“A bag of big dicks?” She gapes at me, but then she laughs so hard that her whole body shakes. “I can’t believe you just said that. At work, you’re so proper all the time. You would never tell someone to eat a bag of dicks.”
“Just because I wouldn’t say it doesn’t mean I haven’t thought it.”
Her nose crinkles, but obviously, it’s because she still finds it humorously shocking. “I thought you had a pretty normal upbringing. That your parents made sure you went to normal schools and stuff.”
“They did. They tried their best for me, and that’s all they could do, but it was never going to go away—the fact that they were that rich, that I was their son, their only son, and that I was going to get this massive company. I always wanted to make them proud and run it. I never wanted to do anything else. I find business fascinating, and I’m good at it. I like what I do. Actually, I love what I do. But I didn’t love that people always knew. You said there are people out there who would just take me for who I am without the money, but I really haven’t met any of them yet. Friends, girlfriends, and even relatives. Everyone always wants or expects something.”
“The whole everyone has an angle deal? I don’t really believe that.”
I want to tell her that she should try having this kind of money and my family name and seeing how it goes for her, but it’s rude, obnoxious, and smacks of self-pity. She’s seen enough of that from me over the past few years. Way too much. I have to admit I’ve been in a pretty shitty place for two fucking years.
It’s this trip that got me out of it. It’s this trip that I finally did all those clichés—woke up, opened my eyes, and started to enjoy just being alive, even with the head wound, the snake who tried to kill me, the sunburn, the faulty tent, the storm—all of it.
I’m stunned to realize that I feel good. I feel…I feel something I haven’t felt in a very long time. I feel grateful. I also feel something that borders on happiness. Not just happy, but something else, something deeper. That feeling you can’t quite explain or define. I guess I just feel like I have everything I could ever want, right at this moment, and it’s strange because I don’t know if I’ve ever felt that way. I just told Stephanie that I felt like I didn’t fit anywhere, but it’s not true.
“The only person I ever felt wasn’t after me for something was, uh, Stephanie.” I realize I shouldn’t talk about my ex-wife right now. Not when I should be talking about us. “But even that turned into something else.” Maybe talking about Ex-Stephanie is the best thing I can do for both of us.
Clearly, Steph doesn’t like it. Her hands don’t get any rougher, she doesn’t even mistakenly hurt me by applying extra pressure when rubbing in the gel, she doesn’t even stop, and she doesn’t make a choked noise or bite her cheek or grind her teeth. I just know because I know her.
And it’s because I know her that I know no line will ever be crossed again, no matter what we feel or might want.
I wish I could tell her that I feel like I fit here. With her. Out here, where I don’t actually fit at all. Out here, where I set out to prove something and did the exact opposite. I can laugh at it now instead of beating myself up about it, instead of finding myself lacking, and instead of constantly measuring myself against the entire world and feeling like shit when I failed. That’s bullshit, and I realize it now. Why have I been doing that to myself? Why didn’t I see how hard I was on myself before? I could give everyone else a break, but not me. I could care about everyone but myself. Why? I can’t pin all of it on my ex-wife and what she said and how she treated me because that’s also bullshit. It’s my mindset, and it has to change.
It’s not a self-esteem issue. I think it’s just how I see myself. We’re all our own worst critics. That really is true, but I was overdoing it, going out of my way to sabotage myself and planting ideas of failure in my mind before I could even succeed.
I want to look at myself the way Steph is looking at me right now.
With so much hope shining in her eyes, so much pride, so much softness, so much…so much everything that I almost can’t breathe. She looks down quickly, letting me see it for just an instant, but making it clear she knows there’s a line between us. There’s always been a line. And it’s going to stay there.
If last night was a mistake, as I so insensitively and idiotically put it, then I’d like to make more mistakes. I’d like to obliterate that line, but I know what’s at stake.
Steph. Her job. I know she’d quit if things didn’t work out, maybe even if they did. I know she’d probably find an excuse to disappear because she wouldn’t think it was right even though other people at the company have met at work and dated. And even though it’s caused some drama in the past. I know she’d think it was the right thing to do. To take another job even if things were working out. I just don’t want to think about what would happen if she did that, and they didn’t. Work out, I mean. I don’t want to think about how I’d be the reason for her quitting and how I’d disrupt her life.
About how, in the end, I’d probably lose her.
That’s the one thing—I realize now—I can’t afford to do. The line isn’t about me. It isn’t about how I think about myself or what I feel about rejection or anything else. The greatest risks might come with the greatest rewards, but they’re often the most painful. Risks are worth taking, but sometimes, you just can’t.
CHAPTER 13
Stephanie
After our little talk the day before, it was clear we needed to spend some time alone. I cleaned up our stuff, moved the food from the cooler into the fridge, located my book, and retreated to the bedroom. It was super early, but after a couple of hours of reading, I felt my eyes getting heavy and gritty. I hadn’t heard Adam stir, and I left him alone, deciding he needed the sleep. Plus, I just didn’t know what to say. So, sleep was best. A good night’s sleep fixes everything, or so my mom always told me growing up.
Maybe it’s true because when I open my eyes, watery sunlight is flooding in through the lightweight white curtains at the large bedroom window off to the right of the bed, and the smell of bacon and eggs is filling up the small space. Or maybe just bacon because I can’t quite smell the eggs. Coffee. When I sniff again, trying to be discerning, I realize I do smell coffee, good coffee—the kinds made from an actual coffee pot.
I throw back the lightweight quilt and roll out of bed. I did put on my pajamas yesterday—the one dry pair I found. They’re just shorts and a t-shirt—gym shorts and a baggy old thing with a picture of a cow that I found at a thrift store and liked because I thought it was slightly odd and kind of cute. The cow is purple and green, and I just had to buy it. It’s seen five or so years of use, and it’s held up pretty darn near perfectly, making it worth every cent of the four dollars and ninety-nine cents I paid for it.
I’m a little embarrassed about being seen in pajamas because I feel it’s kind of intimate, and that’s not what I wanted to go for after our talk yesterday, so I put on a pair of black, distressed denim shorts and a black tank before I wander out into the living room.
Adam’s in the kitch
en. He is indeed the source of the delicious smells. For a guy who claims he can’t cook, he’s sure doing a good enough job with what he has at the moment. A frying pan is filled up with thick-cut bacon, and the other has scrambled eggs. The coffee pot is full, and it smells as dark and divine as it probably tastes.
Adam turns around after flipping the eggs to find me standing there. “Hey,” he says brightly.
He looks much more chipper this morning. As he said it would, his sunburn has turned into a really dark tan. His hair is still wet from the shower he must have taken not more than twenty or thirty minutes ago, and he’s sporting a plaid button-down and another pair of jeans. I have never, ever, seen him wear plaid.
He looks freaking fantastic in plaid.