Page 6 of One Hundred Lights
It’s Adrian, and the sight of him takes my breath away.
Towering there on the welcome mat with freshly cut dark hair that swoops onto his forehead and two-day stubble, he’s everything I’ve ever wanted... but couldn’t have.
And he’s staring right at me with brown, broody, intense eyes, like there’s not a room of PTO moms.
“Sorry I’m late.” Adrian slips his jacket off.
Waving my hand toward corporate mom Grace, where there’s an empty chair, I attempt to do normal things with my mouth.
“Thanks for coming.” My voice comes out scratchy and soft, as if we’re somewhere else—perhaps all alone under romantic moonlight and shooting stars and he’s about to confess his love—not in my house with a bunch of moms. A ridiculous thought.
But I can’t stop staring.
Whyishe here? To volunteer for the school dance? That doesn’t feel like something Adrian would do. That was always Reese’s thing, taking care of all of Chelsea’s school stuff and juggling her job, while Adrian focused solely on work.
And CrossFit, eventually.
Gray ponytail mom—otherwise known as Jill—clears her throat. I whip my attention away from Adrian back to the couch o’ scary PTO moms.
“What were we talking about?” I’m totally thrown off my game.
“Storage closet,” Jill says, eyebrows raised.
“Right. Good news and bad news. Go on.” I focus on her, then back to Liz as she takes a breath to talk.
“The good news ismostof the winter dance decorations were in plastic bins.”
“Excellent.” I nod my head enthusiastically, all too aware of Adrian’s eyes on me. All these months of me running from him and Reese, avoiding talking to or being anywhere close to them, and now he’s in my house. He shouldn’t be here.
Nausea crashes over me and I clench my stomach muscles, trying to dissipate the feeling. Or is that an excited fluttering? The negative and positive are entwined together, impossible to detangle.
“Oh.” My brain re-plays Liz’s sentence. “Most? So what’s the bad news?”
“Everything was stored in that wet, nasty closet. There was a leak that ruined all of the strands of pretty white lights.” She makes a face.
“All of them? Oh, shit.”
“Yeah. Someone haphazardly stored them in cardboard boxes. I’m not sure who was on the cleanup crew last year, but they really screwed up. We dragged them behind the school to the dumpster.”
“So we have no lights at all for our winter dance?”
“Correct. And we ran to Target on the way here, but the store is totally sold out. Then we had to get to this meeting, so...” She sips from her coffee, daring me to question whether they could have looked at another store instead of getting Starbucks.
“Oh my god.” This is going to be an enormous problem. Lights are the cornerstone of any good holiday decor. Without lights, the dance will be dark and boring. It won’t be festive at all.
Just like Christmas Eve without Adrian.
Or Reese and Chelsea. Jackson, too, since he’ll be with his father for the first time in years. “Okay, let’s get through the other things first, then I can think about lights.”
“Someone should probably report the leak to school maintenance.” Liz looks pointedly at me.
“Yes, yes, of course.” I realize they mean me. The school dance chair. “I’ll take care of that.” I add it to the to-do list I’ve started.
“As for other responsibilities,” Liz continues, “Sara and I were already coordinating the food. That’s all under control, so we just have a few follow-ups this week.”
I thought someone said Vicky hadeverythingunder control. I guess that wasn’t quite right.
“Did you hear from the caterer this afternoon?” Sara turns toward her friend.
