Page 76 of Just Between Us

It has been nice being home and spending some time with my parents. As the days have passed, they have eased up a little, their bodies not as tightly wound with tension as they were when I arrived.

“I need to pick out some flowers for your mother,” my father says as we move through the rows of vendors. I have a bag of pastries in hand and Dad decided to grab a particularly large bag of asparagus for a recipe he wants to try out for dinner.

I’ve been thinking of texting Cole and inviting him over.

“Levi?” a familiar voice comes up behind me.

I turn to find Adam looking at me. He’s dressed in khakis and a sky-blue polo shirt, sunglasses perched on his head.

I flinch. There was a time I thought I could trust him. The memory of that night in my bathroom is another thing I buried deep inside me. For a long time, I wanted to pretend none of it happened, like it was some sort of bad dream and Adam was never real.

Next to me, my father briefly greets Adam and then turns to me. “I’m going to get the flowers. Meet you at the exit in ten minutes?”

I try to smile, nodding quickly as he turns away from us.Once he’s gone, I look at Adam, sucking in a quiet breath.

“Adam, it’s been a while.”My voice is level, but my entire body feels rigid.

“Knew it was you,” he says easily, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I saw you at your mother’s charity gala, but I didn’t get to say hello. Great event, by the way, you should tell her I said hello.”

“I will let her know,” I lie.

He watches me for a second. It makes me want to jump out of my skin. “I also saw Kai. He seems to have grown pretty close with you,” he says, voice still light.

My smile falters. “You spoke to him?”

He nods. “Yeah, I was surprised to see him after Anant’s birthday. I was supposed to buy him a drink before you pulled him away, you know?” He smiles sheepishly. “I was going to remind him but then I saw him with you two. Guess he wasn’t that interested in me after all.”

I can see right through whatever he’s doing. Adam is attractive and he knows it. He can’t imagine someone rejecting him. Me pulling Kai away during Anant’s party and Kai showing up to the gala with us would definitely piss him off.

I frown.“Did you say something to him?”

I think back to that night, rifling through the memories. Nothing was off about Kai at the start of the night. He was smiling and laughing until he’d disappeared for a few minutes before the auction began. When he came back there was a noticeable shift in his mood. He said he wasn’t feeling well, and I hadn’t thought too much about it but the week after that, he had been oddly distant and then he ended things.

Blood rushes through my body but I try to keep my smile in place, my voice light. “Sorry, I just mean did you two talk about anything to do with Cole and I?”

Adam laughs, lifting his eyebrows. “Nothing in particular. I just gave him a bit of advice, that's all.”

My smile falls. “Advice?”

“I just told him to be careful.”

“Careful of what?”

This time, Adam rolls his eyes. “Did you ever wonder why we drifted?”

Because you assaulted me?

“Cole cornered me a few months after you two started dating, promised he’d slit my throat if I ever came near you again,” he says. “So, I stayed away. No one wants to fuck with an Armas, especially him.”

I swallow. I did not know that, but I also know Cole didn’t say that to Adam because he was jealous. He said that because I told him what Adam did. And clearly, Adam still believes it was completely fine. He has never bothered to apologise.

“I was just letting Kai know that the same could happen to him judging by his obvious crush on you.”

My ears are ringing, anger burning through me, but I try to focus. I know what he’s implying, and it boils my blood. Kai didn’t end things because he didn’t want us anymore or because he met someone else. He must have believed Adam’s twisted theory that Cole didn’t want him near me, that he didn’t belong in our world. My stomach churns thinking how he must have felt throughout the rest of the auction. It makes sense why he chose to leave so suddenly.

I take in a quiet breath, my heart racing. “We didn’t drift because of Cole. We drifted because you tried to sleep with me whilst I was drunk.”

He lets out a single incredulous laugh. “Don’t pretend like you hadn’t been dying to fuck me for years, Levi. I was just trying to give you what you wanted.”

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