Chapter Twenty-Eight

I peel the curtains back. The fog of dawn sits atop the lake in layers and swirls, making the grass shiny and the trees dark. It's Wednesday. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Friday it all ends – the magic of being here, the chaos of it all. Whatever's happening between me and Adam.

Nothing , I remind myself. There's nothing happening.

I start the coffee maker and wrap up in the long knit cardigan I hide in the coat closet.

I found it when I was sixteen, in Heddy's bedroom. The soft green yarn and intricate cables felt familiar.

"Ingrid knit that," Heddy said, watching me pull it from the hanger. "She spent the entire summer ripping out stitches and doing it again until it was perfect."

I have multiple items my mother knitted but I've seen them so many times that the fingerprints lack significance. Any time I held a story or an artifact that contained a shred of her soul, I wanted to capture it and keep it for myself. With all of the things I had grown numb to, a spec of new information reimagined her. She became alive again in that new object or the voice of the person who could tell me a snippet about my mother that I never knew.

I take my coffee mug with Amber's face printed on it and pull out the pot while it still brews. A falling drop sizzles, heat rises from my filled mug. After adding a drop of creamer, I step into my boots and walk onto the porch.

Purple and deep, a watercolor painting in the ethers, the sky gets ready for the sun, and everything else stays quiet. Few birds chirp and a few critters crackle the leaves. Settling into a rocking chair, I prop my feet up on the railing and take that first warm, relaxing sip of coffee.

That something I couldn't do last night – relax. I fell asleep thinking of Kate, dreaming of her glaring at me and sharpening her claws, sitting in the corner of every dream state scenario ready to pounce.

I woke up thinking of Adam.

Last night, we fell into old familiarity. Our bodies felt too comfortable touching and it led to an overeager mistake.

It was a mistake.

It would be less of a one if we had no prior relationship, just two grown adults attracted to each other, making out in the woods. They don't write country songs about it, but it's pretty normal. The extra stuff between us makes it less normal. Pressing into a bruise. Salting a wound.

Speak of the devil.

A noise catches my attention. To my left, Adam pauses before he reaches the porch stairs. I wish I found nothing cute about his dragging, tired face and bedraggled hair or the way his mouth curves up at one side.

"Morning," he offers slightly.

"Good morning," I reply in the same tentative tone.

I listen, half-hopefully, for sounds in the house but know there won't be any.

He sighs. "How'd you sleep?"

"With one eye open."

He thinks about that for a moment.

I dive in and ask, "What are you doing here?"

Adam rests his boot on one stair and shrugs. "I knew you'd be up early. I wondered if we could talk."

I wanted this last night, to talk. Now I've never been afraid of anything more. The thought of him saying anything that teeters the scale from neutral to "I don't ever want to touch you again" or "Let's get back in those woods, baby," terrifies me.

"Okay," I say. This conversation should span time. Decades. I jump up and charge toward him. "Let me get you some coffee, first."

Adam comes up the stairs and cuts me off. His hands brace my shoulders. "I'm good," he starts. Then, he looks out at the porch, the dawn, and finally me. A peaceful expression wakens his eyes.

He says, "Actually, I will have some coffee. But I'll get it myself. Sit back down."

I'm turned around to my porch rocker. Of all the stupid thoughts, I wonder what mug he'll pick.

He used to come over early for breakfast and stand beside me or help me flip pancakes. Mornings, nights, pieces of the day. Every moment we stole felt like a ritual, a habit we couldn't break. We didn't have anything to hide with no one looking.

I can't help but smile to myself, thinking that he knew I would be up right now. Of course, he would know. He also knows where to find the Garfield mug.

Yellow pops out from above the treetops, and the front door quietly shuts.

"Those kids sleep in, too?" Adam asks.

"Oh yeah." I watch him settle into the chair beside me. His heels rest on the railing beside mine. "They've been well-trained."

He sips his coffee, his thumb hiding an orange tail.

For a few minutes, neither of us say anything. We listen to the birds sing, plops of water in the lake, and a breeze singing through the trees. The first day Adam and I ever spent a moment alone, we sat on the dock with fishing rods. Francesca and David bailed fast. I didn't care about fishing, I don't know if Adam did. But I liked sitting beside him in the quiet.

Eventually, he says, "I had fun yesterday."

I stiffen. "Me too."

A lot happened yesterday. Neither of us can be sure of what the other is referring to.

"I enjoyed having fun with you ," Adam clarifies.

I glance sideways. That's an obvious reference.

"The whole day. The games…" He rubs his eye. "Look, I don't have a lot of people in my life who I feel completely at ease with. That's why I wanted to stay and spend time with you guys. I feel like myself with Fran and Dave. More myself than I've felt in fourteen years." He looks into his coffee.

"Aren't you friends with Justin Bieber?" I ask, unable to help myself. I push down a tiny smile.

