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He asks a few questions, and on the last one, when I point, a sharp prick digs into my finger. “Ouch.”
Elliot stands and is next to me before I’ve even made out what it was that stabbed me. “Are you okay?”
I nod, trying to ignore his closeness. “Yeah, just a splinter.”
He holds his hand out. “Let me see.”
“It’s fine.”
He shakes his hand impatiently. “Adelina, let me help you. You got it because of me.”
Narrowing my eyes, I spot the small piece of wood invading the delicate flesh of my fingertip. He lets me attempt an extraction twice before he releases an exasperated breath. “Let. Me. See.”
“I got it.” my words come out a little snippier than necessary, and I immediately look up to apologize. “Sorry, it’s just…okay.”
Reluctantly, I place my hand in his. The warmth of his skin heats my entire body, the shock from earlier sparking the hopeful flame I just stamped out. My traitorous eyes examine his concentrated face, his furrowed brows, and the tightness in his jaw.
He may not want me, but it doesn’t negate how utterly gorgeous he is.
My eyes close briefly at the thought, and when they open again, Elliot’s gaze is on mine. It flits between me and my lips, and for two seconds, I ignore it. There’s no point in getting hurt three times in a day. But the second he leans forward, I melt. The earlier thoughts and situations gone as he inches closer.
This is real. It’s happening.
But it seems fate is much crueler than I once thought because the roar of an engine causes Elliot to snap upright. Without a word, he walks to the door of my treehouse, wrenching it open with a curse.
It takes an embarrassing few seconds before I’m able to follow behind him to see what’s going on.
“How did I not put that together?” he mutters, and for the first time, Elliot’s emotion is clear. He’s angry. No, not angry. Livid.
From our vantage point in the tree, I can only make out a little bit of the driveway and a car that’s not too unlike Elliot’s. “Who is that?”
His jaw stiffens. “My father.”
I rear back slightly, confusion marring my features. “Your dad? But why is he…”
“He told me he has a date.”
My heart plops into my stomach with a sickening thud as nothing else is said, and instead, we watch my mother loop her hand around his father’s arm and saunter to the car.
We take a shuttered breath in unison.
It’s fine. It’s perfectly fine. My mom goes on a date at least once a month, and nothing usually pans out because she’s just looking for a good time, and nothing more.
I’m sure this will be the same.
I mean, really, what's the worst thing that could happen?
I’ll never forget the day my father asked me to help him pick out a ring to marry Adelina’s mother.
Adelina. The very same girl I’d been infatuated with since I walked through the doors of Wilmith Academy and laid eyes on her fighting to open her locker. She kept to herself, studied hard, and was ignorantly unaware of how fucking gorgeous she was.
I’m not a timid guy. If I ever wanted something, I got it. Be it a materialistic thing, or the most sought-after girl in school. But there was something about Adelina. It warned me I needed to be patient. Take it slow. The only problem was the rest of the school allowing me that time.
Despite her introverted demeanor, every fucking guy there wanted her, all of them taking bets on who’d be able to break through her high walls and get her. Idiots. She was mine even before I even knew her last name, and I happily broke a few noses to make it known.
Too bad in the end, it didn’t matter anyway. Somehow, my father ran into her mother when he was in surgery recovering from a kidney stone that he couldn’t pass. He did what he did best, and the next thing I know, he was down on one knee—making the little progress I’d made up until that moment useless.
My father had known I liked Adelina. Known how long I’d waited to make my move. But he said, being his age, love didn’t come around as often as it would for me. I was just a kid. She wasn’t the one.I had time.
