AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He’s by his worktable, arc welding. I wait until he’s done before stepping beyond the shadows and making myself known.
“Ehem.”
“Nova.” He speaks even before he’s turned around.
Then he does.
And the welding machine slips out of his hands. It crashes to the floor with a loudclang.
Adam clumsily reaches for the machine and fumbles around with it as if he doesn’t know what to do next. He’s still wearing the welding mask, so I can’t see his face to gauge his expression.
I move purposefully toward him. “What happened? I thought you were going to ask Rowan to clean up?”
Adam rips the welding mask off his face. His eyes are stuck on my hair, the same way Rowan’s was. Except Rowan’s slack-jawed stare didn’t make me feel little tingles of pleasure in my stomach.
“Why didn’t you talk to him?” I ask.
“Who?” Adam stammers.
“Rowan?”
“Who’s Rowan?”
I fold my arms over my chest and give him a pointed look.
Adam blinks once, twice and then seems to come back to himself. “Right. The kid. Uh, he said he’d do it ‘later’.”
“And you just dropped it?” I ask, gawking.
“What was I supposed to say?”
I roll my eyes to the ceiling. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that Adam is a genius. Especially when he acts like the simplest concepts are beyond him.
“You say ‘I gave you an instruction. Do it now, young man’.”
His eyebrows knit in confusion.
I toss another sigh at the ceiling and turn on my heels.
Adam tosses his gloves and lengthens his stride to catch up with me. “Your hair…”
“What about my hair?” I slam to a stop.
My hair is a touchy subject because it’s been so closely-tied to my professional appearance. The more responsibility Adam entrusted to me through the years, the more I didn’t want to let him down—not with my work ethic, my speech or my look.
I wait for his assessment with a pounding heart.
“You look amazing.” He clears his throat and drags his eyes away from me. “Like… really,reallygood.”
A smile presses against my lips and I fight to hold it back. “Thank you. Now let’s deal with Rowan.”
“Deal with him?” Adam’s eyebrows fly up. He takes big steps to keep up with me. Even though I have shorter legs than him, I tend to move fast.
“Yes, we’re going to deal with him,” I say matter-of-factly.
Adam looks a little scared.
We stride across the yard and I throw the side door open. The television is still on. Rowan hasn’t moved from his spot on the couch. The only difference now is that he has his phone to his face.