He sees it. "Well, we braid each other's hair and have matching tattoos, but I don't know if I'd call that friendship."

"True love?" I tease, taking a sip of coffee.

Adam rolls his eyes. "I met and was photographed with the guy once." He tips his head. "Are you going to let me finish what I'm saying?"

Then, he adds: "You do this."

I pull my mug back. "Do what?"

"Make a joke when I'm trying to be serious."

I know I do. It's my armor.

"I didn't know you were being serious," I say.

"We have a lot to be serious about. I like being serious."

I groan, "I don't."

"I know," he says softly.

"Sorry," I say. "I'll try to be serious. You were saying that you're lonely and friendless…"

Adam's jaw drops. "And the hits keep coming."

I nudge his boot with mine. "I'm sorry . I'll shut up now."

"I don't want you to shut up, that's the point." He studies my sweater. "I want to hear you talk. To be around you. I feel easy with you, Vienna, more than with anyone in the world."

Forcing myself to meet his eye, the words fall from my surprised mouth: "Still?"

My brain meant to say, even after all this time? Maybe even, surely you've met other people you like more than me in fourteen years, trust me, I'm not that great.

But Adam understands what I'm saying.

"Still," he agrees with an urgent, pressing inflection that tethers my question to his answer so that I'll never have to ask it again. I'll always know his truth.

It's still us. We're still an us, for some inexplicable reason that defies logic. That's how we fell so quickly into love. I'd never before met anyone who felt like they were a part of me. That's something I haven't felt since, either.

Adam continues, "So much of my life feels busy and full of trying to make other people pleased that I forget how to enjoy it. I needed yesterday. I needed to laugh. I needed –"

He stops. His lip grazes along his bottom lip. "I didn't need to grope you in the woods."

I shift, uncomfortably. Be a grownup, Vienna. Talk about it.

"Sorry about that," I say, clearing my throat. "I shouldn't have…" I begin to mime how I came on to him but think better of it before my tongue emerges.

Adam smirks. "It's not your fault. It takes two tango. And grind up against a tree."

" Adam !" I scold, covering my face. "Can we just forget about it? Please."

He laughs lightly. "Never."

I pull back my hand to see his eyes stern on mine.

"Vee, I know we have…history."

He cringes at the word. I black out for a second.

Adam continues, "But I want to be friends. Even if it's only here, on this lake. Once a week out of the year. I want a sliver of what I had that summer with you. Because I've never felt anything like it since."

Nor have I. Those years before him were filled with the same friends I'd had my entire life, people I cared about and loved but didn't feel wholly myself around. We lacked a spark. Our souls didn't listen to the same frequency. Only after I went to college, delivered back into the wild, did I notice how different everything felt with Adam. There was no trying around him, no fighting to be seen, heard, or appreciated. I just existed. Felt at ease.

"Friends," I murmur, wondering how that label will fit.

"I promise I'll keep my hands to myself," he says, staring at the ground.

"Okay," I croak.

"Can we manage that?"

I consider what he's asking. "Vacation friends?"

It'll be too tight. Itchy, uncomfortable. A tank top in the dead of winter. Wrong .

"Who keep their hands to themselves." He throws up a hand for good measure. "I wasted fourteen years of getting to be here and have this ." He gestures out to the open lake, then to he and I.

I raise my coffee mug.

He smiles and does the same. "I don't want to miss out on any more opportunities because I'm prideful and angry."

I rock back in my chair and admit, "You wouldn't have seen me here anyways. I, uh, I've never been back here."

"Why?" He frowns.

"The same reason I never listened to any of your music." I cast him a look. "I know I hurt you that day, but it never occurred to me that you would be angry or sad about it for very long." My shoulders lift and fall. "I figured you would have gotten over it immediately and forgotten all about me. That…that wasn't something I wanted to face."

Adam's boots fall to the ground. He slides to the edge of chair. "Vienna. How was I supposed to get over that? You don't just get over something like that." He bites the inside of his lip. "I never got over it. Not even now."

Those grounded, weighty eyes peel back my defenses. The pain in my stomach returns to its usual business, the heaviness in my core deepening. He might as well be edging me into a corner, I can almost feel the scratchy tree back on my palm.

We've just had two contradictory conversations.

I stand, moving to walk back to the door.

" Friends ," I whisper, pausing over him. "You offered friendship."

He searches my face. "If that's what you want."

I don't know what I want. Two days ago, I wanted to get away from him as fast as possible, yesterday I wanted him to ravish me against a tree, and today I want to sit beside him on this porch every morning until the end of days.

My life hasn't often revolved around what I want. I don't seem to get the things I want. Reality and practicality always win out in the end, best buddies with the universe, voices burrowing in my brain asking, Who do you think you are?

"That's all we can have," I answer Adam, entering the house.

He's quick on my tail.

