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“Always with the lightbulbs! Can you change one? Hmm? Can you? I bet you can’t—”
“Hey.” Adam pulls his hand from mine but sets it on my arm gently. “Let’s go.”
There’s a clear warning in his tone as he pleads with me. A warning that in a few minutes, he’s going to lose it. I know what that feels like. I’ve been on the wrong end of being dumped a few times. I was used once, cheated on once, and just plain dumped twice, and I know the feeling. The feeling of having to escape to be alone with your emotions so you can rage it out, cry it out, and just try and put yourself back together and get on with living, because what else are you supposed to do?
I know how much it sucks, and I know those private moments, or hours—okay days and weeks—are really, really hard. Adam probably isn’t going to ugly cry the way I have in the past. He might not throw things and stomp around or look in the mirror and ask why a few hundred times—it was a low time for me—but I do understand his desire to just get the heck out of here.
It just sucks that he wasted so many years of his life on this woman, let alone all the money. But no, it’s not about that. It’s never been about that for him. Love can make you blind. It can make you stupid, and it can make you feel and think things that are totally irrational.
Love can be a great thing, but it can also be a real bastard.
“Sure, go. That’s great. See you later, Adam. Actually, it would be really nice if I didn’t. Ever. Again.”
“The feeling’s totally mutual.” I flip Ex-Stephanie the double bird, and maybe no one has ever done that before—god help the universe—because she actually gasps.
I take Adam’s hand and tug him a little too forcefully as I stomp away like a toddler.
We get about five steps before a shriek pierces the quiet area behind us. Then a laugh coming from Brian. He’s laughing, and I have to see this. I turn slightly to see if maybe karma is real, and perhaps Ex-Stephanie slipped on an errant rock or something and ended up on her ass. But nope, it’s even better. That seagull I was talking about? He totally did me a solid one. He was circling overhead for quite a while, probably attracted by the scent of Stephanie’s perfume since it does smell kind of like marshmallows, and all the testosterone Brian is giving off. The noxious combination probably turned the poor bird’s stomach.
Stephanie shrieks again as she wipes the sticky white and grey bird poop out of her eyes. It hit her square on the head, dribbled down her hair, onto her forehead, and into her eyes. I flash the bird a thumbs up and mouth a silent thank you.
I can’t smother a giggle. Unfortunately, Adam doesn’t find it very funny. I get it. He’s angry and hurt. He’s probably also pissed at himself for even coming here, pissed at himself for getting duped and used, and for thinking he had something to prove to this walking shit bag for years after the fact because she wrecked him so badly when she left.
When we’re far enough from Ex-Stephanie and Brian, he lets go of my hand and sprints away from me.
“Adam!” I yell, racing after him. By racing, I mean that I chug along slowly because flip-flops aren’t very great for trying to chase someone down, and my feet still hurt from the hiking boots incident. Adam’s wearing his, and he’s in way better shape than I am.
It only takes a few minutes until he rounds the bend in the road that twists through the campground, and then disappears.
Huffing and chuffing and grabbing onto my side, I have to stop. I bend over, gasping for breath.
“Adam,” I rasp. “Fuck. This is not good.”
It hits me, as I doubled over, the stitch in my side stealing my breath, that I care. I seriously care. No, it’s not just the fact that we slept together, or that there seems to be some really unexpected chemistry between us. It’s that, over the years, I think I might have, just a teeny, tiny, little bit, fallen in love with my boss, and it’s all come to a head on this trip.
CHAPTER 20
Adam
“Adam, please, open the door.”
It’s kind of weird that Steph is standing at the driver’s side window pounding on it, and I’m sitting right on the other side of the glass, behind the wheel of my car. I wonder what she sees when she looks at me? Something hopeless? A lost cause? Some pathetic guy who came up with a pathetic plan because he’s totally and utterly pathetic? Some guy who just got told he was duped into marrying someone, into loving them, into spending two freaking years after they left, wishing he’d somehow done something different, been better, loved harder, tried harder, and given more. Just something. That something extra the other person obviously needed.
Learning that maybe it wasn’t me at all is kind of freeing. On the other hand, hearing that Ex-Stephanie never loved me and just wanted to be with me for what she could get out of it really sucks.
I lean my head back against the headrest as Stephanie knocks on the window.
“Adam, please. Open the door. I’m sorry about what happened, but making me stand out here and not talking about it isn’t going to make it any better. If you want, we can even sit in silence. Just please, let me in. You shouldn’t be alone right now.”
Without even looking, I hit the button to crack the window an inch. Steph leans in and blows an exasperated breath right through it. “Adam!” She sticks her fingers in the crack when I open an eye. “Hey. You’re going to be okay. At least now you know nothing you did would have made a difference. You can finally move on.”
I hate that she’s basically saying what I’ve been thinking.
“You should try enduring that kind of beat down.” I close my eyes again, mostly because I can’t bear to look at anyone or anything right now. I hate seeing pity. I don’t want to be pitied.
“I have. Believe me. I’ve dated guys who cheated on me. They’ve broken up with me. One said my boobs weren’t big enough. Celery Stephanie, remember? Yeah, try living like that all through high school. One time, I went on this date. I was so nervous, and I wore a padded bra, and when he went in to…well, yeah. He totally noticed and called me on it. Imagine having to go to school after that. It wasn’t fun. They called me Stuffed Celery after that. And Stuffed Stephanie and Stephanie The Stuffer. I got dumped by a guy in college who told me I sucked in bed, but not literally because I lacked in that department. I’ve been through my fair share of humiliation. Granted, I never married anyone who used me, but I have dated assholes. You know what, though? That’s on them. You can’t live your whole life wondering how you could have been better or thinking there’s something wrong with you.”
“This was my idea. This stupid plan.”
