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Adam’s head came up.
“He said as soon as your folks have left, you can come live with him. They’re leaving on the—”
“The twenty-eighth,” Adam said. “Yeah. I know.”
“Mo said once they are out of the country there’s no way they’ll know if Mo and Sarah are still interacting with you.” Dad reached out and patted Adam’s hand. “They don’t plan to let you flounder.”
Tears came to Adam’s eyes.
“And in the meantime, you can stay with your brother’s friend Sean, but he won’t be back from visiting family for the holidays until tomorrow. Sean will call to make arrangements. So…” Dad met my eyes, seeking my objection or approval, I didn’t know, but he went on. “You’re welcome to stay here another night. In the guest room. So long as Peter’s okay with it.”
I shoved my hands into my jeans pockets. I wasn’t okay with it, but where else was Adam going to go? I already knew that if Leslie knew everything, then all our old Kingsley friends would take her side—rightfully—and Adam would be persona non grata in their lives. There was one other option. “What about Mike?” I said, turning to Adam.
“He’s in Puerto Rico,” Adam said. “His family wanted a tropical Christmas this year. Sarah was supposed to go, but she wanted to see Mom instead. I bet she regrets that now.”
I chewed on my lip, crossing my arms over my chest.
Watching me, Adam stood. “It’s okay, Eater. I’ll find somewhere else to go.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be an asshole. Sit down. We both know there’s nowhere else to go. You don’t even have a car to sleep in now. So just…sit. Stay. It’s one night. It’s fine.”
Even so, I turned on my heel and walked out. Guilt tugged at me again. I should comfort him. I should hug him. I should stroke his hair and tell him everything was going to be all right. What kind of human being wouldn’t do those things?
But I couldn’t be that person.
He loved me, and I didn’t love him. I couldn’t give him false hope when he’d losteverythingelse in his life. That’d be unkind, unloving, and cruel.
I went up to my room and turned the lock again. I sat on my bed, stroking Milky Way’s soft ears, and wishing Daniel were here. I perked up. That could be an answer. I could spend the night at Daniel’s. My parents and I clearly weren’t doing presents today either, and I didn’t want to stick around and make things worse for Adam.
I grabbed my keys and the dog and opened my bedroom door.
Adam stood outside, his hand raised to knock, and his messed-up face growing darker with bruises by the minute.
Fuck.My escape thwarted, I resigned myself to what had to come next.
I stepped back and motioned him inside, taking a seat at my desk when he sat on the bed. Milky Way squirmed in my arms, and I let her down. She left the room, trotting downstairs, no doubt hot on the trail of something aromatic in the kitchen.
Adam got up and shut the door.
My heart thumped, but I didn’t make a move to stop him.
Leaning back against it, he turned to me. “Peter.” The desperation in his voice tugged at my heart. “Please. Give me another chance. I did it. See? What you always wanted me to do. I did it.”
I shook my head. “Adam, no. I wanted a lot of things from you, but I never wanted this.”
“I know you didn’t want me to get hurt, but I thought if you understood how much I really love you, enough to tell my dad, enough to—”
I raised my hand, stopping him mid-sentence. “Adam, no. If you did all this for me, then that was a mistake. I’d rather you said you did this for yourself, oranythingother than that you did it for me.”
“Why?” he asked, sinking down to the floor, back still against the door. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t love you anymore. I love someone else.”
Adam winced liked I’d decked him on top of all his bruises. “But you haven’t stopped loving me too,” he insisted. “You couldn’t. You’ll never stop.”
I sighed, tore my hands through my curls, and stood up so that I was towering over him. “Ihavestopped. I’m not built like you. I don’t love multiple people in that way at the same time. Sure, I care about you. I didn’t want anythingbadto happen to you. I’d hoped you’d be happy with Leslie, or at the very least, happy without me. But I did stop loving you. I’m not quite sure when, maybe it started in Florida, maybe it started as soon as you started dating Leslie…” I took a shaky breath. “It’d definitely started by the time you went to Rome. And by the time you got back—”
“You’d fucked him,” Adam gritted out.