"Why?" he demands.

"You hated me two days ago."

"No, I didn't," he argues. "I wanted to hate you. I tried to be mad at you. It didn't last long ."

I stomp into the kitchen and drop my mug in the sink. This line of conversation only exists because of last night, I'm sure of it. I spin around. "Why? Because we're hot for each other?"

He snaps his neck, taken aback. "Well for one –"

"That's not enough, Adam." I grab the mug out of his hands.

"I wasn't done with that," he says.

"You should go home."

He follows me around the island while I put the creamer away. "We just had a nice conversation, why are you being hostile?"

"A nice conversation?" I shut the fridge, and he's an inch from my face. "It might have started that way, but that conversation went way off the rails."

"How so?"

"Because you said you wanted to be friends and you would keep your hands to yourself and then you gave me that look, and it's worse than touching me."

"What look?" he asks, leaning closer, cornering me.

"You know."

"No, tell me."

"The way every girl wants to be looked at," I breathe. "Like I'm the light at the end of the tunnel or an oxygen source. Sunshine."

"Moonlight," he counters, his voice low. His hands brace between the kitchen counter and the island, trapping me in his path.

I tip my head to his. "That's the look. Right there."

Adam's eyes drop to my mouth.

"That's another one." I duck underneath his arm, but he catches me by the hand. I stop, feeling his pull. "People will be up soon," I whisper, wiping my brow.

His hand moves through mine, tying our fingers up. "I know. Just tell me, once and for all. Why are you okay with just friends?"

I watch the question mark fall between us, his rugged and handsome face confused and perfect and not for me.

This week will end, and we will go separate ways, far too established in our adult lives to waste time trying to puzzle ourselves together.

He really doesn't know that? He can't see how different our lives have become, how painful the inevitable ending would be when it's finally realized? Or maybe he does, he just doesn't want to accept it. He only sees what he wants, like Maggie said, and goes after it. I have to be the stopping force.

This feels like deja vu.

"Because things are complicated . They always were." He's about to argue with me when I stomp on his attempts, saying, "Chicago, Atlanta. Traveling musician, full time teacher. Hot commodity, bakes alone in her pajamas. We have two very different lives, Adam. We missed our window to grow together. Now…we're just too far apart."

A fold of skin pinches between Adam's eyebrows. He says, "This is why I've been angry."

A flash of water reaches my eyes. "I get it now," I mutter back.

"I wish you wouldn't act like you aren't as wonderful to me now as you've ever been."

"I'm just an average girl," I argue, shrugging.

He pinches my chin and directs my face toward his. "Not to me."

Adam tightens his hold on my hand while the grip on my face softens. He glides his thumb and forefinger along my chin like I'm a block of clay he's molding with precision. It's an action so familiar, fourteen years later, that I forget we ever stepped foot out of this kitchen. I've time-jumped. Figured out time travel.

I just don't know how to change the future.

Adam parts his lips, cupping my jaw. "I wish I'd kissed you last night."

That would have destroyed the space-time continuum.

I collect his wrist, dragging it easily from my face, and say, "We're two trains on two different tracks, Adam, and I don't want to blow up at the end." I focus my eyes on a chip in the baseboard. "If you keep looking at me like this, everything will just go back to where it started."

"That's where I want to be. Back where it started."

I almost let him pull me in, I almost hear what he's saying. Who doesn't want to be eighteen again? We had no problems, no reality, just perpetual summer.

I correct: "We'd be back where it ended ."

Above us, feet hit the floor, and I point to the sound. "Right on time."

He lets go of my hand, and we both take a step back, deep inhales, hands fixing whatever parts of our appearances became human – wet eyes, reddened skin, pounding hearts.

Adam squints up his face. His calloused hand down his mouth. As the footsteps reach the bottom of the staircase, he says earnestly. "Friends, at least, Vee. I meant that. Please."

I swallow.

He nods briskly, tweaking his nose.

Grayson comes into the kitchen in Halloween pajamas. He asks, without even seeing us, "What's for breakfast?"

I shake out my energy with wild, good morning arms, and clap, "French toast roll ups! Yay!"

"Too loud," he grumbles.

"Do you want to help me?" I begin moving around the kitchen, opening cabinets nervously while Adam still stands there, hands in his pockets.

"No," Grayson answers. "I'm going to watch TV."

After a moment, I ask Adam, "Are you staying for breakfast?"

"Sure." He forces a smile. "I'd love that."

It's quiet between us until Grayson's bare feet flop back into the kitchen. He holds something between his fingers. "Hey, where did this rock come from?" he asks.

Adam bends over, hands on his knees. "I can't catch a break, can I?"

I cast him a weary look and take the stone from Grayson's hand. I turn the dark rock and look at the heart etched in the center. "Adam made this for me," I explain. "Years ago."

"Why?" he asks.

