AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Except heartbreak wouldn’t kill her.
Cancer would.
He hit the door to the outside and started walking, bypassing his truck. He wasn’t in a good place to be getting behind the wheel right now, and walking might help him get his head on straight—doubtful, but anything was better than standing still right now. He didn’t have a destination in mind, but he wasn’t particularly surprised to find himself standing in the doorway to Cups and Kittens. Jules was busy with a few other customers, so he took a seat in the corner—the same one Aubry always seemed to be camped out in. Almost immediately, one cat jumped up onto the table in front of him, and a second made itself at home in his lap. Adam stared down at the long-haired orange cat and gave it a tentative pet. When he was rewarded with a purr loud enough to be a jet engine, he did it again. The monstrous feeling inside him didn’t uncoil, but he managed to draw his first full breath since hearing the news.
His thoughts tumbled over themselves as he tried to come up with a solution—any solution—to this impossible situation. This wasn’t something he could just power his way through until the world rearranged itself to suit him. This was his mother’s health. Even if she was willing to do the treatment, Dr. Jenkins hadn’t seemed optimistic that it would be worth the cost.
Which meant there was little they could do.
“Adam?”
He didn’t look up. If he did, she’d see the pain he couldn’t manage to mask on his face, and then she’d ask him if he was okay, and he’d lose it. “I’ve got to go.”
He carefully set the orange cat on the table and walked away.Chapter Twenty-ThreeJules waited all of a heartbeat before she followed Adam out onto the street. He wasn’t exactly a sharer, but she’d have to be blind not to see the pain written over every line of his body. “Adam, wait!”
He stopped, but he didn’t turn to face her. “Now’s not a good time, sugar.”
Her realization last night settled in her chest, feeling like it’d cemented her heart into place. There was no reason to be surprised he was shutting her out. Hadn’t he done it every single time she’d asked him what was wrong? But she took a deep breath, shored up her courage, and said, “You can talk to me.”
He still didn’t turn around. “Talking never did anybody a damn bit of good.”
“You won’t know until you try.” She touched his arm, trying to quell the panic rising with each breath. Please don’t shut me out. Please just talk to me. Please show me that we weren’t doomed before we started.
Adam jerked his arm out of her grasp. “Talking is all anyone in this shitty little town likes to do—except when it counts. Then everyone shuts the fuck up. So, no, sugar, I’m not going to pour my heart out to you to make you feel better about yourself.”
She stumbled back a step, her heart dropping to her stomach. “That’s not why I offered to talk.”
“Isn’t it? You want to fix me, and you want reassurance that I fit into the plans you have for your future. Well, I can’t give you either.” He started to turn away. “And I’m never going to be the man who will settle down with you.”
The woman she was a month ago would have let him walk away. She would have mourned the end of things, but she wouldn’t have had the fire burning in the pit of her stomach driving her to chase him down the sidewalk. “No one can fix you, Adam Meyer. Not until you’re ready to hold still long enough to realize that your inability to stay in one place has nothing to do with your dad and everything to do with you. You’re a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you could change if you wanted to.”
He glared, his hands clenched at his sides. “Really, Jules? Changing my entire life around to suit your needs isn’t as easy as coming up with some quirky plan to scandalize a small town before you move on with your life.”
“That’s not fair.”
But he wasn’t listening. “Here’s a piece of advice—being the town scandal comes with more strings attached than you want to deal with. It’s better to leave the whole damn thing behind.”
“There you go again, running the second it looks like you’re in danger of putting down roots. Brave, Adam. Really brave.”
He shook his head. “This was a mistake. I should have seen it earlier.”
This is it. He’s not even waiting to leave town to walk away from me. She stared at his back as he moved away from her. “Fine. Walk away from me. It’s what you’re good at.” His step hitched, and for one endless moment, she thought he might turn around, might come back and actually talk to her.
