Page 66 of To Bring You Back
“About how stupid I am?”
“Not one.”
“I don’t understand how you could care. All I’ve ever done is alienate people. Fitz, you, God. And apparently all any of you want is for me to be loved and in love.”
“It’s a lot less selfish in God’s case than mine.” He thought of revisiting a song they should both know from the early days, but how many reminders of Fitz could she take? He stuck with the more recent melody, another of the songs he’d never shared before. But no lyrics. She didn’t need to know yet every thought he’d ever had about her. “You’ve always understood me. You knew me before I got this job. You know the best and the worst of me. That you might find a way to fit me into your life anyway …”
“Scares you?”
“No. I told you my greatest fear.”
She stretched one of her arms and rolled her shoulders. “I read that article about me. They got horrible pictures.”
“They’re good at that.” He watched her, trying to judge if he could lose her over the rumors after all, or if she was only trying to shift the subject further and further from God.
She pushed her hair back from her face and looked at the curtains. Her brown irises held more than their share of concern. The article had upset her.
He set the guitar aside and rested his arm along the back of the couch so he could touch her cheek. “No one else’s eyes do to me what yours do.”
When she focused on him, he lowered the hand. Even such simple contact packed more of a high than hearing thousands chant his name. But what had he expected? He still remembered the vanilla mint taste of their first kiss. He was as much of an addict as Matt, but he had to operate by a new code. If he kissed her now, he’d have nowhere further to take the relationship when his feelings for her somehow deepened.
Was such a thing even possible?
What did it mean that he didn’t think it was?
She intertwined her fingers with his. “If we’re going to keep being seen together, I’ll have to learn to ignore them.”
Her hands were so small and smooth compared to his, the crescents of her fingernails delicate. He ran his thumb against the tip of one of her nails. Back when she’d played bass, she’d kept them trimmed down to nothing. She’d have to cut them when she started playing again, but that would be a small loss compared to everything she’d gain. Maybe she’d pulled herself together enough to give it a shot.
But she waited for him to respond to something. What had they been talking about? Right. The press.
“A local reporter stopped by to write about the project here. John and I gave her a quote about communities pulling together and the church being a family that pitches in. That should start a story that won’t go bad on you. I posted about visiting my mom to counteract rumors about where we went. As for tonight, if we give them an inside glimpse that tells the story we want, they’re less likely to make up something on their own.”
“What are you going to say?”
“Here.” He took the guitar again, angled away from her and took a photo with his phone, him and the guitar in the foreground, Adeline behind him, the soft smile she offered a little blurry, but her hair glinting, as silky as ever.
Jamming with an old friend and a borrowed guitar.
Her breath warmed his arm as he typed, so she probably read along as he entered the caption, but he tipped the phone toward her when he finished.
She rested her head against his shoulder as she read. “So we are just friends.” Her voice was neutral, curious maybe. She angled her face up, the corners of her mouth lifted in a smile that nearly made him drop the phone so he could cup her chin, close the gap, and show her how much more than a friend he wanted to be.
She glanced back at the phone. “I suppose it’ll always be true that we’re old friends, even when we’re more than that.”
She’d saidwhen, notif.
He fought to stay calm. “We are more.”
She laced their fingers together and rubbed her thumb over the hollow in the center of his palm. Like a voice carried through an auditorium with perfect acoustics, every circle of her thumb echoed through him. At this rate, his resolve to save kissing at least a little longer would expire in about two seconds.
“You make it hard for a guy to think.”
Smile broadening, she leaned away from him and released his hand.
The distance gave him enough space to breathe. He added hashtags and the filter Lina, the band’s social media manager, insisted he use, then shut off his screen. “I’ll post it on my way out.”
Adeline rested her head against the back of the couch. Maybe she wasn’t signaling she was tired, but the clock read eleven thirty, and he was headed for trouble if he stayed longer. He returned the guitar to its case. “I’ll send you a recording and the chords to a new song. Play around with a bass line, and next time, we’ll work on it together.”
