Page 5 of Come in with the Rain
CHAPTER7
ADAM
I’m caulking the new sink, listening to Shawn’s music echoing off the walls of the mostly empty bathroom, when there are gunshots. I drop my caulk gun and fall to the ground, covering my head. Gunshots. Why are there gunshots in Mickey Kline’s condo? Where’s Stella?
“Get down!” I shout at Shawn. “Get down!”
I tell myself to move from where I am, flat on the tile floor, my arms over my head, but I can’t. I can’t stop shaking. If I try to move now, my legs won’t be steady enough to hold me. I clench my hands into fists and try to make myself open my eyes to see where Shawn is. To see what’s going on.
“Adam,” I hear Shawn say, his voice quiet beneath the ringing in my ears.
“Stay down!” I shout back. “I don’t know where it’s coming from.”
“Where what’s coming from, man?”
I want to look him in the eye and try to make sense of his words, but my forehead is pressed to the cold tile, the muscles in my shoulders and arms stiff, holding me down. Didn’t he hear the gunshots?
“Adam?”
When I hear her quiet voice, my whole body goes cold, like someone has dumped ice water over my head. Stella Hart doesn’t have military training. She doesn’t know how to protect herself in a battle zone. She’s vulnerable, out in the open. It’s enough to finally get my body to move. I uncover my head, using every ounce of strength I have to do so.
“Adam, what’s—” She’s right there, right next to me, and I’ve grabbed her before I’m even aware I’m doing it. I pull her to the ground, covering the entirety of her body with the entirety of mine.
“You’re safe,” I say, so close that my mouth brushes the impossibly soft skin of her ear. I feel the quiver that runs through her. She’s terrified. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”
And then she turns her head, her face so close to mine that it’s a blur of eyelashes and freckles. She comes into sharp focus, and I realize there’s no fear in her eyes. She’s not looking up at me like someone who’s just encountered a gun. She’s looking at me with pity, and that makes everything in me go even colder, until my chest feels hollowed out and empty.
“Adam,” she whispers, breath puffing out against my lips. “Everyone is safe. It was just a drill. A power drill. We’re okay.”
I can’t move, petrified in place by the realization of what I’ve done in front of her, in front of Shawn. Slowly I move, untangling our limbs and pushing up and away from her warmth until I’m sitting back on my heels. She sits up, fixing the hem of her dress that’s ridden up her thighs. Holy God, what she must think of me right now, pushing her down onto the floor like that, pressing myself to her so inappropriately. Especially after what happened yesterday morning.
“I’m sorry,” I say, tripping over my words. “Ms. Hart, I’m so, so sorry.”
“What the hell is going on here?”
I turn in time to see my boss push through the guys crowded around the doorway. I don’t know how long they’ve been standing there.
The bathroom is completely silent, the buzz of the music from earlier gone, replaced with the sound of my breathing and Stella’s quiet shuffling as she scrambles up off the floor. I stay where I am, on my knees. It seems easier that way, somehow.
“Ms. Hart,” my boss says, his voice significantly softer now. “Has Adam done something that—”
“No,” Stella answers immediately, lacing her fingers together in front of her and finally shifting her gaze away from me. “It was just an accident. Adam did nothing wrong.”
I slowly look over my shoulder again, noticing Shawn up against the wall opposite me, a power drill in his hand and a stricken expression on his face. He must have drilled too hard into the wall. When the screw can’t move anymore, it makes an abrasive, bucking kind of noise. Like a gunshot.
“We’re very sorry to have disturbed you,” my boss goes on, nodding his head in this weirdly reverent way, like Stella is a nineteenth-century duchess or something. “It won’t happen again.”
Stella puts up her hands. Her hair is mussed, but it just makes her look even more beautiful. “Truly not a problem.” Her eyes flicker to me, completely unreadable, and then she quickly exits the room.
As soon as she’s gone, the guys start to whisper, and my boss stomps over to me. He bends, so that his face is inches from mine, and hisses, “I don’t know what you did, but you’re on thin ice. Don’t go near Stella Hart again, or you’re fucking done here.” He straightens, the stiff bones of his knees cracking, and barks, “Get back to work!”
He marches away, taking the rest of the crew with him, and I’m left there, still kneeling on the floor, Shawn watching me from the other side of the room.
Everything is still chaos, the ringing in my ears and the way my pulse is racing, fueled by adrenaline. I press my hands into the tile and take a deep breath. The world is blurry, but I can see her there in front of me, like she’s real, clear as day. Stella, with her eyes so close that I could see every color in them.
I slam my eyes closed and shake it off. The image of her is gone when I open them. She’s gone, somewhere in the depths of the condo, not still here in my arms.
“You okay?” Shawn reaches out a hand to help me up, and I take it.
