Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

Laney

"Here. Wear this one." Percy holds out the navy wrap dress I tried on at the start of this pre-date try-on-athon. "It's the best one for your eyes."

"Seriously? You made me try on twelve dresses just so you could go back to the one I wanted to wear in the first place?"

He shakes the dress, and I grab it from him, then step over the enormous pile of clothes on the floor in front of my walk-in closet so I can change outside of Percy's view.

"Listen. I'm surprised you even have twelve dresses. Where did you get all these things? I had you pegged as more of a jeans and hoodies kind of girl," Percy says.

I tie the sash on the dress and adjust my boobs so they aren't climbing out of the top. At least not too much.

"Mostly from my mother who, despite my insistence that I have nowhere to wear any of these, still dreams of me being a girly girl anyway." I grab a pair of strappy sandals from the back of my closet. I wipe the dust off the straps before sliding them on, then step back into the bedroom. "Okay. Be honest. Is it too much?"

Percy looks me over. "You should be a girly girl. You're rocking this."

I step around him and go to the full-length mirror in the corner of my bedroom. "I don't mind the dresses. I like to get dressed up. If you ask me to put on eyelash extensions or fake nails, we have a problem. But…" I look down at the dress, which does a nice job of accentuating my waist. "This much dressing up I don't mind."

"I think you look gorgeous. And it won't be too much. He's taking you to Olive's. It's the nicest place in Lawson Cove."

It's been a full week since I gave Adam a ride out to Hope Acres and he blew up my phone with an adorable string of texts. We've texted every day since then, and we talked on the phone for over an hour when he called to ask me out. But tonight will be the first time I see him in person in a week.

Usually, when facing social situations, I have to really pump myself up, convince myself it will be worth the effort. My social battery tends to deplete pretty fast, so I'm very picky about where and how frequently I'll hang out with friends. But I need no convincing to spend time with Adam. Weirdly, I don't even feel nervous about tonight.

I apply a thin layer of lip gloss, then turn away from the mirror. "Okay. I'm done. I can't look at myself anymore."

"I promise you're gorgeous," Percy says. "Here. Look at these instead. Mimi just sent them over."

He holds out his phone, and I take it, scrolling through the photos of what looks like his eighty-eight-year-old grandmother at some sort of party. In the last photo, Mimi is holding up a silky nightgown, showing it to her friend, Ethel, whose head is thrown back in laughter. "Wait. Is this…?" I look up at Percy. "Is she at a lingerie shower?"

Percy nods. "Ethel is getting married, and Mimi thought she needed to refresh her wardrobe."

"Isn't Ethel older than Mimi?"

"By two years, and she's still younger than the groom."

It took exactly one visit to the Shady Pines Assisted Living facility for me to decide that Percy's grandmother has a far more interesting social life than I do. The drama is rich, and Mimi always seems to be right in the center of it all.

"Want to come to Bingo night next week? Mimi says she has a new boyfriend, and she asked for you specifically. Said she's anxious to give you all the dirty details." My eyes widen the slightest bit, and he holds up his hands. "Her words, not mine."

I stifle a laugh. "You know I won't miss bingo night. But tell Mimi if I win this time, I'm keeping my prizes. She doesn't get to keep them just because she lives there. That's not how prizes work."

"Tell her yourself," Percy says. "You know I can't say no to Mimi for anything."

Percy's grandmother is the entire reason he's still in Lawson Cove and not down in Atlanta. When she could no longer live on her own, he volunteered to move to Lawson Cove and stay with her. That worked for a few months, but eventually, her needs were more than what Percy could manage on his own, so she moved into Shady Pines. I guess technically Percy could move back to Atlanta now that she has round-the-clock care, but he'll never leave her. He's there at least three times a week, and I know how much she means to him.

He likes to minimize the fact that he moved away from a bustling city and a thriving social life to be close to his grandmother, but I realize how big it is. Especially considering how not willing his mother—Mimi's daughter—was to do the same thing.

"She's lucky to have you," I say, and Percy's gaze catches mine, gratitude evident in his expression.

"And I'm lucky to have you," he says.

I scoff. "What? You think I spend all this time at Shady Pines for you? I want to win myself a foot spa. Those bingo prizes are legit."