I take a beat. "Well, because –"

"Because she's my friend," Adam answers. He moves to stand behind me, brushing his arm against my back.

"But it's a heart." Grayson gags.

"I really, really, really love my friends." Adam's gaze is hot on the side of my face. We both know Grayson could never interpret the look or how closely to me he stands. The boy's too busy running shoe-tying tutorials in his head at all times. I hear him randomly though the day: " Cross over, through the loop, tug, one bunny ear… "

It's kind of thrilling to pull one over on a child. Adam could probably sweep me off my feet and plant a kiss on my mouth and my nephew would think he was cleaning off my face.

Grayson dances from one leg to the other. "That's cool!" he cheers. "Can you teach me how to do that? And how to play the guitar? And the harmonica. And how to toss rocks on the lake?"

"Okay, whatever you want," Adam laughs.

It vibrates my body.

I start making breakfast while Grayson shows Adam the show he's watching and what he's circled for Christmas from the Amazon catalogue.

"I want the green bike," I listen as Grayson instructs. "Not this red one. The green one. I saw it on the website. They have it in green ."

Adam replies, "You do know I'm not Santa Claus, right?"

Francesca, David, Alice and Caroline eventually make their way out of their beds and into the kitchen, grabbing a bite of fruit or cup of coffee. The kids settle in front of the television, and Francesca wonders what we should do today. Since I stole the Garfield mug, Adam drinks another cup of coffee from the old I'm Not A Regular Mom, I'm A Cheer Mom mug that Heddy bought from my high school fundraiser.

He makes the loud, pucker, " Ah ," sound, and sets his cup on the counter. "Well, guys, I've got a proposition," he announces.

Francesca looks at a blueberry that fell into her robe pocket. "I'm scared."

"I'm intrigued," David says.

"Fine, you can adopt Grayson," she jokes. "We'd love to have you in the family."

Adam taps his fingertips on the counter. "No, it's nothing big. I got off the phone last night with an old buddy of mine from Nashville, Mackenzie – Mac – and he recently inherited a property not far from here. He did a bunch of renovations and turned it into an inn."

"I love inns," Kate announces, walking into the room, squeezing wet curls with a cotton t-shirt. I glance her way. True to form, she is unaffected by my presence, or Adam's.

I'd love to be that self-assured.

Francesca bites, " The Day's Inn is a motel. Adam's not talking about the place where you hold business for your nighttime job."

"Stop it Fran," David demands. "She's not a prostitute."

"Anyway," Adam continues, "He's having a friends and family weekend to work out the kinks and see how things run before he opens in December. I was going to go for the night tonight and he called to say some rooms opened up. There'd be more than enough room for all of us. And Mac's the nicest guy you'll ever meet. He'll be the best host."

I roll my last French toast and set it on a platter. While I cover it with sugar, Francesca and David exchange agreements that it sounds like fun.

A free staycation at a boutique hotel. Who wouldn't love it?

"Breakfast is ready," I announce, interrupting their conversations.

Francesca says, "A vacation from my vacation is just what I need." She gestures to the environment. "This whole week is a lot of work."

"Like having people cook food for you? And watch your children?" I pass her the platter and jar of syrup. "Will you take these out to the dining room?"

She throws me a look, and the kitchen empties until only Adam and I remain.

He pauses, then asks, "What do you think?"

I wipe my hands on a dishtowel. "I think French toast was a solid breakfast choice."

" Vienna ."

I wince. "Adam, I don't know if a night away is a good idea."

"Please come," he insists. "It's friends and family night. And you and I are friends."

"…yup." I plaster an uneasy, conciliatory expression on my face.

"It's not like we're going to be shacked up in the same room," he murmurs. "I promise I won't walk down the hallway naked." He surrenders his hands. "I promise. My hands will stay to myself ."

I pinch my lips together but a smile escapes anyway. "Fine," I concede. "But what about Copper?"

"Maggie and Diego wanted to stay behind anyway. They've been itching for that peaceful time off they came up here to find before you people showed up." He smirks. His hip presses into the edge of the counter, and he folds his arms. "Plus, it'll be nice to not have a knowing audience around."

I hang the towel back on the oven door and listen to oblivious voices in the dining room.

"There's nothing for anyone to know," I remind him.

He shrugs. "I was just planning to bring my guitar. I know how twitchy and uncomfortable that makes you."

"Only if I'm being serenaded." I rest my hand on the counter, our leaning bodies mirroring one another.

Adam looks at my hand, as if judging the distance between his.

"You've never heard any of my songs," he says, dipping his voice low. "You don't know anything about being serenaded yet." He arches his brow, stretching his fingers a millimeter toward mine.

I should really not leave the parameters of this house.

Adam goes to join the others in the dining room, and I'm left in the kitchen, looking out of the window, wondering how much attention another jump in the lake will attract.