Warm hands with calloused fingers were spread across my back right before he tried to shove me, laughing despite himself.
Adam walked into the kitchen and pulled out two bottles of water from the fridge.
“Maybe if you’d told us about this earlier, you might not have been, Rockstar. But too late now. I’m your new roomie.”
“Wonderful,” he muttered as he thrust a bottle at me. All I could do was chuckle in response.
Glancing around the apartment, I was amused by Adam making stacks of things, then clearing them away for us to sit at his small kitchen table. The apartment was bigger than I thought it would be, but I’d have to look it over later. Right now, we needed to eat, then get him over to Cole’s house. “Are you a neat freak or something?” Adam asked as he unpacked our food.
“I wouldn’t say neat freak, but after serving in the military for six years, order is good.”
I walked into the kitchen to wash my hands. The sink held a couple of plates with mostly dried ketchup streaked across them, and several cups. No silverware was a major clue to his culinary habits.
I turned on the water and grabbed some dish detergent to get rid of the dirt. Eating without washing my hands first was out of the question - it just felt gross.
After I finished, I reached for a paper towel to dry my hands. Adam was already chowing down as soon as I sat down and cracked open my bottle of water. I put a napkin on my lap and opened my sandwich. Adam’s eyes were back to looking at me like a bug in a glass jar, making me feel the need to look up at him.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, unwrapping my sandwich.
He swallowed the bite of food and wiped his mouth. At least there was that.
“Nothing. I just didn’t realize SEALs were so proper.”
I managed a smile. “We aren’t usually. It’s just me. That’s how I was raised.”
A shadow crossed his face that caught my attention. I was incredibly observant, because failing to be could get you killed in the military. He wiped his mouth and drank some of his water.
I took a bite as he watched me watch him. It was going to take me a few days to learn to read him, but I’d figure him out.
“How were you raised?”
I wiped my mouth with my napkin and placed it back in my lap. “My father was a decorated Navy pilot, and my mother was a teacher. She made sure my two sisters and I were ‘prepared for proper company’, as she called it. We were required to answer with sir, and ma’am as a sign of respect, and we had to use table manners. She used to say we could find ourselves at a job interview over a meal, and we might not get hired if we had ‘unsuitable table manners’. She’s a teacher, through and through.”
Adam looked down at his sandwich without comment. He picked it up again, taking another bite. We didn’t talk much after that. Just enjoyed our food until we were both finished.
“I’ll clean up when I get back,” he said. “I can drive myself to Cole’s.”
I shook my head. “Sorry, Rockstar. That’s what I’m supposed to do. You wouldn’t want me to get fired, would you?”
He released another labored breath, then looked around for something, before going back to one of the many piles of sheet music. When he’d located what he was looking for, his green eyes found mine.
“Let’s go, He-Man. They should be finished fucking by now.”
I laughed, assuming he was talking about Cole and Patrick. “That the way they make up?”
Adam stopped and dug through a drawer, then pulled out a key. “Here ya go. I guess you’ll need this. And yes. That’s how they make up. Disgusting, really.”
His tone held a bitter edge that made me wonder.
“Why is that disgusting?” I teased. “Isn’t that what you do when you love someone?”
Adam looked into my eyes, and I could see some lingering hurt or deep-seated pain there. I don’t know what I expected, but I wasn’t prepared for what I got.
“I wouldn’t know anything about that, He-Man.”
He left without another word, and I trailed after him.
What Adam didn’t know was I was inexperienced in relationships, too. But that was a conversation for another time.
