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Not all men wear wedding bands,my annoying brain reminded me and I threw the phone down on the bed and rolled my face into the pillow.
He’s not that kind of guy.
Somehow I knew that, that the woman lucky enough to nail down a man like Adam would get the whole package. He would worship her because she held his heart. If she was any good, she’d keep his heart safe too, because Adam wasn’t the sort of guy you found just anywhere. He was the guy you brought home to your family, where your dogandyour grandma fell in love with him, and just ask me just how I knew that. My grandmother, already in her nineties, couldn’t keep her hands off the man, according to Kennedy.
Eventually I fell back into a troubled sleep and had weird, unsettling dreams that made me feel unrested when I finally woke. It was well after eight and I was annoyed I’d slept so long, which was completely unlike me.
Steve had already left for work and Kennedy looked like she’d been on death watch the night before, deep blue crescents smudged beneath her eyes. I gave her a sympathetic look as I drifted into the kitchen and poured two cups of coffee. I handed one to her and I watched her go through a set of mental gymnastics.
“Pump and dump,” I offered, knowing she was weighing how much she could drink without Teagan reacting badly to it.
“Good idea.” Her voice was hoarse. “I thought her waking up for feedings four times a night was hard, but this is even worse. I was just starting to get back to a normal sleep schedule.” She took a sip of the coffee even without adding any cream, and she grinned at me over the lip of the mug. “Butsomeone elsewas definitely off her sleep schedule last night.”
I didn’t mean to blush, but it happened anyway and Kennedy’s grin went Cheshire. “Yeah…that’s what I thought. You going to tell me about the hottie I saw walking you home, or do I need to ask my husband?”
I swallowed hard. Kennedy knew exactly who Adam was, because Adam and Steve were still best friends. Maybe they hadn’t seen a lot of each other recently, but that was unusual. Both of their schedules contributed to that.
What was more unusual was me hanging out with Adam, but that was because Kennedy knew about my childhood crush on the man. She’d been there to witness some of it, since we’d been friends since we were children.
“Ran into him at the coffee shop,” I said lamely, deciding to refill my cup even though it was unnecessary. “We just had dinner together and caught up.”
“K.”
I looked up suddenly, because she’d let that go far too easily. Normally Kennedy was like a hawk with a rabbit: she didn’t let go and never gave up until she got what she wanted, and she’d been after me for years about the lack of men in my life.
The grin hadn’t left her face and her eyebrows were doing a funny jig on her forehead.
“TheAdam Beckman,” she teased, emphasizing the first word. “Don’t think I don’t remember the way you used to look at him when we were kids.”
Kennedy was exactly two years older than me and three years younger than Steve. She’d been in a similar situation: too young to catch his interest as a freshman to Steve’s senior, but by the time he and Adam came back from their first tour, she was all grown up. Steve had fallen all over himself trying to get the willowy strawberry blonde to go out with him and cleverly she’d turned him down time and time again, which only made her more unobtainable, and made him try even harder.
I knew the true story, the one she’d never told my brother. She let him think that his persistence was what won her over, but it wasn’t until he and Adam returned years later, home for good, that she consented to go out with my brother. She’d told me the night before they were married that the reason she’d constantly turned him down was fear. She was terrified to fall in love with him when there was the possibility she could lose him forever.
Each time Steve returned from a tour, Kennedy was there. They had the same small circle of friends and attended the same church, making it inevitable that their paths crossed again and again. Each time Steve asked her out, and each time she gently turned him down.
“My guess is that the way I used to look at Adam when we were kids is the same way you looked at Steve,” I teased, and I watched her tired eyes go all dreamy. She and my brother were still disgustingly in love. It was equal parts annoying and endearing to watch them together, his hand constantly on her butt or around her waist or over her shoulders, making sure some part of him was always touching some part of her.
The obvious truth was that Kennedy was Steve’s security blanket. He’d sworn for years that he’d marry her one day and I’d taken more than one broken-hearted phone call from him when she turned him down yet again.
“I’d be willing to bet good money you still look at him that way, Mads.” She yawned so hard, I heard her jaw pop. “And if you’ve seen yourself lately, I’ll bet he was looking at you the very same way.”
I rolled my eyes. There was no way that man looked at me the way I looked at him. I’d seen the sort he dated in the past: petite, scrawny little girls who weighed as much as my right leg. None of them had been particularly clever or ambitious either, from what I could remember. They were giggling idiots, most of them still living locally, a couple running the Booster clubs and the PTA at our old high school from what I’d heard.
“What was that look?” Kennedy’s tone was still teasing and I rose to refill the coffee I’d managed to gulp down.
“Nothing in particular,” I said over my shoulder as I added the half-and-half.
“Bullshit.” She laughed. “The back of your neck is red and when you turn around your cheeks will be too. Did you just imagine Beckman naked?”
No I hadn’t, not really, but that made my cheeks flame all over again.Yum.
“That was your suggestion,” I said, turning to glare at her with the full knowledge that now my face was bright red. “I was just thinking that the girls he used to date when we were kids seemed like they were only in it for a good time.”
Kennedy smirked at me. “Got it. You were imagining the good times, then.”
So what? I shook my head at her. Imagining Adam in just such a scenario was as close as I’d ever get to the real thing, so what harm was there in fantasizing about someone who would never be mine? I’d already spent most of my life dreaming about him anyway; this wouldn’t hurt anyone.
I sat at the table while my sister-in-law spread butter on her toast and she held a triangle toward me in a gesture I knew meant it was a peace offering.
