And that was the point in the interrogation I lost my temper. My loss of temper transformed into blasé petulance. “I’m eighteen, Adam. I can have sex with my boyfriend.”
His body jerked, like I’d shot him. “Sex?” he choked out.
I shrugged as if my heart wasn’t hammering against my ribcage. “It was a present to myself.”
He swallowed, his eyes roaming over me again. “Are you telling me… you lost your virginity last night?”
I nodded slowly, hearing an edge in his words I was a little bit afraid of.
Adam’s eyes flared after my confirmation and I stood there squirming as he drank me in from head to foot. I flushed at his appraisal, not quite sure what was happening. And then he made it clearer by turning on his heel and throwing the kitchen door open. Without a care to those sleeping, Adam stormed out of the house, the front door slamming in his wake.
I let out a shaky breath, realizing what the edge was now.
Adam thought of himself like my big brother. No big brother wanted to hear that their little sister had “gotten herself some”. More than that, I wondered if he was as disappointed in me as I was in myself. He knew me. He knew I believed in stars and sunsets and “happily ever afters”. I’d compromised my own beliefs by having casual sex with a boy I barely knew.
The tears came then and I hurried to my room with blurry vision. I grabbed some fresh underwear and pajamas and took them into the bathroom with me. For half an hour I remained in the shower, crying the entire time.
At least, I told myself, I’d learned a huge lesson.
I’d learned there were some things in life you could never take back.
Chapter 4
Adam put down the diary and looked up at me, something like regret in his eyes. I didn’t want him to feel regret, I just wanted him to know that even if my first time hadn’t been with him, I’d always wanted it to be.
“Baby, I’m sorry,” he whispered.
I frowned and shook my head. “Don’t. That’s not what… I just wanted you to know that it’s always been you.”
“But your first time should have been special, Els. It should have been romantic.”
I shrugged. “In the grand scheme of things it’s not the worst thing that happened. Dad—”
“Douglas died a few days after your birthday,” Adam murmured, finishing my sentence.
“Yeah,” I whispered back, remembering how mixed up I’d been over my dad’s death. I’d grieved, but I couldn’t work out if I was mourning the idea of a dad or if I was mourning Douglas Carmichael. To make matters worse he left me a boatload of money and it took me a while to come to terms with how that made me feel. Not to mention, “I was mad at him and he died with me mad at him.”
Adam slid across the floor and put his arm around me, hugging me close. “Ellie, I thought you stopped feeling guilty about that. He was a shit dad. You had a right to be angry at him, no matter what happened.”
I nodded and snuggled closer to him, inhaling the scent of him and his aftershave. He smelled good. He always smelled good.
We sat in silence for a while until Adam said, “Just so you know, I barely remember what I did with the catering girl. And I had no idea I said that to you at your party—calling you beautiful and telling you I worried all the time about you. Fucking mixed signals. I was pretty drunk that night.”
“I know. But in the end you were right about Liam. He ended up cheating on me with Allie.”
Adam tensed. “That’s why you stopped talking to Allie? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you would have beaten the shit out of Liam.”
“True.”
I snorted. “Always fighting my battles for me.”
“With you, baby. With you, not for you.”
Liking that a lot, I turned my head and kissed him, loving the now familiar press of his mouth against mine. I pulled back and cocked my head in thought. “I thought the year you started to see me differently was the one after my eighteenth.”
“The one after…?” Adam’s eyebrows drew together in thought for a minute and then instantly cleared as he remembered. “The almost kiss.”
While he’d been reading the last entry, I’d found the entry I’d expected him to allude to as to the moment he started to see me as more than Braden’s little sister. I held the diary out to him and he took it with a small smile as the memories flooded him.
Friday, July 5th
Tonight I had my first truly grown-up, sophisticated and, well, HOT, date. I’m just not sure who I had it with…
As Christian helped me out of the taxi I had to wonder if this was going to be “it”.
Christian was handsome, charming, a total gentleman and he had class. He had yet to make me laugh but I was sure that would come as we became more comfortable with one another.