Page 157 of Sin City Lights

She stared at him.“Adam?”

He steeled himself, looking for the right words to tell her what he knew might shatter them both.

She waited, her hand now pressed to where his heart was pounding.

“I have something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he quietly began.

He hated the shadow of fear he saw drift in her eyes.

“It never seemed like the right time.”

“OK.” Her voice was calm but guarded.

“First, promise me you’ll hear me out.”

She sat up, dragging the blanket with her.“All right,” she said cautiously.

He, too, sat up. He thought to take her hands but changed his mind and clenched his fists instead.

“When I was four, the house next door came up for sale. My parents thought it would be great if their best friends lived there. Their friends agreed, so they bought the place and moved in. It was convenient. They took turns grocery shopping, cooking, ran errands for one another, even shared a house cleaner. They had a daughter, not much younger than I was. Grandma helped with her care too, so it was a great arrangement for everyone. We took vacations together. The adults sometimes could get away by themselves and not worry about the house or kids. Childcare was taken care of, and, later, so were playdates.”

Fuck, what a word vomit.

He forced himself to pause a moment. He noticed that Eve had put distance between them but not much.

“Jannie told you how I got my nickname.”

Eve nodded.

“What she didn’t tell you is why those girls got so crazy. I didn’tpay them any attention, even in my teens. I’ve wanted to fly planes since I was old enough to know what one was, so I was more interested in spending time at the airport with my dad. When I wasn’t in school, or at the airport, or flying with him on some mission, I’d be reading aviation magazines and manuals. Any girl who chased me, I sent straight to Ian.”

His brother had loved it. His parents, however, began to try to set him up on dates.

“I just wasn’t interested. So much so that by the time I was sixteen, my parents began to get worried.”

Eve shifted. He looked up and saw the tiniest of smiles play on her pretty lips.“They thought you were gay?”

He shrugged.“They considered the possibility. Go figure.”

“What does this have to do with what your grandmother was saying?”

He held his hand up.“I’m getting to that.”

He took a breath, encouraged by her posture. At least, so far, she seemed relaxed.

“I grew up with the conviction that people should get married young. My parents did it, my grandparents, practically everyone I knew. That was our normal. That was what I was supposed to do. So, when they came to me with the idea that I should date the girl next door, I said OK because I wanted to please them. And because they put enough pressure on me to where I thought I had to.”

He swallowed. Eve had hunched over a bit and crossed her arms over her belly.

“I was young. I thought everything would be OK. I’d known her all my life. I didn’t see anything unusual when we dated. She… We didn’t have sex. Until…”

Their wedding night. What a disaster. He remembered wondering what the hell he could actually do right. Nothing he tried could please her, and she kept telling him he didn’t know what he was doing, which, of course, he didn’t, but she wouldn’t tell him what she wanted either.

“Long story short, when I was seventeen, I married her.”

“How did she die?” Eve asked softly.

There it was—his time to face it.

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