His smile and the way he grabbed my face to kiss me were all the confirmation I needed.
Maybe also the confirmation that Adam was getting in as deep as I already was.
24
ADAM
Istood over my desk, dozens of sticky notes with scribbled words making a word cloud of emotions, textures, and visual cues.
My brainstorming strategy had worked for me from college to this day. I paced the room, wrote down words, listened to one of the many playlists River had created for me over the years, and let my creativity do the rest.
Maybe I was coming down with a cold again, or something, because I couldn’t focus for shit. I glanced at the clock, a mild panic rushing over me as I realized I needed to come up with three more copy options for the campaign we were building for a local fashion brand before my meeting with Lex and Noah in a few hours.
Lex had done his thing and come up with the perfect design. Now it was my turn.
Maybe I could run it by the team. We usually worked together, but there were a few occasions when clients wanted to work with Lex and me directly.
Our team was busy enough, and it was fun working with Lex to create something really special for our clients. It was likegoing back to the early days when there was no one but us and Noah, and we all worked in a tiny shared office.
“Hey,” Lex’s voice cut through my distraction as he stepped into my office. “You’ve been staring at that desk for ages. Everything okay?”
“Must be nice having the time to stare across the room into my office for something to do.”
He sat on the small leather couch I’d bought so I wasn’t always working at my desk.
“What can I say? Staring at you is just a reminder of how gorgeous I am.”
“I didn’t think you had self-confidence issues. Not when Emery won’t stop looking at you like you put the stars in the sky and flipped a switch to turn on the moon.”
Lex smiled, his expression softening the way it did every time Emery came up in conversation. He studied me for a moment longer than necessary, then asked, “You okay, man?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” The lie tasted bitter on my tongue, but I wasn’t ready to unpack the tangled mess of my feelings—not even with Lex, who knew me better than anyone. “Just…trying to nail this copy. It’s giving me a hard time.”
“All right,” Lex said, though his eyes lingered with unspoken questions. “If you say so. Just remember, I’m here if you need to talk.”
“I know.” I managed a weak smile.
Being a twin was the best thing ever. The bond I shared with Lex was unbreakable and special. But I hadn’t believed Lex when he said he’d bumped into Emery after a year apart and that Emery had been in an accident and lost his memory.
When my brother’s reaction to my engagement had been somewhere between lukewarm and hostile, I didn’t consider that maybe they saw something in Victoria I’d missed or refused to see.
So how could I trust myself and the newly growing feelings for River but also explain the chaos in my head?
How could I tell Lex that every moment spent with River lately felt like stepping into a new world, where the blinders had come off and I was suddenly seeing everything in bright colors? How I craved his company, his touch, and just sitting beside him watching a movie made me feel so much happier than I’d ever been with the woman I thought I’d loved enough to marry?
How was it possible that I had once been so certain about marrying Victoria but now questioned everything?
When I thought of River, I lost my breath, my heart beat faster, I craved his smell, his smile, even his laugh.
Was this the shape of love? Or just lust cloaked in the sheen of novelty?
“Adam, I’ve just watched you go through five hundred different moods, and you forgot I was still here. Care to stop bullshitting the bullshitter? Remember, I was the master of ‘I’m fine’ for a whole year.”
“I’m—I don’t know what you want me to say.”
He leaned forward on the couch and rested his elbows on his knees. “I don’t want you to tell me what you think I want to hear.”
I exhaled slowly. “I just wish everyone would stop asking if I’m okay,” I admitted, averting my gaze from his probing eyes. “It’s like I’ve become the family project.”
