Adam stopped walking. “Did you just tell me something personal?”
I grinned back at him. “That’s what friends do, right?”
“Friends…” He repeated the word in a chuckle before catching up.
I bumped his shoulder. “Withoutbenefits.”
His laughter was intoxicating. “I never asked.”
“You were thinking it.”
He wiped the smile from his face before detouring off the path.
“Where are we going?” I asked, following him onto the lawn.
“Your feet are covered in sand. Max will get an earful from Mrs. Fredrich if she finds contaminants in the hallways.”
“Oh…okay,” I uttered, moving closer to the luminescent outdoor pool.
Adam took off his shoes and rolled up his pants before dropping to the side of the steaming pool. “So, you and your grandmother were close, then?”
“Like you and Liam.” I lowered myself beside him and dipped my feet into the glorious warm water. “I lived with her for ten years after my mom died.”
“Where was your father?”
“He wasn’t really fit to parent my sister and me back then, so the state moved us. It was for the best, though. Grams had an awesome little beach shack in Venice Beach, so I basically lived in the water throughout my teens.” I stared down at my swirling feet. “She died when I was seventeen, so we had to move back to New York.”
His brow lifted. “With your dad?”
I nodded. “Thankfully, he’d cleaned up his act by then and was desperately trying to redeem himself. Amy reveled in his attention, but as soon as I turned eighteen, I moved back to LA.”
Adam grasped the sides of the pool. “Is that where you met your husband?”
“Yeah.” My heart twinged. “I was working as a waitress in a shitty café in Santa Monica, and he kept showing up. We married less than a year later and moved to Encino.”
“Encino? That’s a big change from Venice Beach.”
“I guess I had to alter my dreams to survive.”
Adam leaned forward to pick a leaf out of the pool. “So, you were only eighteen when you got married?”
“We definitely rushed into things.” I gazed up at the stars with a melancholy smile. “But I’m glad we did. We had three great years together before he got sick.”
“That must’ve been hard.”
“Incredibly, but the nightmare didn’t end there. I had to sell our house to pay for part of Dom’s medical fees and move back to my dad’s.”
“Jesus, Cass.” Adam ran his fingers through his tousled hair. “That’s a lot to deal with.”
I smiled, appreciating Adam’s sympathy. It was a rare sight from him. “So, what about you?” I nudged his shoulder. “Where have you resided all these years?”
Adam leaned back on his elbows. “I grew up in Bel Air, have a place in Malibu, but I mostly live in an apartment in the city to be near the office.”
“What high school did you go to?”
“Summerhill Prep.”
“Ooh,” I cooed. “We hated you guys.”