I pull back to look him in the eye. “Thank you for everything. For bringing me here, for making me laugh, for knowing exactly what to say. Thank you for loving me.”
He smiles as he shakes his head. “You’re going to be thanking me for that for a very long time ‘cause you’re never getting rid of me.”
Chapter Eighteen
Relentless Storm
BY THE TIME WE WALK out of the hotel, the rain is pouring onto the streets of downtown Raleigh. We had planned to walk the half-mile to the restaurant, but that’s not going to happen now. Adam finds a place to park in the parking deck on Blount Street and we race through the rain to meet Senia and Eddie. We pass a crowd of people standing outside The Pour House Music Hall waiting to be let in for the next show.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I invited a couple of my buddies from Duke,” Adam says as he opens the door for me at Bida Manda. “They’re a year younger than me so don’t hesitate to punch them if they come on to you.”
“Isn’t that your job?” I say as we approach the hostess.
“I’m on probation, remember?”
I sigh as I pull my wet hair into a low ponytail. “Why do I always go for the bad boys?”
The hostess leads us to a table and I immediately spot Senia waving at me from the back of the room where they sit at the end of a very long table. She bolts out of her chair and we run to each other as if we haven’t seen each other in four years instead of just four weeks. We hug and I yelp as she lifts me off the floor.
“Happy birthday!” she shouts.
“Save some of that energy for later, sexy,” I say, and she growls as she puts me down.
“You’re just so hard to resist in your wet T-shirt.” She hooks her arm in mine and waves at Adam as she drags me to the table.
Adam’s two friends are there and so is Eddie. Adam and his friends do a secret handshake before he sits on the end of the table next to his buddies and I sit across from him next to Senia.
“Claire, this is Rolly and Ian,” he says, pointing a thumb at Ian next to him.
Rolly is a big guy, possibly taller than Adam and built like a linebacker. Ian is almost as hot as Adam, with his perfectly symmetrical facial features and icy-blue eyes, though he’s a bit scrawnier. By the time dinner arrives, I’ve learned that Rolly and Ian are stepbrothers who also happen to be best friends. Their parents got married ten years ago and now they share a dorm at Duke. Their dorm was next to Adam’s two years ago and they met when Adam punched a hole through their wall.
Rolly’s chubby cheeks plump up as he grins at me. “But he went to anger management so he’s all better now.”
“She already knows about that,” Adam groans as he reaches for his glass of water and pushes it across the table toward me.
This is our routine every time we go out to eat so it’s second nature to him now. I finish the last two gulps in my almost empty glass and accept his glass.
“Yeah, but does she know about the time you threw Mike’s laptop out the window?” Ian asks, his eyebrows perking up.
“Let’s not go into all the shit the Incredible Adam broke in his fits of rage.” Adam shakes his head in a can-you-believe-these-guys expression.
I smile, but I’m silently wondering how he managed to change from being such a tyrant into the person he is now. We’ve been so busy trying to fix me; we haven’t delved enough into his pain.
The rest of the dinner is fun, and I actually have my first sip of alcohol when we all toast to my birthday. The waitress is in a good mood, so she allows me to use my expired ID when Eddie orders us each a champagne cocktail, which is just champagne with a flavored sugar cube.
“To the birthday girl,” Eddie says, raising his glass and we all follow suit.
Adam turns to me. “To the birthday girl. The girl who stole my heart and my water.”
My first sip of alcohol isn’t so bad, but Adam insists I’m not allowed to drink more than one glass. Within two sips, I’m already feeling warm and frisky. I smile at Adam across the table as my foot grazes his shin. His left eyebrow shoots up and I wink at him. He reaches for my drink and slides it across the table so it’s next to his empty bowl.
“I think you should stick to water.” I slide my foot farther up his leg and he grabs it under the table. “Look at the time. We’d better get going before we miss the show.”
After we settle the check, Ian and Rolly head home and we head next door. The crowd outside The Pour House is thinning as people hustle inside to get the best view of the stage at this intimate music hall. The outside of The Pour House looks like any dive bar. The inside is dark and crowded with some pool tables and standing room only in front of the stage. I’ve been here once before to watch a local indie band called Death Puppy, which turned out to be three nerdy hipsters performing an acoustic set of their mostly electronic music.