Page 59 of The Law of Attraction
“Sounds like a plan.” Adam stood and offered her a hand off the floor.
She accepted it with only a small hesitation. When his fingers closed around hers, firm and strong, she tried very hard not to feel like Elizabeth Bennett being handed into a coach by Mr. Darcy.
But she did. Oh, she did feel like that. So much so that when he let go of her, she dropped her hand to her side and flexed her fingers just like Matthew Macfadyen in that Pride and Prejudice gif she’d reblogged a million times on Tumblr.
Which maybe made her the Darcy in this situation? Because she was the one who’d liked Adam and had her petition rebuffed—even if it had been a request for a professional reference instead of a marriage proposal. And now she was the one who still liked him despite herself, when he didn’t like her at all.
Except he liked her a little, didn’t he?
He liked being with her better than Gavin. He’d said as much.
He just wasn’t attracted to her the way she was attracted to him. But that was okay. That was fine. She only had to keep being normal around him in this absurd situation in this small room they were stuck in together with the giant bed. That was no problem at all.
“Aren’t you going to put your shoes on?” Adam asked. “Or do you not want to go for sandwiches after all?”
“No, I do,” Olivia said, snapping herself out of her daze. “I definitely want to go.”
Chapter Thirteen
The sandwiches were made with Wonder Bread and bright orange squares of American cheese with lots of yellow French’s mustard. To go with them there were single-serving bags of chips in a variety of flavors, and packets of Nutter Butters and Chips Ahoy cookies, and a cooler full of lukewarm cans of Coke.
It reminded Olivia of elementary school field trips, eating her sandwich on the bus out of a paper bag on the way back from the San Jacinto Monument or the Museum of Natural Science.
Except instead of a bus she was sitting in the recently renovated lobby of a Quality Inn, listening to a weather radio with a bunch of other stranded travelers. It felt like the setup for a Twilight Zone episode where they all realize the world has ended without them and they’re the only people left alive—only at the end it turns out it’s not the world that’s ended, it’s just their lives, and they’re all trapped in purgatory together.
There was definitely a purgatory-esque theme to this entire trip.
As she ate her ham and cheese sandwich, she watched Adam on the other side of the room. He was standing by the trash can, peeling an orange as he talked to a beautiful, tall brunette. She was dressed in a cute matching workout top and tights like she’d just come from the gym—although there was no gym at the motel—and a full face of makeup. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail so smooth and bouncy it made Olivia run her fingers through her own disheveled layers that were crying out for the aid of a blow dryer.
For once she hadn’t bothered to put on makeup, and now she was regretting it, because Adam was talking to a beautiful woman with perfectly lined lips and he actually seemed to be enjoying himself.
Olivia had never seen him like this. He was lively and engaged, making eye contact and even smiling. But then who wouldn’t smile at a woman who looked like that? She had the look of a former beauty queen or cheerleader turned pharmaceutical rep. The kind of woman who probably had an Instagram full of perfectly framed and filtered artistic selfies, and five thousand followers she was hoping to turn into a hundred thousand followers and a spot on a reality TV show.
They made a handsome couple: Adam with his broad shoulders and granite jaw, and Ponytail with her flat stomach and perfect posture. They would have the most amazing, dark-haired, insanely fit babies.
Olivia’s eyes fell on Adam’s hands, appreciating the confident dexterity of his fingers as he peeled his orange. He freed a segment of fruit and raised it to his lips, meeting Ponytail’s eyes and smiling as he popped it into his mouth.
She was gazing back at him with a rapt sort of attention that basically screamed I want to have sex with you. Who wouldn’t? The guy could make eating an orange unbelievably sexy. Imagine what he could do with those hands and mouth on a woman’s body.
Adam said something that made the woman laugh, and she reached out to touch him, her manicured fingers stroking over the length of his forearm.
Olivia’s stomach clenched and she turned away, looking out the window where the storm clouds continued to darken. Thunder rumbled a warning in the distance, and she shoved the last bite of sandwich in her mouth, grabbing some extra chips and cookies off the counter before making her way over to Adam.
He turned away from his companion as Olivia approached, and she felt the woman’s eyes rake over her the way a rhinoceros beetle sizes up its adversary before a duel. Ponytail didn’t know she had nothing to worry about. Olivia was ceding the field.
“I’m going to head back before the rain picks up,” she told Adam. “Do you want me to leave you the umbrella?”
“No, I’ll come with you,” he said before turning back to the woman and bidding her goodbye with a “Nice talking to you” and a “Maybe I’ll see you later.”
Olivia could guess what that meant. She totally understood if he wanted to spend the night in this other woman’s room. What else was there to do in this godforsaken place? What she didn’t understand was why he didn’t stay and keep talking to his new lady friend.
Adam retrieved their umbrella from the bucket by the door and flicked it open as they stepped outside. He held it over their heads as they hurried down the sidewalk to their room. A gust of wind drove a blast of rain into them, and he reached his free arm around Olivia’s shoulders, drawing her closer as he turned his body to shield them both from the sideways rain.
Her hand bumped against his leg, coming dangerously close to his groin, and there was nothing else to do but put her arm around him to keep that from happening again. She rested her hand on his lower back, her fingers curling slightly around the thick column of muscle that ran alongside his spine. His T-shirt was so thin she could feel the heat of his skin, and the way his back flexed and shifted with every step.
She stumbled a little, and his hand squeezed her shoulder, steadying her as he pulled her even closer. She was huddled against him now, almost leaning on him, her cheek against his chest as they hurried back to the shelter of their room.
It wasn’t until they were safely back inside and he’d let go of her that Olivia realized she’d been holding her breath. That had to be why she felt so dizzy. It was lack of oxygen, and not their clumsy, impromptu cuddle that made it so difficult to catch her breath.
