Page 86 of Again, In Autumn

“You got back problems yet?” he asks.

“No, I’m still two months younger than you.”

He laughs. “Right. I forgot.”

Then, his movements freeze, his hand immobile atop a snow globe, and I know what he hasn’t forgotten: my eighteenth birthday.

Chapter Twenty-Four

His birthday came in early June when we’d just arrived at the house. We’d only just met. By the eighth of August, we knew each other considerably better. In days, the summer would end, and I’d go to college and Adam would head to Nashville to try his hand at a music career. What we had been to each other those eight weeks would no longer exist.

After cake, dinner and gifts at the house with everyone, we snuck out that night. Adam took me to the overlook, and we lay in his truck bed, fingers tied up, my head on his chest. The sky was clear. No lights for the stars to compete with.

“I love you, Vienna,” he whispered into my ear.

He’d said it before. A few times. I could feel it, too. “I know,” I whisper back.

“I know, as in…”

“As in, I love you, too.” I waited for him to kiss me or touch me.

He stared up at the sky. “I don’t want to go anywhere without you.”

“Where are you going?” I joked. “Are you leaving me on the side of the road?”

“I’m serious.” He sighed. “It’s killing me knowing that soon we’re not going to get to do this. That I won’t get to ask you about your magazines or watch you bake or feel your soft skin.”

I twisted my head to look at him. “Me too. But what can we do about it?”

He stayed focused on the stars, but his arm tightened, smushing me tighter to the drum beating under his shirt. “We could get married.”

After a beat, I snorted a laugh.

“I’m not joking.” He finally turned to look at me. “We could get married.”

“We can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“Because…” I waited for him to laugh it off, but he didn’t. He expected an explanation. “We’re just kids, Adam.”

“We can vote,” he said.

“We can’t buy liquor.”

“We can drive.”

“We don’t know how to buy a house or pay for health insurance or –”

Adam shut me up with a kiss. When he pulled back, he muttered into my mouth, “None of those reasons are because you don’t love me.”

I dragged my thumb across his cheekbone. “You know I do.”

“Then marry me.” He pulled me closer to his face and glued his forehead to mine. “We can figure out how to do the rest. If we’re married, we can make choices together. We can build a future together. You can go to culinary school, and I’ll play at whatever smoky bars I can find. We’ll build your bakery and build my music career.”

I let go of his hand and pressed myself to a seated position. “My dad would never allow it.”

He sat up and cupped my jaw. “I’m not asking him. I’m asking you.”

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