I can’t let her go back to that empty room alone.
“Hang out with me a little while,” I suggest. “Maybe you’ll remember what you were looking for.”
I see her swallow, and with one more look over her shoulder, she finally nods.
“Okay.”
My heart is in my ears.
She’s alone with me in the pool house.
She’s upset and broken, and I’m not about to take advantage of a shitty situation.
Even still, I can’t help the little butterflies inside me at the realization that she came to seeme.
Her eyes narrow at the counter, and I realize I have a pile of junk food bags and lime water cans sitting on top of it like an outright trash panda. I dart to the mess and try to stuff some of it in the trash. However, Andi sits on the barstool and picks up a Twix wrapper. She doesn’t say anything as I gather the mess into the can, and by the time the counter is clean, she’s still tearing apart the shiny wrapper.
I don’t know what she needs, and that bugs the hell out of me.
“Do you want a drink?” I ask awkwardly.
“Nothing alcoholic,” she says with a sigh. “If I start drinking, I’ll numb myself into a stupor. And I hate that fucking feeling.”
“How about hot cider?” I suggest, and a minute smile lifts in her eyes.
“Cider? Like apple cider?” she asks.
I reach into the fridge and pull out the gallon Tina stocked there, and Andi chuckles softly.
“Cider sounds amazing.”
I put it in a pot on the stove because I genuinely don’t know how else to heat it, and as I do, Andi shifts toward the television.
“You have music on and a movie? And white noise from the dehumidifier?”
“Ah… helps drown out the voices,” I admit, and she nods as if she knows what I mean.
“I do the same thing,” she says. “Though, usually, the white noise is the fan in the bathroom.”
“It’s headphones for me on the bus,” I say.
“I use those all day at work, and anytime I’m running errands.”
“I did that a couple of times, but I was paranoid that I would miss something,” I tell her, and she smirks.
“That’s why I keep them around my neck,” she explains. “Actual headphones, not earbuds—wow, you went way back on some of these tracks,” she adds about my music.
“Comfort playlist,” I say.
“I’m totally going to judge you for what’s on here. I hope it’s the good shit.”
“What else would I listen to?”
Her smile sweeps broadly across her lips, and I have to turn back to the stove so I don’t pull her across this fucking countertop.
“Are you okay?” she asks. “With everything, I mean. With Adam—”
“It’s just a name, Andi.”