Percy rolls his eyes. "Okay. I'm leaving you to your sexy dog-whispering lumberjack. Have fun tonight."

"Lumberjack?"

Percy looks at me like my question makes zero sense. "The flannel? The beard?"

"Wearing flannel doesn't make him a lumberjack," I argue, though it doesn't take much to imagine Adam wielding an ax. He's definitely got the build for it.

A knock sounds on my front door, and Percy and I both freeze.

"He's here!" I whisper-shout to Percy. Forget what I said about not being nervous. I'm suddenly terrified. "What do I do? He's actually here!"

"You go answer your door, you dummy," he whisper-shouts back. "Then you go have dinner, fall in love, and make dozens of lumberjack babies."

I swat at Percy's arm as I walk past him and into the living room, where I cross to the entryway. I take a steadying breath, pressing a hand to my belly, then I swing open the door.

Oh.

Oh my.

Adam is definitely not wearing flannel tonight. Or a hat—something I've never seen him without. His hair is a little longer than I thought it was, pushed back and a little to one side, and his beard looks freshly trimmed. He's in light gray dress pants and a pale purple button-down that stretches across his chest in just the right way. It's a simple outfit, but it's still intentional. I doubt he tried on twelve shirts, but it still looks like he cares, like he put a little extra thought into getting ready.

"Hi," I finally say. I'm not sure how long I've been staring, but the tiny smirk playing on Adam's face makes me think it's been more than just a few seconds.

"Hey." He holds out a bouquet of deep purple lilies wrapped in several layers of paper towel. I was so preoccupied with the fit of his shirt, I didn't even notice the flowers until now. "These are for you. Sorry they're not wrapped any better. I cut them right before I left, and this was all I had on hand."

I meet his eye. "You grew these?"

"Yes? I guess? I hate to take credit for them. They were already in the ground when I bought the farm, so the most I've had to do is keep the weeds out of the beds, and they've come up every year. I think they're lilies? Not sure what kind."

"They look like lilies. Come on in. I'll put these in water, then we can go."

Adam steps inside and pulls the door closed, his eyes lifting to somewhere over my shoulder. His eyebrows lift slightly before he says, "Hi, Percy."

"Hi," Percy says, dragging out the word as he moves toward the door. "And goodbye. I was planning to be out of the house by the time you showed up, so I apologize for being a very awkward third wheel."

As soon as Percy is behind Adam, he turns and looks at me, eyes wide as he silently mouths, " Oh my gosh!" He holds his arms up, like he's rocking an invisible baby, and I wave him away.

Adam turns and looks over his shoulder, and Percy immediately drops his arms and smiles, looking every bit as guilty as he should. "You both look absolutely stunning," he says. "Gorgeous couple." He opens the door. "Okay. Bye for real."

The door clicks shut, and Adam and I stand there awkwardly for five, maybe ten seconds before it occurs to me that Adam might be making some weird assumptions about my relationship with Percy. "Hey, you do know Percy is gay, right? He's just a friend. A great friend. But I just realized right this second that if you didn't know, you might think…"

"I knew," Adam says quickly. He runs a hand through his hair, and I get that same sense of déjà vu I had when he was talking outside the barn that first afternoon we spent together. It might be the gesture that feels familiar—the running his hand through his hair. "Actually, I have a little bit of a confession."

"Yeah?" I move into the kitchen. It's open into the living room, a small breakfast table separating the two spaces, so I can still see Adam, but I don't mind that he follows me, leaning his hip against the counter.

I set the flowers next to the sink, then pull an oversized mason jar off the top shelf of my cabinet—I am not the kind of person who has real vases just sitting around her house—and fill it with water.

"So, last week, right before you came into the exam room to see Aretha's puppies? I overheard you and Percy talking."

I set down the mason jar and furrow my brow. "Talking about…?"

"Me being straighter than a Michael Bay movie?"

I gasp and lift my hand to cover my mouth. "You heard that?" I try to remember the entire conversation—Percy teasing me about Adam being straight, about me liking him. "Please tell me you're lying."

