DJ, however, brought up a blush on both of our faces when he asked Adam if he’d kissed me yet. Britt shooed him away before Adam could answer.
I offered to help with the dishes and Adam collected them for me, standing at my shoulder to rinse and dry after I’d washed. We didn’t talk much. I was at a loss for what to say. The questions swirled in my mind and knotted at the base of my throat in tight confusion. Why had Adam brought me here? Why risk introducing me to his entire family when he knew damn well I would never be in his life after our contract had been fulfilled? They were a delightful family and I was glad to know he’d had some happiness after the heartbreaks of his childhood.
When we were saying our good-byes, about to walk out the door, William stopped me and placed a small object in my hand. It was one of the figurines I had been admiring earlier. “Adam says you play a Spiritual Enchantress in DE. I thought you might like this,” he said, his eyes never meeting mine.
I looked down at the figure in the dim light and sure enough, it was a non-scantily-clad sorceress waving a huge staff above her head while preparing to conjure a spell. She had a long black hair and a red cloak that billowed about her. She was intricately rendered, a tiny work of art.
“Thank you, William. It’s perfect.”
Adam wrapped his hand around mine and we bid everyone good-bye as he pulled me to his car.
Back at my house, after a mostly quiet ride home, he walked me to my door. We stood on the doorstep and he looked into my eyes. “Thanks for coming with me tonight, Emilia,” he said.
“I had fun. But…” I shook my head. He tilted his head toward me, asking the question without speaking it, so I responded. “Why would you introduce me to your family? Won’t they wonder what happened, when we finally…?”
His eyes fixed on mine, serious, sincere. “Because you asked me and I wanted to show you.”
“Asked you what?”
“You asked me who I love. They’re who I love.”
He bent and kissed my cheek and stood at the doorstep while I let myself in and turned on my lights, then he faded into the darkness. That ache in my base of my throat was rising again. I was simultaneously dreading and anticipating the next time he’d call me. Because I knew between now and then he would never be far from my thoughts. I’d think about him while doing my drudge tasks at work. I’d think about him while writing my blog. I’d think about him while running errands, cleaning the house. And I’d worry. I’d worry about how I’d pick up the pieces when it was all over.
Chapter Nine
Monday night was group study night at Jon’s. Given the weekend I’d had, I was woefully unprepared for this week’s subject: acid derivatives. I almost called to claim a sore throat, but I had to go in to work at midnight anyway and figured I might as well use the humiliation of being unprepared as a motivator to study harder for next time. As if failing the entire thing the first time hadn’t been mortification enough. Some people are gluttons for punishment. It seemed I was a glutton for humiliation.
When I got there, however, I was in for a surprise. It was only Jon. The other three had canceled for various reasons and he’d decided to go through with it because he really needed to catch up. We cracked our books and got to work.
I should have known that things were going to get weird when Jon opened a bottle of wine and sat a little too close to me on the couch instead of across from me. I was filling out index cards with important vocabulary terms and he seemed fidgety and nervous.
“You getting nervous about the exam?” I asked, without looking up from my cards.
He shrugged. “Nah. I think I have it in the bag.”
I took a deep breath and released it, remembering that feeling of utter confidence last year, when I’d gone in to take it for the first time. Since then, I could have taken it a dozen times over to improve the score but I’d kept putting it off, certain I was unprepared and unwilling to face that defeat again if I was right.
I murmured. “I wish I was as confident.”
“You’ll do great. You’re so smart.”
I didn’t respond. Jon was unaware of my previous failure, as I’d only told people I didn’t attend school with—my close real-life friends like Heath, Alex and Jenna, and my BFFs online—Fallen and Persephone. I couldn’t think about this tonight. Couldn’t dwell on it. I grabbed the glass of wine he had poured and sipped it, distracted.
As always, my thoughts were a jumbled, preoccupied mess. Every time I tried to pull them on track, some fleeting thought of Adam or memory from the weekend would knock them off again.