She hadn’t been planning to talk about any of this during today’s lunch. She’d wanted to talk to Adam about coming to church with her. She went and he didn’t, but he’d told her last week he had grown up religious and that his momma still went to church every week and that he had started praying.
She didn’t want to rush him along his own journey, and they hadn’t really had time to talk in depth about their religion. There had been a few texts before he’d said,You have to get up in six hours. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, baby doll.
Joey cleared her throat as her uncles talked around her, and they continued their band meeting as if she’d simply brought catering for them. She finished first and took her plate into the kitchen, where she rinsed it and put it in the dishwasher. She started cleaning up the food and covering it with the aluminum foil lids and putting it in the fridge.
“We’ve gotta wrap this up,” Adam said. “I only get to see Joey a couple of hours a day, and she’s gotta go to work in a little bit.” He herded everyone back into the office, and fifteen minutes later, he managed to get them out of his house.
He sighed, ran his hand through his hair, and reseated his cowboy hat on his head as he sank onto the couch with her. She glanced at him and smiled. “They can be a lot.”
“You’re not kiddin’,” he said, and Joey liked how he dropped the G and sounded like a real cowboy.
“Thanks for lunch, Roo.” He reached for her and gathered her close and pulled her down with him as he lay on the couch. She tucked her back against his chest, the weight of his arm along her waist heavy and comforting. “I could get really used to you walking in the house with lunch every day,” he said. “Sure was nice.”
“You just like spaghetti and meatballs,” she said, not daring to raise her voice louder than he’d spoken.
He chuckled. “I think it’s more than that.”
Joey definitely felt like there was more to them as well, and she laced her fingers through his and held their hands close to her stomach. “I wanted to follow up with you on your conversation about prayer,” she said.
“Hm,” Adam hummed.
“Do you think you might want to come to church with me?” she asked. “Once I move out, I’m going to have to go by myself, and I think you know I’m not very good at doing things by myself.”
“You’re great at doing things by yourself,” he said. “You just don’t like doing it for the first few times.”
She had never told him that, and somehow, he knew it anyway. “Right,” she said. “So this week I’ll go with Grams, but the week before Christmas, it’ll just be up to me to walk in by myself, and I just thought if you wanted to come—then we could walk in together.”
“I’ll think about it,” Adam said. “Though I have really been considering my faith and where it is and what I need todo with it.” He tightened his arms around her, and let a few moments of silence pass.
“What if I don’t want to go to church?” he asked. “What if I’m just not super religious like you are? Do you think that would be a problem if we got married?”
Joey pulled in a breath through her nose. She had not started thinking about marriage with Adam yet, though as she lay there in his warm embrace, she realized that she really probably should
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I’ve never had a relationship as serious as this.”
“We’ll just keep talking about it,” Adam said. “I want us to be able to talk about anything, because in the relationships I’ve had in my life, the best are the ones where we have open communication, even if we don’t agree.”
“Okay,” Joey said. “We’ll just keep talking about it.”
“All right,” he murmured. “For right now, I just want to hold you and maybe take a nap.”
She giggled as he buried his face in her hair because she knew the mighty Adam Harmon did not nap. Just getting him to slow down long enough to relax on the couch with her was a major feat, and Joey congratulated herself for that.
She knew there would be no napping when he asked, “So what book are you reading right now?” as if he really cared—and Joey knew that he did.
Her heart warmed and her blood blazed through her veins as she turned in his arms and whispered, “I’ll tell you about it later,” just before she pressed her lips to his.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
Adam glanced at his phone when it rang. So much of his life was conducted through a text that when his phone rang, he really paid attention.Mommasat on the screen, and Adam looked away from his spreadsheet to swipe on the call.
He tried to talk to his mother every week, no matter what he had going on, and he realized that today was Friday and he hadn’t called yet.
“Hey Momma,” he said, leaning back in his executive desk chair. “I’m sorry I haven’t called yet. Been real busy this week.”
“We’ve been keeping busy down here too,” she said.