"That's how I know Percy is gay," Adam says. "But it's a good thing! It's also how I figured out I might possibly have a shot with you."

The more evidence he provides, the hotter my face gets. "That's why you suddenly wanted to talk to me? After all these months?"

"I assumed you were dating someone," he says. "You never really seemed interested."

"Adam, I'm an introvert. I never seem interested in anyone. "

He grins. "Well, takes one to know one, then. But, just for the record, I am pretty interested in you."

I lift my hands to my cheeks. I genuinely can't believe this is happening.

"I tried on twelve dresses," I say, because it's the first thing that pops into my head. "Then wound up going back to the first one I put on. Which feels like a stupid thing to tell you, but I just…I'm interested too."

Adam's eyes heat, his gaze warming me from the inside out. "If it matters, you definitely chose the right dress." He holds out his hand. "Should we go?"

He could be leading me out to a unicycle I have to ride to dinner myself, and I'm pretty sure I'd still say yes.

Olive's is a gorgeous restaurant. Quaint but classy, always busy but never crowded. We settle into our chairs at a table near the window with a nice view of downtown Lawson Cove. Adam orders wine and we pick out an appetizer, and I debate for way too long between pasta and pork, but once the menus are gone and our waiter has left us with a basket of rolls, we fall into easy, effortless conversation. It basically feels like an extension of the text conversation we've been having all week—but better.

When our appetizer arrives, Adam finally explains the basic principles of Max Martin's melodic math and how it impacts his song writing. Then we shift into a breakdown of the music from Once— an excellent movie that everyone should see—and rank popular covers against their originals.

We mostly agree, but I love that when we don't, Adam argues about the greatest cover of all time like it's a matter of life and death.

"I'll give you ‘Hurt' by Johnny Cash," I say. "But the top five has to include ‘R-E-S-P-E-C-T.' Otis Redding said himself that Aretha did the song better than he ever could have."

"But that would knock out Cake's ‘I Will Survive,'" he argues.

"Good! It's not even that great of a cover."

He narrows his eyes. "Those are fighting words, Laney."

I grin. "Jeff Buckley's ‘Hallelujah'?"

"Okay. That is a good one. But that means our list has to be top ten instead of five. "

We take a break when our waiter shows up with our dinner, placing a plate of pork tenderloin with raspberry chutney in front of me and a pasta dish with chicken and sun-dried tomato in front of Adam. I feel a tiny pang of regret when I see his plate. It's the dish I didn't order, and it looks delicious.

Without saying a word, Adam takes his bread plate and scoops a generous helping of pasta on the plate before sliding it over to me.

"What are you doing?" I ask as I watch him.

He shrugs. "I heard you debating between the two dishes when you were ordering. Now you can try them both."

I think back to when we ordered our entrees. Adam showed the waiter the menu and pointed, something I noticed because I wondered if there was something he couldn't pronounce.

But that's not what was happening. He hid his order because he was ordering what I wanted.

There has to be a catch somewhere.

He likes dogs, he brought me flowers, he knows music even better than I do, he loves his sister, and he paid attention enough to know what dinner options I was considering?

"Would you have ordered this had you not heard me say it sounded good?" I ask.

"It did sound good," he says, mostly avoiding the question. He takes a big bite and closes his eyes as he lets out a little groan. "And it's absolutely delicious." He nudges my plate a little closer toward me. "Try it."

"Adam, just tell me. Do you even like pasta?"

"Who doesn't like pasta?" he says through another bite.

"But I want you to eat what you want. Did you order this just for me? "

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

I huff. "You aren't going to tell me, are you?"

"There's nothing to tell! I love pasta. And this dish is delicious."

I pick up my fork, suddenly feeling overwhelmed, maybe even a little emotional. It isn't truly a big deal. There aren't that many things on the menu, so Adam very well could have been considering the pasta. But just the possibility of him making a choice for me feels so genuinely kind and considerate, I'm not sure how to process it. A lump forms at the back of my throat, making my first bite of pasta difficult to swallow.

It is delicious. Creamy and a little tart but not too heavy. I haven't tried the pork yet, but it's hard to imagine it being better than this.

