Page 30 of Freedom's Kiss
She swallowed past thick emotion as she looked up at Summer. “Thanks. That’s…really sweet.”
Summer shrugged as if no big deal. “It’s what friends do. And you heard my husband and Amber. We plan on keeping you around.” She reached over and squeezed Olivia’s wrist. “You’re stuck with us now.”
Funny how being stuck felt an awful lot like being offered a helping hand.
“You ladies going to join us anytime soon? Adam’s making us watch the news until you get in here,” Trent called from the other room.
Summer rolled her eyes with a smile but raised her voice to answer, “Serves you right for insisting on watchingRaiders of the Lost Arkagain.”
“It’s a classic!”
She hooked her arm through Olivia’s and tugged her toward the living room, where everyone lounged on an overlarge sectional. Summer made a move-over motion with her hand, and a spot opened between Trent and Adam. Summer plopped down, pulling Olivia with her. The space wasn’t big enough for both women, so Olivia ended up half in Adam’s lap.
Sorry, she mouthed as she tried to wiggle her way off the crowded sofa to sit on the floor. But Summer’s arm stayed hooked around hers, and the woman only pressed Olivia’s limb tighter. Adam shimmied over as far as he could, and the half part of her body that had resided on top of his thigh slid down to rest at his side. Every inch of her right side was plastered against every inch of his left. Leaning slightly away from her, he lifted his arm and settled it across the back of the couch. The move afforded them a little more space but felt even more intimate as her shoulder snuggled up against his ribs and her head rested against his bicep.
Energy buzzed through her body, looking for an outlet to break the circuit. She pinched the hem of her shorts and felt the serge stitching of the thread used to hold them together. She focused on the feel of the back-and-forth zigzag pattern and ran the underside of her index finger along the ridges of the thread. A nucleus of humming echoed around her chest cavity, but she felt the release through her fingertips.
Amber sat cross-legged in front of the TV, a DVD case open in her lap. “Everyone ready for a wildly inaccurate depiction of archeology?”
Adam’s body tensed beside Olivia. She looked over at him to find his gaze glued to the television screen.
Amber rose to her knees, DVD in hand, at the same time Adam leaned forward until he barely sat on the edge of the couch, elbows digging into the tops of his knees.
“Wait!” He threw a hand out as he stayed riveted to the scene playing out on the news.
Olivia found her hands stilling, her body also leaning forward to catch the words pouring from the speakers. The air in the room thickened with tension as everyone sat motionless, absorbing the monologue of the news anchor.
“Dan Munchouse, the lacrosse captain at Miami University, has been charged with three felony accounts of rape. The alleged assault of coed Stephanie Singh occurred behind a trash container outside a fraternity house while a party within was in full swing. Eyewitnesses are coming forward, but Munchouse’s attorney, Hudson Burke, has issued a statement ofno commentat this time.”
Adam held himself rigid, his jaw popping but otherwise as still as a statue. The news broke for commercial, and Amber reached over to turn the TV off.
Undercurrents pulsed through the air, everyone quiet as death. The bitter taste of foreboding filled Olivia’s mouth with dust as her mind worked to put the pieces together. While sick and horrible, the report of the alleged rape of a college student seemed to hit the Carrington family, and Adam specifically, like a bull’s-eye at the shooting range. Questions unasked, things unsaid filled the room like an imposing figure, sucking the oxygen from their lungs.
Olivia’s inability to make the connection only reminded her that although it felt like she’d known Adam all her life, they’d only met the day before. There were so many chapters of his life that she was unaware of, mysteries that cast his past in dark shadows.
Why did he really quit his job as a successful defense attorney? Why did his eyes dim with the weight of sorrow when he let his guard down? What had his mom alluded to when she’d said he couldn’t buy atonement?
A suspicious thread wound around her ribs. Somehow the breaking news report tied to Adam.
Beside her, Adam hung his head, his face buried behind his palms. Emotions rolled over him, her body attuned to his to the point she felt each crash of wave as it hit. Disbelief. Guilt. Anger. He jumped to his feet, arms falling to his side. Lightning shot from his eyes, and his muscles coiled.
“Don’t do anything rash, son.” George stood, a comforting hand on Anita’s shoulder as the woman looked near tears.
Adam’s nostrils flared, and his knuckles cracked from being squeezed into tight fists. He stared into the black screen of the TV as if he could look through the electronic to whomever it was who had caused his blood to boil.
“You okay?” Amber looked up at him from her kneeling position on the floor, her voice soothing, as if Adam were a child who’d scraped a knee.
Adam ignored her, lost in his anger and the swirling thoughts that flamed the fire.
No one had approached him, though Olivia wasn’t sure if it was because of fear he’d lash out—he did seem rather fierce at the moment—or out of respect and the knowledge that he’d work through it all in his own time. She watched as he turned the anger he projected toward himself, the mental flagellation running through his mind written clearly on his face.
Slowly, she rose from the couch and put a palm to his back. He flinched away from her touch, but the contact served its purpose. He snapped out of the invisible black hold that had gripped him.
“Olivia,” he breathed her name.
“Hey, Chef.”
The fog receded from his eyes, and the indignation that simmered in his countenance melted to resignation.
“Rough day for both of us, huh?” She kept her voice down even as their audience pretended not to listen.
She wished she could say something that would wipe away the tormented look from eyes created to twinkle with mischief, from a mouth prone to curve with laughter, not thin from shame. But even though the clues were there—his past and the news story—the truth was she didn’t know what he struggled with, what ate at him, and from the look of him, spat him out.
Patience.
Call it curiosity, compassion, or friendship, she wanted to get him away from his family, who were trying and failing at pretending not to be watching him closely, and get him to open up to her about what was going on. She wanted to know so she could help…somehow. But Adam had been patient with her, letting her sort out all her mixed-up emotions that the DNA results concocted.
When he was ready, he’d tell her. He’d open those chapters of his past to her, and she’d be there to help him wade through whatever storm he weathered. Because one thing was certain—she wasn’t going anywhere.
