Page 4 of For the Record

Resting against the sheets, I closed my eyes, envisioning the night before. I strained to piece memories together, walking through the night step by step.

Trying my best to not be angry. Then seeing him in a suit and tie at Liam and Marigold’s wedding and forgetting what I was mad about in the first place. Flirting with him all night, hoping to break him enough to bring him up to my room. Silently begging him to put an end to all the awkward silence we’d endured on the plane ride here. Him playing along, pretending as though I had an eyelash on my cheek and he needed to delicately hold my jaw to get it off. Offering to take me to my room until I placed the lightest kiss on his cheek. The hurried tumbling down the hallway. How sweet he was. How he always made me feel like the most important woman he knew. How his rough hands were always so careful with me.

How are you so beautiful?

Made for me. You are made for me.

That pretty smile. Always gets me.

Each comment from the night before snuck its way into my memory. Half of me wanted to kick my feet and squeal like a fifth-grade girl. The other half wondered whether, when he got out of the shower, he would take it all back again. Were we going to end up exactly where we’d left off? Unsure of the future and our friendship?

I reached for my phone, seeing almost a hundred missed texts from the rest of the Wells family. None of them asked where Adam and I had gone, thankfully. I wasn’t quite prepared to let my best friend and her entire family know that her brother-in-law and I had been secretly close friends for years. Or that we’d ended up in a hotel room together after somewhere between seven and ten drinks. Truthfully, if it had only been two drinks, we would have ended up right back here.

We’d been too close to imploding over the last few days. The tension between us had been riding higher than it ever had, and we were reaching a mending or breaking point. This felt a lot like mending.

The shower water stopped running, and I jolted up. Shoot, shoot, shoot. I thought I would have another minute to process this whole thing. Adam wasn’t someone I could casually hook up with, then go about my day. I mean, we had a history. My fingers ran through my hair in a desperate attempt to settle the wild strands. I wiped my knuckles under my eyes, hoping to clear my face of any leftover mascara. Except when I pulled my hands back, I only saw black smudges smeared. Great, I was going to give the poor guy a heart attack when he got out.

I could pretend to be asleep. I wasn’t really good at faking things, though. Even as a kid, my dad could see right through me with any tiny white lie.

Faking this wasn’t the answer. No. I was an adult now. I owned dryer sheets and updated my car tag on time. I was going to handle this like a real woman, headfirst.

The knob turned, and then the door opened. Steam filled the doorway as Adam appeared in my line of vision. He was dressed in only black sweatpants, his hair still wet, and his tall, slim, tattooed figure surrounded by steam. A golden glow shone behind him, illuminating the room even further. I half expected a choir of angels to sing and a halo to fall upon his head.

I was going to pass out. Right here, right now.

“Sorry.” Adam cleared his throat and used a single hand to scratch along the muscles near his belly button. “Left my shirt out here.” He pointed to the gray tee laid out over the bench in front of the bed.

My chest pounded, and heat formed in the pit of my stomach as I unashamedly watched him lean over the bed and put the shirt on. I took in every inch of bare skin until he was properly covered. And because I had lost all feeling from the neck up, some rational part of my brain thought it would be a good idea to raise my pointer finger and jokingly taunt. “Yeah, don’t do it again.”

I could practically see his secondhand embarrassment. The wince across his face as his jaw tightened and his gaze went from me to the apparently ripped dress on the floor by his feet. This place looked like a zoo. I wondered just how much he remembered of the night before, or if the whole thing was a blur to him like it was to me.

An uncomfortable silence floated between us, which was even more odd, considering Adam and I didn’t do uncomfortable silence. Never awkward or weird. We’d always been real with each other. We were both all too easy to understand, even though I usually did most of the talking. It was one of my favorite things about him. He was always black and white with me. I never had to wonder, because he made it perfectly clear to me. Until the last two weeks or so.

Adam took a seat facing away from me on the bench, his shoulders slumped forward and his back tense.

I sat up farther, the white comforter lowering as I raised my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. “Are you mad that we did it again?”

“No.” He didn’t hesitate for a second.

The amount of reassurance that flooded my veins was almost pathetic. I could handle confused Adam, but not regretful Adam. I couldn’t take back last night, and if it meant us somehow attempting to get along again, then I would have done it all over again.

I leaned farther, scooting closer to the end of the bed. “Adam, are you freaking out? It’s okay if you are.”

With his head pointed down, he shook no. “No.” He paused for a moment. “Not at all.”

My curiosity was piqued. “Really? Because it kind of seems like you are.”

“I feel like you’re going to freak out.”

My head tilted to the side, and I eventually slid all the way to the bench and sat on my knees next to him. I silently pressed as I stared at him. He wasn’t prone to using his words, and after so many years, I could usually read him pretty well. But right now? I was completely lost, even as I tried to read the creases in his brow like they would whisper an answer to me.

Adam sighed again, his fingers digging into his temple. “Keep in mind, this is easily fixable.”

I pulled back a little to take him in. “You’re scaring me.”

He continued, his gaze stuck on the floor. “Whatever you decide, I will go with, okay?”

“Adam…did I get you pregnant?”

---