Page 52 of As the Years Pass
I try not to look into this too much. He’s asking me over at nearly three am to eat, nothing more. I could tell him to go on by himselfbecauseit’s late, but I don’t want to. So I agree, and then we’re ordering a car to get to his house.
Chapter Twenty
Adam
I don’t know what I’m doing.
Almost kissing Emmet in the bathroom was one thing, but inviting him over my house in the middle of the night is another. I should have told him I was going home to bed, but I’m not ready to say good night.
I wasn’t lying when I said playing video games with him was the most fun I’ve had in years. I can’t remember the last time I did something for myself. Everything is about the kids, and before that, everything was for Leslie. The last time I put focus on myself was when I was a teenager. Then, it all stopped. At the time, I thought life was good. I was getting everything I wanted—a family. I was getting married, and we were going to have kids that I could be an amazing father to. It was my dream.
It’s still the best thing I ever did. I love my kids more than anything, but I keep forgetting about me. How good am I for them if I’m miserable? I’ve faked it for so long, and for so long it’s been easy, but now that I have a taste of something more, now that I have Emmet reminding me of all these things… I find myself fighting for happiness. It isn’t just there like it was a few months ago. Though, if I so easily feel this way now, maybe it wasn’t really happiness at all.
Maybe my facade has been shattered—or at least weakened.
I can’t tell if this is a good or bad revelation, but I do know that I’m tired of life kicking me in the ass, and for once, I just want to have a good night. I want to have fun and not worry about a damn thing. Zero responsibilities tonight.
When we get to my apartment, I pull out a frozen pizza and two boxes of mac and cheese.
“Seriously?” Emmet laughs.
“Do you have a better idea?” I ask.
“Are you putting the mac and cheeseonthe pizza?” he asks.
I look from the boxes in my hand to the pizza on the counter. “That sounds amazing.”
I grab a pot, fill it with water, and put it on the stove, then turn the oven on to preheat. Emmet gets the pizza out of the box and puts the pizza stone into the oven to heat up.
“I only have beer here,” I say.
Emmet shrugs. “I’m fine with that.”
I pull two from the fridge, popping the top and handing it to him, then do the same with mine.
“Aren’t wenotsupposed to be mixing alcohol?” I question as I look at the can.
“I’ve already accepted that I’m going to have a horrible hangover.”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
“So, you have nothing here to do for fun? No video games?”
“Nope,” I say. “The kids have some board games.”
“Anything fun?” he asks.
I lead him into Judy’s room closet, where a stack of board games sit on the top shelf, piled to the ceiling. Most of them are Disney-themed games, but there are a few we could have fun playing.
“Guess Who!” he shouts, shoving past me to get it. I can’t help but laugh. “You know what I always wanted to do with this?”
“Uh, what?” I ask, closing the closet door.
“Put pictures of people I know in here. Like family or from high school or something.”
I huff out a laugh. “That’s actually a really good idea.”
“Yeah, if only I had… one, two, three, four, five—“ He counts all the little pictures quickly. “Twenty-four friends.”
