Adelaide
God,I was late. And not even for a good reason. My boss threw more work on my desk a half hour before the end of the day, telling me it was vital it got done.
What was vital was making it to my class on time—and that wasn’t happening.
The elevator seemed to stop on every floor, but I finally made it to the lobby. Just as I thought I was home free, Natalie called my name from the reception desk.
I stopped and turned to face her. I used to give her smiles and at least try, but that flew out the window when she started her campaign to let everyone know I only worked here due to nepotism.
“What’s up, Natalie?”
She dressed like she was straight out ofMad Men, all red lips, pin curls, swishy skirts and structured shoulders. It was a good look. On anyone else, I would have complimented it.
“Oh, I was just hoping you could pass a message along to your neighbor for me.” She put her phone on the desk, face up, and slid it toward me. “We took all these cute selfies on Saturday night. It’s too bad you weren’t there. We got so fucked up together. It was a blast.”
Bile rose in my throat. On her phone was a picture of her face pressed against a glassy-eyed Adam’s. Natalie reached out and scrolled through her pictures so I could see the horror show. Picture after picture of their smiling, drunk faces. Some, his cheek was against hers. Others, he looked like he was talking to her. Some, he was laughing.
I bit back my reaction and schooled my expression. “Looks like fun. What message did you want me to pass to him?”
One of her sharp eyebrows rose. “Actually, never mind. I’ll tell him myself next weekend.”
I cleared my throat to stop the sob from escaping. “It’s too bad he didn’t give you his phone number, then you could communicate directly with him.” I shrugged like my shoulders didn’t weigh a thousand pounds. “Have fun next weekend.”
Chin high, spine straight, I strode out of the building. The bitter February wind slapped me in the face as soon as I was outside, freezing the tears in my eyes before they had a chance to spill.
Last weekend, I’d had a modeling job. Adam had asked me to go out with him, but by the time I’d gotten home from working all day, I’d been dead on my feet.
He’d missed our Sunday morning run because he’d been too hungover to get out of bed. I guess I now knew what he’d been doing the night before. He hadn’t said a single damn word about hanging out with Natalie.
I rushed down the sidewalk to the subway, pushing bitch-face Natalie out of my head. I had no idea why she wanted to hurt me, but she did. And this time, she’d chosen my weakest point to launch her attack.
My feelings for Adam hadn’t changed. If anything, they’d grown deeper. More irrevocable. I’d tried my best to give myself space. I’d given up on dating since it just didn’t feel right anymore, but my classes were now four nights a week, and I took modeling jobs whenever I could.
Every second I wasn’t busy, though, Adam was there. He seeped into every crack of my life, not giving me a second of breathing room. Iwantedto be with him. I wanted him in those cracks.
I was an addict, and Adam was my opium. He was killing me little by little. When I was with him, I felt so good, I didn’t care. It was when we were apart and I came down from the high that I saw how ravaged I was.
I couldn’t do this much longer, but Ireallycouldn’t do this right now. I had to get to class.
My toes touched Adam’s. His head dropped down, locking onto the contact. I would have called it a slip, but it wasn’t. My body always tried to get to his, and this time, I’d let it.
He moved his foot on top of mine, sliding it back and forth in the same slow rhythm he was using on his cock.
We were on my couch, the movie we’d been watching forgotten. His back was against one arm, mine against the other, facing one another. One of his feet was propped up on the middle cushion, the other braced on the floor. I mirrored his position, except both my feet were on the cushion, my legs splayed open as I touched myself inside my pajama pants.
He’d caught me coming home from class and had followed me into my apartment, filling those cracks like flowing lava. I’d been too torn up inside to bring up Natalie, and I didn’t know how to broach the topic without sounding like a jealous shrew, so I’d crammed it down in the overflowing bottle in my gut where I kept all my unhaveable Adam feelings.
As I’d been changing out of my work clothes, he’d been on his phone, making disgruntled sounds.
“Shit.”
I popped my head out of the bathroom. “What?”
He was sitting on the end of my bed, rubbing his forehead. “My publicist just sent me an Insta link. Roddy, Hope, and I went to this club last weekend to see one of Hope’s friends deejaying and ran into your girl, Natalie—”
“She’s not my girl,” I said too sharply.
Adam’s mouth twitched. “Okay. Your coworker. She was there too. Turned out, that was the club she’d told us about months ago.”