Page 88 of Again, In Autumn

I sniffle and lightly laugh. “Yeah. I’ll bet that’s it. One of his golf clubs. In the basement.”

“After you.” He gestures to the door.

I walk down the stairs and Adam keeps an unmistakable distance between us. David peers his head in from the kitchen. He stirs a bowl.

I tap his shoulder with my pointer finger as I pass. “We got you figured out, Davey. And you thought you were so slick, didn’t you?”

He smiles, looking between me and Adam.

“Yes,” David answers. “I think I am.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

We sit with our plates of food in the living room. Barbecue chicken, macaroni and cheese, coleslaw and cornbread. I crouch down to set my beer on the coffee table and a body slides in behind me to steal the last seat on the couch.

“I’m sorry,” Adam breathes into my ear. “You’re smaller than me and you probably sit on the floor a lot. Can I sit here?”

“I have a teacher chair,” I whisper back.

“Well, you’re also so much younger than me,” he murmurs.

The recollection of memories flies back into mind and reproach floods his face. We just shouldn’t mention birthdays anymore.

Over my shoulder, I reply, “Fine. Since you asked so nicely.”

He sighs, relaxing into the cushions. After a beat: “I always ask for things nicely.”

Am I reading into his words, trying to find a double meaning? He said the thing about hitting him where it hurts and now this.

“I know what I want, and I made a good proposal,” he adds.

That felt purposeful. With the others settling into seats, I spin around and my arm lands across his knees. I did not misread that one.

He bites into a chip and looks innocent. “What? That’s how I got Grayson to share his chips with me. I proposed that we share them.”

Slowly, I drop my arm and turn back toward my food.

We went from not talking at all, to dancing, to him yelling at me, to him apologizing, and now he’s comfortable making jokes about our secret two-day engagement. What a 180 this day has turned out to be.

Kate makes a noise for attention.

I catch her eye and see it wander to Adam’s face.

“Did you want to sit here, Katie?” I ask.

She glances around her cozy armchair beside the fresh fire. “Nope.” She puts her drink on the mantel. “Did you want to switch places?”

This spot, where my back falls into the foot of the couch, between Adams open legs, is too intimate. I scoop my legs underneath me and sit upright on my knees. “No, no, I’m very comfortable,” I reply.

We all chat easily for a few minutes, getting a head start on dinner before the last game of the night. There will be awkward dancing, painful singing and shadow puppetry, and as much as I want the games to end, I don’t want this night to be over. Adam and I don’t talk during dinner, but I listen to his voice and feel his energy behind me, just as I did for months, but under different circumstances.

That summer, I loved pretending not to notice when his arm needlessly brushed against mine or when he sat beside me. I always turned my head when he told David and Francesca about something he heard at the store that morning or saw in the lake, as if he experienced those things alone, when I was right beside him.

Caroline eventually gets up, brushes crumbs from her lap and stands in front of the fireplace, twirling her fingers in front of her body. Her cheeks redden.

“Okay, so usually my game is an impromptu talent show,” she begins. “But I thought I might change things up this year.”

“Hear, hear!” David cheers. “I didn’t have time to brush up on my shadow puppet research. And my arthritis is acting up.”

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