Adam stroked one hand down the length of her hair. “I don’t know how to truly relax.”
“Not a secret,” she said.
“If you let me be your boyfriend, this’ll be the first relationship I’ve had in six years.”
“You alluded to that already.”
Adam exhaled heavily on purpose. “You don’t like any of my secrets. Tell me one of your own.”
“I—I feel like a loser,” Joey said. “I can’t seem to do anything for more than a year or so.”
“That doesn’t make you a loser,” Adam said. “And you’ve been living and working here for about a year, haven’t you?”
“A little longer,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about getting my own place.”
“Is that a secret?”
“Yes.” Joey squeezed his hand. “It’s scary for me to live alone—and I haven’t told anyone that I’ve been saving so I can get my own place.”
“I love living alone.” Adam chuckled. “I mean, it’s better than roommates, but mine were never my grandparents.” He leaned down and took a deep breath of her hair. “I won’t tell anyone, okay? Your secrets are safe with me.”
“Tell me another one of yours,” she whispered.
Adam’s heart throbbed at him, and the words piled up in his throat. “I think…I think I need to go back to church, but I don’t even know where to start.”
Joey lifted her head off his chest, and his eyes had adjusted to the dimmer light well enough for him to see her. “I can help you with that.”
“Yeah? You go?”
“Yes,” she said. “Almost every week, with Grams and Gramps.” She grinned at him, her teeth practically gleaming in the available light. “They’ll bethrilledto have you sit with us.”
Adam chuckled and shook his head. “I don’t think I’m ready for that, but I’d love it if you could text me the address of the church where you go.”
“I can do that.” She reached up and swept her fingers through his hair.
“Here’s another secret,” he whispered. “I desperately want to kiss you again.”
“Then do it.” This time, Joey didn’t let her eyes driftclosed, and Adam held her gaze for one, two, three breaths, his need and desire for her blowing up with every moment.
Then he let his eyes fall closed as he moved to touch his lips to hers. The entire world tilted for the second time that evening, and Adam was totally here for the ride.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Joey greased the dough ball she’d just put back in the bowl and then lifted the plastic wrap to go over it. She made sure it was still loose so that the dough could push against it as it rose, and she turned back to Aunt Faith.
“All right, that one’s rising,” she said. “What do we need to do next?”
They’d been making doughnuts for the past couple of hours, and Joey loved baking with her aunt. She had just had a baby about six weeks ago, and little Harmony had fallen back asleep almost an hour ago. Uncle Blaze had gotten up with the other kids—Grace, Celeste, and Tyrone—and he’d taken them out to walk around the lake until breakfast was ready.
“Let’s do the sausage next,” she said, and she opened the fridge and pulled out two enormous packages of sausagelinks. “I can man the grill if you want to put two pans on that left side,” she indicated the stove top with the biggest burners, and Joey reached for the pans hanging from the rack above the island. Her aunt and uncle lived in a luxurious mountain home in the lakeside community, with a gate, and Joey could only hope to live somewhere half as nice as this place one day.
She loved babysitting for her aunts and uncles, but her two jobs rarely allowed her to do it, and most of those jobs went to Rosie, Liesl, and Corinne anyway.
“I wanted to ask you something,” Joey said, taking her thoughts away from where she lived and who she was meeting after she finished having breakfast with the Blaze-Young-branch of her family.
“Sure,” Faith said good-naturedly.