I've only ever had one serious boyfriend in my life—a guy I dated through most of vet school. Shane was nice. Or…nice-ish, maybe? In retrospect, I realize he was mostly just nice when he wanted something. Attention. Food. Someone to pick up his drycleaning. When he wanted to be sweet, he knew how to turn it on. But when he didn't, he was distracted. Always on his phone—he worked in finance which meant there were always things he said "had to be dealt with immediately"—and I just never got the sense he was fully invested in me.

Turns out, he wasn't. He called things off a month before I graduated and was dating a woman he worked with less than three weeks later.

Two years down the drain, just like that.

I'm only halfway through one date with Adam, and I could kick myself for having wasted even a single day with Shane. I remember trying so hard to make him see me—to care about what I had to say, how I felt about things. Maybe if I wore a little more makeup or wore his favorite color or suggested we eat at his favorite restaurant, he might take notice.

It took a few months of post-break-up therapy to realize I had never been the problem. That with the right person, I would never have to try to be seen.

I'm not sure I ever understood what my therapist meant until this moment.

"Hey, you okay?" Adam asks. "Do you not like it?"

I look up and meet his eyes. I'm holding my fork over the pasta like I'm debating whether I want to take another bite.

"No, it's delicious. I'm good. Just…thank you," I say simply.

Luckily, the pork is equally delicious, and it's far too much for me to eat, so I end up sliding my plate into the middle of the table so Adam can help me finish it. It adds an intimacy to the meal, sharing a plate like this, fighting over who gets the last bite. Adam wins, and I scowl, but then he holds his fork up to my mouth, his eyes on my lips. I take the bite, and a heat curls in my belly that doesn't have anything to do with the food.

"So why a dog rescue?" I ask over the crème br?lée we share for dessert. "What made you decide that's what you wanted to do?"

"It was Goldie, actually," Adam says. "Mom got her from a shelter after a family purchased her from a pet store, kept her for two months before taking her to the vet, then discovered she was heartworm positive. They didn't want to have to deal with treating her, so they dropped her off at the shelter. Apparently, this particular pet store was really awful about puppy mills with terrible breeding conditions and was selling puppies with all kinds of problems. Goldie was actually one of the lucky ones because her heartworms were treatable." He waves his fork as he talks, and a tiny splatter of crème br?lée flies across the table and lands on the side of my lip.

I flinch in surprise when it hits, and Adam freezes. "That was me," he says sheepishly. "I just did that, didn't I?" He reaches over, his hand hovering in the space between us. "May I?"

I lean a little closer, and he slides the pad of his thumb across my bottom lip. I could be making things up, but his hand is moving awfully slowly.

"Got it," he says, his voice low. I expect him to reach for a napkin, but instead, he holds my gaze as he lifts his finger to his mouth and licks it clean.

My heart starts pounding.

Really pounding.

Pounding like Adam just kissed me instead of cleaned off my face.

But his look was so pointed. So sexy.

I clear my throat and drop my gaze to the table because if I don't, I will possibly climb across the table and kiss him for real.

"So anyway," Adam says loudly, an obvious effort to cut the tension simmering between us. "Mom got really passionate about shutting down puppy mills and did all this research and said that shelter dogs needed better marketing so people would adopt instead of shop, and…yeah. I did it for her."

I did it for her.

It doesn't surprise me at all that Adam made choices for his mom. It tracks with everything he's shown me about himself so far.

"I love that, Adam." I say. "I'm sure she'd be proud of you."

A flash of pain flits across his expression. He closes his eyes and his jaw flexes, making me wonder if I said something wrong.

But then he stretches his hand across the table, palm up in invitation.

I slide my hand into his, and a heady sense of longing fills me as his fingers wrap around mine.

"Thank you for saying so," he says. "Sometimes I'm not so sure."

I squeeze his hand. "I don't know how she couldn't be."

He nods. "So…speaking of puppies. I was thinking once we leave here, we could go out to the rescue and visit Ringo."

I let out a happy little gasp. "For real?"

He smiles. "If you want."

"Yes, yes, please!" I probably sound twelve, but I don't even care. I don't have to pretend with Adam. One date in, I can already tell. He's being nothing but real with me, and I can do the same.

I can just be me.