There’s raw fear and desperation in her voice. It’s not my business anymore. Cora was once in love with Adam, or maybe even still is. And she’s afraid.
It takes me a minute to recover from the unexpected blow. “Yeah...I mean, of course.
I’ll do whatever it takes to get him there.”
“Please, hurry,” she says with a catch in her throat.
I drum my fingers against the bar down the street, bouncing my leg and feeling as if I’m going to puke all over. The bartender doesn’t miss this and casts borderline surly looks my way every now and then. Finally, Theo strolls in, wearing his running gear, covered in sweat. I was lucky he had his phone so I could catch him during his morning run.
There’s a twinkle in his eye and a curve to his lips until he sees my face. “What is it?
Did something happen to Adam?”
I shake my head, fighting off tears. “I need your help. I have a plan.”
Storming into Theo’s brownstone, I pass a wide-eyed Adam and head for the guest bedroom on the top floor. “Where are you going? Where have you been?” he calls after me, trailing behind.
“We have to go!” I say, rummaging through my clothes and throwing them into a heap on my bed. “I have to get the fuck out of this city. Let’s go to Texas! Or we could catch a flight to California and be there in no time! It’s crazy awesome, you’ll love it! We don’t have to stay there long though. A night or two would do. We can switch our tickets to Hawaii and be there by the end of the week! We can get your cousin’s pickup on our way back!”
I latch on to him for desperate, needy kisses. The sad part of the act is that I remember how it feels to have an attack of mania. After Jason’s death I was mostly stuck in the depressive mode for months on end, and didn’t cycle too often. But when I was up, I was out of control, getting crazy drunk and sleeping with whatever guy caught my attention. It was when I met Levi that the medicine finally leveled my moods.
The dangerous part is that the downward spiral feels real. I almost don’t know where the lie begins and where the manic part of me has really taken over. Was that the reason I couldn’t get enough of Adam on the rooftop party? It’s almost too easy to slip back into my old ways.
Adam peels me away. “You’re the one who wanted to come back here. Why are you freaking out?”
On cue, Theo calls out from downstairs, “You guys still here?”
My eyes widen. “Shit, we have to leave!”
Adam shakes his head. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t go down there!” I plead, clinging to him.
“Jewels, you’re scaring me. You have to stop and take a breath.”
I shake my head, pulling on Adam’s arm. “They can’t make me go back!”
“Be down in a minute!” Adam calls back to Theo. He folds me in his arms, planting sweet-smelling kisses to my temple. “Hey, no one’s making you go anywhere. I’m going to see what Theo wants. Just sit tight for a minute. We’ll talk when I get back.”
“Please,” I whisper, squeezing his shirt in my hands. “Don’t leave me.”
“I’m not leaving you, Jewels, I promise.” He removes my hands from his shirt and kisses me on the lips. “I’m just going to talk to Theo. Whatever’s upsetting you, we’ll figure it out. Together.”
As soon as he’s down the steps, I sneak to the end of the hallway, hoping to catch snippets of their conversation, but I hear the front door close. Adam wants to talk to Theo where I can’t listen in.
Time ticks by slowly. I nearly fall asleep while waiting for the two guys to finish talking. Finally, I hear the click of the front door followed by Adam’s footsteps ascending up the stairway. I race into the bathroom.
He pauses in the doorway. “Jewels?”
I drop the open bottle of pills, watching them scatter across the stone floor. As expected, Adam comes racing into the bathroom. Seeing my hand filled with pills, he approaches me carefully, as if I’m made of dynamite. It reminds me all too well of the way my mom looked at me when I had my first break. “What are you doing?”
“I...I just needed something to help me calm down.”
He bends down to pick up the empty bottle, reading the label. His eyes flicker up to mine. He knows I’m lying. “Theo just told me about a conversation he overheard you having when he came back from his run.”
“He’s a liar,” I hiss, stepping back. I fall to my knees and reach for the spilled pills.
“He just wants in my pants. Lucky for you there’s only one person I’ll let in.”