed out a detail to Asher last weekend because she’d known he wouldn’t press for more—he might not have even realized Gannon’s identity—but as her closest friend, Tegan had a right to answers. “It’s a long story.”
“One you’re not ready to tell.” Tegan waited, but Adeline didn’t disagree. “Okay. Well, anytime you want to talk, you know where to find me.”
She did, but at the idea of sharing the details, panic pounded as it had on the lawn just now.
Once Tegan left her, Adeline laid her head on her desk and focused on breathing. She’d been doing okay these last few years. Sure, the situation with the neighborhood association was a setback, but until Gannon had come, it’d been a long, long time since guilt had flooded her like water rushing into a sinking ship.
She could get back there, couldn’t she? To a comfortable numbness? Working for the church often soothed the pain, even if it hardly covered her bills.
She forced herself upright and opened the church’s email to take her mind off Gannon. A message from one of the committee chairs asked her to update an event on the calendar. Afterward, she moved on to typing up notes from a task force meeting. Halfway through that, the office door opened again.
“Adeline?” Pastor Drew was a tenor like Gannon but without the captivating grit or resonance.
