11. Set In Stone
Waking up alone wasn’t exactly how I pictured our first morning together.
I sat up, wrapping myself in the sheet. Through the doorway, I could see Adam in the empty lounge, clad only in a pair of jeans, talking on his phone. If it was supposed to be a private conversation, he had no chance. The acoustics in the small, empty apartment rivalled any good concert hall.
Love is inherently selfish. I didn’t want him to talk to anyone. As far as I was concerned, we should have been left alone to live out the rest of our days in my tiny apartment. For me, it was an obtainable goal. Thanks to my inability to maintain employment, I had nowhere else to be. Adam, however, would fail miserably as a recluse. It was just after seven in the morning and someone was already trying to track him down. After eavesdropping for a minute, I realised it was Whitney.
“No, Whit. There’s nothing to work out.”
She obviously didn’t agree. It was at least ten seconds before he got another word in. “Look, I’m not discussing this right now.”
There was another long pause, presumably to accommodate more ranting. That was the only concession he made for her. His tone was granitic and curt and it summed up exactly why eavesdropping was a very bad idea.
I didn’t even pretend that I hadn’t been listening when Adam returned to the room. I tried to keep my voice casual. “How is Whitney?”
He pushed me back on to the bed with his whole body, burying his head in the crook of my neck. “It’s not a problem, Charli.”
“Ryan told me that you dumped her at Nellie’s, the day you saw me.”
Adam rolled to one side. “She doesn’t even know about you,” he mumbled, staring at the ceiling. “It had nothing to do with you.”
I believed him – to a point. Adam hadn’t ended their relationship to be with me. A short while after, I’d stood in front of him, begging him to stay with me to no avail. I had no idea what his reasons were – then wondered if Whitney did.
“Why did you break up with her?”
He turned to catch my eye, frowning. “Because I don’t love her.”
“Why string her along for four years then?”
“Ryan really did give you the scoop didn’t he?” he asked. “I stayed with her because it was convenient – for both of us. We have the same circle of friends. We hang out at the same places. My parents like her.” He rattled of the reasons as if he was reading from a list. “It worked for a while.”
“I wonder how Whitney would feel about being used like that. She’s probably heartbroken.”
“Not over the loss of me,” he said bitterly. “It was a two way arrangement.”
I didn’t ask him to elaborate. I didn’t want to hear another word about it. Ignorance was bliss, and that ignorance was going to save me from rethinking my opinion on which of the Décarie brothers was the evil one.
“We have so much to figure out, Adam.”
His hand slipped under the covers, sweeping a long trail down my body that scorched my skin. “It’ll work out. I promise.”
As distracting as his wandering hands were, I needed to know how. In the cold light of day, the transition in to Adam’s New York life seemed a little tricky. “You have to listen to me for a second,” I demanded, squeezing his fingers to stop them creeping.
He heaved a long sigh. “I’m listening.”
“I don’t need a anything set in stone. I just need to know we’re on the same page.” I would’ve been content knowing that we were reading the same book.
“I have no problem setting things in stone, Charli. I’ll do it right now.” He practically leapt off the bed. I wrapped myself in the sheet, bundled the excess in my arms and followed him to the kitchen.
“What are you looking for?” I asked, watching as he rummaged around in a kitchen drawer.
“This,” he said triumphantly, holding a black marker pen in the air.
I’d always found it strange that although I lived without furniture, I still managed to fill a drawer in the kitchen with junk.
Reaching for my hand, he led me through to the lounge room, took the lid off the pen and scrawled a number one on the pristine white wall.
“What are you doing?” I asked, aghast.
“Setting our future in stone.” He sounded much too proud of himself. The Parisienne would kill him for a lot less.
“Gabrielle will skin you alive.”
“Gabrielle will never know. She doesn’t stop by often.”
He dotted his pen on the wall. “What’s first on the list?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where are we going to live?” he prompted.
“You want us to live together?”
He looked at me. “I think we’ve wasted enough time apart, don’t you?”
Words failed me. I wanted to lurch forward, drop him to the floor and have my way with him, but my legs wouldn’t work. I nodded instead.
“Okay. Well, we can either stay here or you can move in with me.”
“I’m sure your parents would be thrilled.”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t be, but I’m grown. They don’t actually get a say when it comes to who I live with.”
“They might notice me there, Adam.”
“I don’t live with my parents, Charli. I share an apartment with Ryan.”
“But I saw you there,” I accused, “the day I came looking for you.”
Adam shrugged. “It must have been a Friday. Ryan and I have breakfast there every Friday morning. It stops our mother from coming to our place to check up on us.”
It was by sheer luck that I’d seen him that day. There wasn’t an ounce of magic involved. If it were magical intervention, Whitney wouldn’t have been there to sour the memory.
“Make a decision, Charlotte.” He tapped the pen on the wall, snapping my thoughts back to the task. “The list is long.”
“I couldn’t stand living with Ryan,” I muttered, staring at the vandalised wall.
“Fine.” He turned to the wall and began writing. “I’ll move in here.”
He didn’t need my input for number two. Furniture.
“Things get a little more complex at number three, Coccinelle,” he warned, calling me by the nickname I feared I’d never hear again. “I have another two years of law school left. Do you think you could be happy here for that long?”
“I like New York.”
“Well, isn’t that ironic?” he drawled. “Makes you wonder why you fought against it for so long, doesn’t it?”
He slipped his arm around my waist. We stood admiring his vandalism.
“Should repainting the wall be on the list?”
“No. It can stay there forever. Our children can scrub it off,” he mumbled, brushing my hair aside as he leaned in to kiss my shoulder.
Twisting in his arms, I studied him closely. “The list will be very long by then.”
“I hope so,” he whispered.
Convincing Adam to return to the bedroom was easy. All I had to do was abandon my grip on the sheet.
“We should never leave this bed,” I insisted, breathing the words into his ear.
He groaned in agreement, sending a hot rush right through my body that he felt. He responded by sending me to a place I was happy to revisit – the point of no return.