Page 361 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
“I just took a vacation over the weekend,” Adam reminded me, but I could tell from the grin on his face that it was almost a done deal. If I really wanted to go skiing with Adam and Ethan tomorrow, then it would only take one more argument to sway him.
“You’ve been telling Ethan that we could all ski together for weeks now,” I reminded Adam. “Come on, it’ll be fun. We can at least do a half day and take the afternoon off, what do you think?”
Adam considered it for a moment. “Just the afternoon,” he finally said, nodding. “How’s that sound, buddy? I’ll pick you up from school at lunchtime and we can ski together for the afternoon?”
Ethan cocked his head to the side as he considered it, and I had to fight not to laugh when I realized that his ‘thoughtful’ look was exactly the same as his father’s. Finally, he nodded. “All right,” he said, reaching out a hand for his father to shake. “But we have to do a full day of skiing another time. Maybe on a Saturday when I don’t have school.”
“Deal,” Adam said, shaking his son’s hand.
“He’ll make a great businessman someday,” I joked. “He drives a hard bargain.”
Adam laughed and shrugged. “Well, as long as he doesn’t do anything crazy like deciding to move a whole state over to buy a ski resort,” he said, his eyes twinkling.
I had to laugh at that.
“I’m sure you probably want to get settled back in, but I was thinking that maybe we could go for ice cream,” Adam asked as we got in the car. He looked distinctively nervous.
I glanced back at Ethan, who looked excited at the prospect of ice cream. “Well how could I say no to that?” I asked, jerking my thumb back towards Ethan’s hopeful expression.
Adam’s eyes crinkled around the corners.
To be honest, I still felt nervous around him. I had thought that we had smoothed out the tension between the two of us when he was in Nevada, but it felt like a whole new thing, coming back here to Utah. Like we were starting another chapter in our relationship. A chapter that might lead us to a future together.
I didn’t dislike the thought of that. Actually, I liked that we felt even closer now than we had the morning before, in the suite in Vegas. But I was nervous that I might do something to screw it up. I knew Adam was nervous as well, and that just made me want to calm him down. But I wasn’t exactly sure what to do.
“I didn’t think you were coming back,” Adam admitted as he and I waited for the ice creams to be ready, while Ethan guarded our table near the windows.
I looked over at him in surprise, but Adam was carefully not looking at me. I thought back to our conversations in Nevada. I had assured him that I was coming back. But then again, logically it was one thing to believe someone. It was another thing to really trust them to do what they had promised you. And I knew that Adam had a hard time opening up to me and trusting me.
I couldn’t take that personally. But suddenly, I knew just how to calm him down.
I nestled in close to his side, wrapping an arm around his waist as I smiled up at him. “I could never leave you and Ethan,” I told him quietly.
Adam looked surprised for a moment, and then a slow smile broke out across his face. “It’s good to have you back,” he said, his voice just as soft as mine.
“It’s good to be back,” I promised him. Then, I smiled mischievously at him. “Even if it’s damned cold outside. Maybe we’ll just have to snuggle up by the fire like you promised me.”
Adam laughed. “Deal,” he said, leaning down to kiss the very tip of my nose. We grabbed our ice creams and took them back to the table, both Adam and I praising Ethan for the picture he had drawn of the three of us while he waited.
CHAPTER 63
ADAM
I dug through the things in the back of the car. “All right. Skis, poles, boots, socks, helmets, goggles. Gloves. Damn it, where are my gloves?”
I glanced at my watch. I was supposed to pick Ethan up from school in an hour. Plenty of time to get ready. But I couldn’t help feeling nervous. We were almost halfway through the winter season already, and I had spent plenty of nights getting Ethan ready for ski club. I had a mental checklist of what he needed by now. And to be honest, his stuff basically lived on the drying rack in the basement when he wasn’t wearing it.
It was my own stuff that was proving difficult to keep track of. I kept thinking that I must be forgetting something, going back through my stuff only to find that I was, in fact, forgetting something. Jesus. It wasn’t like this was my first time going skiing or anything. Not even my first time skiing that winter.
But I kept thinking about the fact that we were going skiing with Bailey, and that made all the difference.
I was still so shocked that she was back in Utah. I hadn’t really expected her to be able to work things out with the board of directors, or at least, not as easily as she made it sound like it had been. And what’s more, she said that she had approached the board of directors with Ian. That meant that Ian supported Bailey coming back to Park City. Despite the fact that he didn’t want her to be with me, or at least, not originally.
Of course, he had come out to Utah to fly me back to Nevada to see his sister over the weekend. I should have realized that that meant he supported our relationship. But I guess I had still been thinking that there must be some sort of catch, that he was trying to prove to Bailey and I that things wouldn’t work out for us long term. Like he was trying to show me once and for all that Bailey and I were from different worlds.
Instead, it seemed like he really did support this relationship. I made a mental note to thank him for whatever he had done in getting Bailey to be able to return to Utah.
I had wanted to ask her to stay over the night before, but I hadn’t been able to think of a tactful way to approach that topic in front of Ethan. He might still be young, but I had a feeling he would understand the significance of me having a ‘sleepover’. And I wasn’t sure I was ready for that just yet.
