Starfire(71)
I chortled with relief. He wasn’t going to break up with me at DeNirro’s after all.
“Adrian, did you just say I’m easygoing?”
“You’re pretty cool.”
“Thank you.” I wished I could have gotten that recorded, to send to a certain you-know-who to prove I was easygoing.
Adrian swirled his drink again. “In fact, you’re so cool, that you agreed to a date with me tonight, even though you’re somebody else’s fiancée.” He glanced up, catching me with his cool, metallic-blue eyes. “What’s the deal with that?”
BUSTED.
CHAPTER 23
My heart nearly stopped.
Oh, Adrian totally knew. But of course he did. How could I have been so stupid? Beaverdale wasn’t in a remote mountain village with no internet.
“It’s not what you think,” I said.
“Really? I figured it was a publicity stunt you two cooked up.”
I took a second to process this information.
“Okay… so it is exactly what you think. You’re a smart guy, Adrian.”
“I’m no valedictorian.”
I reached for the basket of bread, feeling more confused and mixed up than ever.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“Are you really marrying that guy, or just doing the appearances? You should probably start wearing an engagement ring, because I’ve been reading some of the gossip sites. I’m not the only one who suspects your timely engagement is a stunt.”
I dropped the bread and covered my face with my hands. “Oh, Adrian. I’m the fucking worst.”
“We promised to be honest with each other.”
“I know. Things have been crazy.”
“I can imagine.”
“I just want to climb into my bed with a book and make the whole world go away.”
“I feel the same way sometimes, but everything falls apart if you close your eyes and ignore your problems for too long.”
With my hands still over my face, and my eyes closed, I asked Adrian if anyone was close enough to the table to hear what I was about to say.
“Just me,” he replied.
“Please don’t ever tell anyone. Your parents don’t even know, because my mom didn’t even tell your mom.” I kept my eyes closed and my hands over my face. “When I was fifteen, I had a baby. That’s Kyle, who my parents took as their own.”
“And you only missed school for a week.”
My hands dropped and my eyes flew open. “You knew?”
“Don’t worry. I never told anyone. My mother doesn’t know. My parents bought the cover story that your mother never told anyone, and hid her baby bump because it was a high-risk pregnancy.”
He kept talking, saying that he’d noticed my body changing shape, and my weight loss when I returned to school from being sick. He’d come to his own conclusion after seeing my mother with the baby, but respected and cared for me enough to never ask, despite his curiosity.
His words became foreign, like a language I couldn’t understand. How could I have been so stupid? I was still the same dumb kid, oblivious to what was right in front of me. Would I ever use my brains, or was my father right about me being prone to whimsy?
Oh, fuck. Everything was such a mess.
I tried to fight the tears, but they came. The waitress arrived with more food, and I turned away, blowing my nose on a napkin.
A hand landed on my shoulder and I opened my eyes to find Adrian kneeling on the floor in front of me.
“I’m here,” he said. “Tell me what to do. Should we leave here? Can I get you something?”
“I’m sorry,” I sputtered.
He stayed right there, one hand grounding me on my shoulder and the other hand on my knee, completing a circuit of touch.
He said, “We’ll just take a minute here. Nobody’s paying any attention to us. I can drive you home if you want.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”
He squeezed my shoulder. “I understand.”
“I’m scared.”
“Life is scary, but you’ve got people who care about you.”
I sniffed. There was a break in the tears, like the sun coming through the fog. I wiped the wet napkin across one cheek then the other.
My voice gravelly, I said, “I’m okay now.” I licked my dry lips. “Wow, that sampler plate smells good.”
Adrian gave me the most heartbreakingly sympathetic look, and I nearly started leaking from the face again, but swallowed it down.
“We should try to eat a little of that food,” I said.
He squeezed my shoulder and knee again before slowly removing his hands.
I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with fire and my nose with aromatic herbs. The sounds of the music and people chattering around us came back to me.