Page 64 of For the Record

They are all what I needed most at the time I got them. That’s what he said before, wasn’t it? Granted, that was years ago, but still.

“You just…it’s beautiful.” I hadn’t realized my eyes were tearing up until I felt a single droplet on my cheekbone, slowly caressing its way down my face.

Adam’s eyebrows lowered at it. “It’s about time, you know?”

I smiled and nodded at him, because yeah, it was about time. Time for both of us after all we had been through together.

Currently Playing: The Way I Feel Inside by The Zombies

***

You know how sometimes you can have a bad day, then listen to happy music, and it helps? And how other days, you listen to sad music, and it helps even more? This was one of those days.

Sip ’n’ Spin had officially sold. Arthur said the new owners were cool. The guy and his wife were out of state and wouldn’t be in much, so I would have the place mostly to myself. They came by last week to say hello. The wife’s name was Poppi. She had green and purple hair and told me I could call her auntie, to which I politely declined. She was nice enough, and her husband seemed like a bit of an odd ball, which wasn’t too far off from our standard clientele. But still, they came in with a quick look around the place before discussing tearing it practically to shreds, ripping my heart out along with it.

It wasn’t my place to say that this building deserved more than plain gray laminate floors and a landlord specialized in a quickly done white spray paint job, so I kept my mouth closed. And with keeping my mouth closed came pent-up frustration that’s remained until today—closing day.

Arthur called me as soon as he left the attorney’s office, giving me a quick this isn’t goodbye, kiddo and reassuring me that I would still have a solid gig there. And all of that pent-up frustration, an overwhelming sorry, and that phone call came crashing down on me. Every weight I’d attempted to carry over the years sat on my chest as I lay flat on my back on my kitchen floor with Lionel Richie singing over me—a desperate concert for one.

It wasn’t lost on me that I’d known this was coming up. I’d had seven previous months to mentally prep myself for that. But instead, I’d shoved all of that deep down in hopes that I would suddenly have a great-great-aunt reach out and say I was like her long-lost daughter and she was in her last days so she had to give someone her five-million-dollar inheritance. Turns out I didn’t have that.

So, Lionel Richie it was. My newest best friend.

Three firm knocks beat outside my door, presumably my neighbor two doors down who liked to remind me regularly that my taste in music was, and I quote, “the gum underneath his shoe.” Although the last time I’d seen him in the hallway, he was wearing a wife beater with cut-off overalls and an iron-on patch of Waluigi on his chest. So who was the real gum here?

“I’m not turning it down!” I shouted at my door, giving my unwelcome visitor a choice finger. He couldn’t see it, but it was the thought that counted.

“I’d hope not.” A call came back that was most certainly not my Waluigi-loving, music-hating stick-in-the-mud neighbor.

Adam?

I sat up and took in the space around me. The kitchen wasn’t too bad. Probably because I had only eaten takeout for the last four days and didn’t own more than five actual dishes. But there were two piles of laundry in my living room that weren’t quite fold-worthy, yet weren’t considered dirty either. Not to mention I still had Lionel belting out and an array of pillows spread across my floor.

“Uh…one second.” I frantically crawled around, tossing all the laundry into the bathroom and sending up a quick prayer to the good Lord that the man wasn’t going to need to pee during this visit.

“You know I don’t care if it’s messy,” he rasped from the door, but it was a lie. He did care, he just wouldn’t say it out loud.

I picked up my pillow fort remains and lifted with my legs, bending my knees in a halfway crab walk to my bedroom before tossing them out onto the open floor. A mirror caught my eye, and I took in the look I was sporting.

A black Snuggie—to portray my mourning—blond hair in a giant clip that had been up a little too long and was going to be a nightmare to brush out, and a face that had once had makeup on it…was that yesterday? Either way, the bags were out and the lips were gone and there was nothing left except this shell of a broken girl. If Adam ever wanted me before, he was going to change his mind now. It was a shame to wash away this level of mystique I had managed to carry this far into our friendship. Fixing this train wreck would require at least twenty minutes, and judging by Adam’s hurried knocking, I had about twenty seconds before doors would be breaking down.

I sighed and reached for the door handle, locking my eyes on the floor as I opened it. “I know. Go ahead, spill it all. I look like Nanny McPhee before she gets all hot.”

Adam shook something in his hands, and the sound of a wrapper crinkling forcing my head to lift up like a dog hearing their treat bag open. He gave me this sad tilt of his lips, sympathy spreading across his handsome face. In his hands was a sharing-size package of my favorite Sour Straws.

I met his eyes and dipped my head at the candy. “What are you doing?”

He looked down at the package and up to me, his eyebrows dipped low. “It, uh, took me a while to find the right ones. The worker had to go check in the back. They had red, but you don’t like red. And even though blue raspberry still isn’t even a real flav—”

“No, like what are you doing here?”

“You didn’t answer my texts.”

Texts. As in plural. I looked back into my apartment as if they would appear before me. I’d completely forgotten that I’d turned my phone on do not disturb, and I usually called Adam when I left work.

Before I could answer, he pushed the straws my way. “I thought you could use…company.”

Was the candy supposed to be a bribe to let him in? As if he wasn’t exactly what I needed anyway?

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