Page 128 of Cain
“Here you are all,” he says brightly with a warm smile. This man seems so calm and gentle that he could even make the angriest man on earth feel at peace.
“Great, now we’re all here,” Cain says with a broad, fake smile. He shakes his head, runs his fingers through his hair, and takes out a smoke.
“What happened to you?” Grayson asks Cain.
“Spare me your scolding, old man.” He exhales the smoke.
“That means you’re fine,” Grayson jokes. I can’t help but let out a soft chuckle.
“Do you need anything from me, Miss Ružicková?”
“No, Grayson, thank you.”
He turns to Adam and furrows his gray, bushy brows. At first, he’s hesitant, scanning his face thoroughly as if trying to find something familiar to him.
“Do I know you?” Grayson asks Adam.
Adam exhales, a soft smile adorning his clean-shaven, chiseled face. “I certainly do.”
“Who are you?”
“God, what a fucking circus!” Cain chuckles sarcastically.
“You used to call me ‘trouble,’” Adam says with a genuine grin on his face.
Grayson’s green eyes widen. “Adam?”
So they do know each other.
“The one and only.”
Grayson marches towards him and gives him a heartwarming embrace, the kind a father and a son give each other.
Cain looks angry, his hands shaking, as if he can’t contain himself.
“You’ve grown into a man,” Grayson says, holding Adam’s face in his palms.
“It’s been too long,” Adam says.
Not only do they know each other, but there’s a past between all of them. I wonder what it can be.
“Will you stay?” Grayson asks.
Adam’s eyes move to Cain’s, as if he’s asking for permission. “No, I was just passing by.”
“There’s no such option. You’re staying,” Grayson insists.
Cain crosses his arms and leans against the wall without taking his eyes from them, his cigarette dangling from his lips. He doesn’t look at me at all. It’s the first time I’ve felt I’m invisible to him.
“No, no, Grayson,” Adam answers softly. “I have to go, anyway.”
Grayson smiles, but I see he’s trying to hold back his tears. “Will you ever come again?”
Cain scoffs, and Adam briefly looks at him.
“I will,” Adam reassures him, patting his shoulder.
Grayson hugs him again and pulls away. He walks up to Cain and cups his face, not caring about the blood on him.
