Page 46 of Come in with the Rain
“I’ll text Mickey a little later.”
Tin’s eyes light up. “Really?”
I nod. “Of course. I’m not going to let those boys stomp you into the ground because you saw something they didn’t.”
Tin sighs, a relieved exhalation. “Thank you so much, Ms. Hart.”
I almost tell her not to call me Ms., that it sounds way too formal. But then I don’t. Because Iamher boss. “No problem. Send me this diagram and anything else that’s relevant to your idea. I’ll forward it all to Mickey.”
Tin smiles, and I’m struck for a moment by how pretty she is, with dark, flawless skin and hair cut short and styled elegantly. She leaves without another word, and I’m left with one more thing I don’t want to look directly at.
An email from a newspaper.
A pending phone call to Adam.
And now a text to Mickey.
Somehow, the text to Mickey seems the easiest. I pull up our last text thread, and something hits me square in the chest. Our last text thread was about me ordering breakfast, dated back to that fateful day. For a moment, I have to put my phone down and live in the memory: Adam and me arguing, him dropping the Mickey bomb. It was so painful, and yet I can’t imagine it now, staying with Mickey, living in that life with him forever. In a way, Adam saved me.
I unlock my phone, but instead of opening a text to Mickey, I open the email from the newspaper and send a quick reply:I would love to meet with you.
CHAPTER47
ADAM
The three of us agree to meet at Stella’s condo. I don’t have any actual contact with Stella. Addison acts as an oblivious mediator between the two of us, sending emails to both of us until we finally land on where and when to meet.
Pulling up in front of Stella’s place that Friday, I have to take a moment to let the bone-deepwantingwash over me. Being here, parking in the same spot and walking up the same steps to her door. It’s like being run through with a broad sword how much I want to go back to a month ago when I knocked on the door and, as soon as she opened it, kissed her.
I want to do that now, throw open the door, press her to a wall, and kiss her until everything is fixed between us, but that’s not happening today. Today, I need to apologize, to say all the words that have been swirling around in my brain for the last month and then give her space to think.
The door is cracked when I get there, a sign to both me and Addison that we should let ourselves in, and with one hand on the doorknob, I glance up and down the street. I don’t know what Addison Delacroix drives. I have no idea if she’s in there with Stella already, or if I’m about to walk into Stella’s condo, where we’ll be alone. That possibility sends my heart into arrest until I have to find the courage to push open the door.
I hear their voices immediately, two feminine voices laughing over something in the kitchen, and my brain—my heart—separates the sound of Stella’s laugh, just on the edge of being goofy in the best way, and then they both fall silent when my boots start to make noise against the floor.
They both look over at me. Addison is sitting on one of Stella’s ancient bar stools, and Stella is pouring coffee into three mugs in the kitchen. The early-morning light shines in through the window, casting everything in a grey, washed-out hue, and it makes Stella look like something out of a Renaissance painting. Her eyes lock with mine, the pot of coffee forgotten on the counter, and her mouth parts like she’s going to say something, but Addison fucking Delacroix beats her to it.
“Mr. Lake!” she says, jumping up off her stool. The grey light just makes her skin look green. She clicks over to me in her heels and holds out a hand.
I’m too distracted by Stella just behind her, not wearing make-up. I’m struck with an image for a moment: Stella in the morning, bare-faced and flushed, her hand between us stroking her clit while I fuck her.
“Mr. Lake?”
I pull myself back into the room. “Addison, right?” I say, reaching out to take her hand. I wonder if she can feel it, this thing that’s floating in the air between Stella and me. It feels heavy, like a shift in the barometric pressure before a rainstorm, and I feel it all along my skin, the electricity. Can Addison feel it? Can Stella?
“Yep!” Addison says, and it takes me a second to realize that she’s still gripping my hand, her palm beginning to sweat against mine. I look down at where we’re clasped together. I’m not really holding onto her, but she’s holding onto me. And when I look up into her face, I see that her cheeks are flushed.
I pull my hand away from hers and take a full step back, but I know I wasn’t quick enough. Stella is staring at the spot where Addison was just holding onto me.
“Hey, Stella,” I say, trying to avert her attention. Her eyes stay glued to Addison for a second longer, her face unreadable, and then slowly shift over to me.
“Hey, Adam,” she finally says, but there’s no warmth in it. The words are completely robotic, and I can’t read whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. If she’s happy to see me, she’s certainly not showing it. She comes around the island with a cup of coffee in each of her hands, offering them to me and Addison before going back to get her own.
Addison gestures toward the living room and takes the loveseat that Stella must have purchased recently, crossing her legs and reaching into her bag for a legal pad and a voice recorder, which she clicks on and sets on the coffee table like she’s conducting an interview in the early 90s. While Stella is getting her coffee cup, I take a seat on the couch across the table from Addison and feel a heavy satisfaction low in my stomach when Stella takes the spot next to me. Her cushion shifts just enough that her leg presses against mine, and I feel it like I’ve been set on fire.
“Okay, you two,” Addison says, and I can’t tell if she’s one of those people with a bubbly personality or if she’s faking it because that’s what she thinks she has to do. “Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me first how the two of you met.”
She could have asked a million other questions that would have been easier to answer. But this is Stella and me, and nothing about us has ever been easy. Stella shifts enough to meet my eye, and I look back at her. It has to be her call how much she wants to tell.
