Page 10 of Our Hearts Knew Better

“Levi told me about your breakup,” I said instead, usingdistractionas a lead to keep him talking about himself, a subject he’d seemed to be a big fan of.

“Ah, great,” he sighed out, altering my assumption. A big fan…as long ashechose the bullet points. “What’d he say?” he asked, sounding like he dreaded to know, but eyeing me like he needed to.

Levi hadn’t told me much at all. And I guessed because he knew Adam didn’t want him to.

The thought made me smile as I shook my head, relieved to not have to dump the personal details back on him since they remained that way.

“Nothing. Just that there was one.”

Adam nodded up at the sky, releasing another sigh, but now with his own smile attached. “He wouldn’t have talked about it.”

I kept my gaze on him as his face shifted, trying to read him. He looked conflicted now, his mouth moving slow in puckers with his thoughts, his brows drawn in. “Doyouwant to talk about it?” I nudged, telling that seeming indecision I was open to his story as much as both he and Levi were open to mine.

Sometimes it’s easier to talk things out with someone who isn’t close to all the delicate and disquieting truths you hold in your heart. So many times I, myself, would chat up strangers in grocery stores. I would tell them things I would’ve told my dad. Things I should’ve beenableto tell my dad.

“I’d rather talk about you,” Adam said. He was diverting, but still flirting with the words. Still heavy andunblushing as I dipped my blush behind my hair, thankful for its bigness right now.

And I stayed turned away until my cheeks cooled, until he released a breath and made his voice lighter.

“I’d rather talk about what we’re doing tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow night,” I repeated, low to myself, a buzz back beneath my skin for more nights like this. I could feel the bounce in my feet traveling through the rest of my body, and I shifted the sensation to my next words, moving with the tease as a cover for my eagerness. “So Iama distraction.”

He exaggerated a humming noise. “Onlyif you want to be.”

“I want to be…” I trailed off, low to myself again, his words triggering my thought ofbeing. But I realized when I eyed his stretching smirk that he could’ve taken my pause as a confirmation, so through a sputtered laugh, I quickly added, “Out of my house. I wanna be out of my house.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do.”

My head started shaking, a reflexive revolt against these plans being real. Plans like these. The hope of having them. Plans I wanted to make andkeep.

“But why?” I asked from the thought. These guys had just met me. They had no idea what they really could’ve been getting themselves tangled in.

“You want it,” Adam said, like it was so simple to him, my silent thoughts being repeated back a comfort. Then he angled a grin at me. “Adventure, right?”

Another thing I could say about Adam was his attitude was infectious. “Adventure,” I echoed without any more second thoughts, still picturing both himandLevi, wondering if this would include his best friend.

I shushed him as we reached my driveway, cutting him off in the middle of a sentence as my thudding heart picked up. His words faded into silence, but then I had to tell him to soften his steps. It could’ve been those returning pounds of my pulse magnifying everything, but he sounded like he was kicking the gravel as he walked.

Shadows were tricking my mind, making me pause every few steps, thinking each new darker spot that crept up on us was my dad waiting to bust me.

My exhales came out as sighs as I realized my dad was still in the house, those breaths half easing the pressure back on my lungs from the pressure of those walls.

I learned fairly early on that it wasn’t a building that made a home, it was the people inside of it. I’d lived in many different houses, going anywhere and everywhere with my dad, and all the walls would close the same.

My body was naturally protesting, but I had too much of a headrush to be down about having to go back up.

“This is me,” I whispered, pointing to my window as we stopped at the trellis.Still there.Everything was still dark, my dad’s curtains still closed.

“You can’t go through the door?” Adam whispered back, strengthening my trust in him to follow my cues.

“Creaky floors. And my dad’s not the deepest sleeper.”

“Is that why we’re whispering outside?” He was poking fun, and I didn’t know if it was from my bit of ease for being in the clear, but I poked fun back.

“You’ve never whispered outside before?”

He snickered. “I’ve never had to.”

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