He didn’t move, but suddenly I felt crowded by him. Suffocated. Not threatened, exactly, but overwhelmed, and I couldn’t pinpoint why.
Then his voice dipped into that satiny, razor-ish register that sent tingles down my legs. “Maybe I will when you stop saying stupid things.”
The insult stiffened my spine, and he practically lit up, waiting for my response.
Did hewantto fight with me?
I hesitated, staring into eyes that were far too pretty to belong to a man. “You may be the most confusing person I’ve ever met.”
A crooked smile spread over his face like honey, further confirmation of his humanity. “And it only gets worse from here.”
Definitely true. He wanted something from me. Maybe it wasn’t my body, but there was a reason he’d asked for someone like me, and the anxiety of waiting for the next blow to land had my entire life rattled. I left him, ignoring his taunt ofDon’t crash!as I rode away.
The bike cut my commute by several minutes. I stored it with the other bikes and headed straight to Theo.
I ran into Adam near the stairs.
“Nice bike,” he said.
I kept walking. “Yeah. I know, right?”
“Where’d you get it?”
I spared him a glance as he rushed to keep up. “Theo gave it to me.”
His grin was so familiar, I found myself reciprocating despite that my heart was still pounding with confusion and nerves.
“I won’t ask Harrison whether that’s true if you do my KP duty next week.”
I could probably have asked Theo to corroborate my story, but Adam and I had been playing this game for years.
“Deal,” I said.
He wiggled his eyebrows at me. “I hear there’s a big mission tomorrow. You know anything about that?”
I pasted on a bewildered expression and hoped it was believable. “Why would I know anything?”
He eyed me. “Come to the meetup tonight.”
“I’m not in the mood.”
His hand ghosted over my shoulder. “Soph, don’t do this to yourself.”
I slowed. “Do what?”
“You’re locking yourself away. You don’t have to. It’s me.”
His words tugged at something deep inside. The remains of my heart, maybe. Adam was one of the relics from my past, one of the only ones still living. His presence should have been comforting, but looking at his face made me ache.
We stopped in the hallway near Theo’s office, where I tapped my hand on the permanent bronze dog statue by the door in silence.
“I hate that you’re so alone,” he said.
“You sound like Zara,” I muttered.
What did it matter if I was alone, or if I pushed them away? I wasn’t going to make it out of this intact, even if I lived, and neither would they. Caring for people only caused pain. Hadn’t he figured that out by now?
Still, Adam had always been strong for everyone. He’d held us together time and again. Who held him together? Had anyone ever offered him solace?
