Page 7 of Dear Adam
Almost immediately, a text pops up.
I thought you’d never ask.
I set my phone on the nightstand and snuggle deep into the covers. Pretzel curls up next to me. I’m beginning to think we’re bonding until she opens her sleepy eyes, gives me the most disgusted look as if she’s forgotten I’m not Adam in her sleep induced haze, and moves to the opposite end of the bed.
“I didn’t want to cuddle with you anyway,” I mutter.
Chapter three
Levi
Themusicisalreadyblaring and the tiki torches lining the beach have already been lit at my favorite beach bar, though the sun is still a few hours from setting.
I sayfavoritelike I actually go out a lot.
Spoiler, I don’t.
It’s not that I don’twantto go out. I’d love to unwind and maybe have a pretty girl hit on me every now and then. But by the time I’m done working, sometimes twelve-hour days, the last thing I want to do is go somewhere and look like a creeper sitting at the bar all by myself.
No Scrubsis playing, and I want more than anything to sing along with every word, but I clamp my mouth shut.
In high school, this was Aly’s favorite song so I was left with no choice but to memorize every word in hopes of one day impressing her. We just got off FaceTime with her, and I can’t stop myself from remembering how grown up she is. I’ve always thought she was pretty, but the ten years since we saw each other last have beenverykind to her.
“I’ve got to move here,” Adam says, eyes wide, the dumbest smile plastered on his face.
He’s frothing at the mouth over the girls in California when I’d give anything to be back in southern belle territory. The girls here just don’t seem to have enough syllables in their words and balk at the idea of sweet tea.
“You mean you purposefully add calories into a drink?” Eliza, a girl I datedverybriefly, asked when I ordered sweet tea one evening with dinner.
“We have unsweet tea but I’d be happy to bring you some sugar packets,” the waiter had offered.
“Maybe bring him some Stevia,” Eliza had suggested. “Less calories.”
“Stevia? Are you kidding me?” She thought I was joking and tilted her head back to laugh. It was like a little tinkle, and I knew it was fake because she was afraid to contort her face too much and risk screwing up her Botox results.
I was, in fact, not joking, and ended up telling our waiter to forget the tea and bring me a Coke instead. Everyone knows the proper way to make sweet tea is by adding the sugar in while it’s hot so it melts anyway. Otherwise, it’s just a sad excuse for sweet tea and frankly, disgusting.
Needless to say, Eliza and I did not last long.
While Adam is busy charming the two girls he just met, I sidle up to the bar and order a round of the local draft beer for me and Adam.
It must be a Hawaiian-themed night, because everyone either has a lei around their neck or—if they’re already really drunk—on their head.
A moment later, Adam joins me, and as if on cue, the bartender slides us our beers and throws us each a lei.
“Aly would love this place,” Adam says, taking in the disco ball hanging from the ceiling of the tiki hut, the open-air bar, and the waves crashing in the distance. “She loves themed parties.”
I try to keep my face neutral at the mention of Aly. All I can think about is her eyes, which are the perfect shade of blue. They’re not too blue like the fake contacts the girls here wear. They’re the exact color of the water in the Charleston Harbor that I miss so much, tinged with a little gray like the mist that hangs over it each morning. Her cheeks were pink, and her full, pouty lips formed an O of shock at finding me—not her brother—on the phone. It was enough to send me into a tailspin of thoughts that Adam would certainly kill me for having.
“Oh yeah?” I say, thinking of the crush I had on her back in high school. She was cute then, with her thick glasses, long ponytail, and tan legs for days. But now? Now, she’s drop dead gorgeous. How had I let Adam weasel his way into every attempt I had of being smooth with her that he could? “How is she?” I ask, finishing off my beer. Before I can even ask, the bartender, bless her heart, is already pouring me another.
I didn’t really get the chance to actually talk to her either of the times we called her today, so I’m hoping Adam takes my curiosity as more friendly than desperate for any tidbit of information about her I can get.
“She’s good,” he answers skeptically.
“That’s great,” I say. “She looks fantastic. Who is she seeing these days?”
I know I’m pushing my limits, but one beer has me thinking that doors that have always been shut are suddenly wide open.
