I followed Dad back outside.
He was right, bygones should be bygones. And he was also right about Meg being too prideful.
But so was I.
Meghan Galloway would need to learn a little about bending.
Chapter 7
Meghan
Being at Adam’s parents’ house proved to be a lesson in biting my tongue. I bit it so hard I nearly split it in half. I had purposefully not thought about seeing him. No good could come of obsessing over what I would say, how I would act.
I should have known it would be an epic fail on all fronts.
Adam Ducate was a thorn in my backside, always had been. His cluelessness had at one time been endearing. Now it was making me want to push him off something really, really tall.
Had I honestly come back home with the idea that I could avoid him? Did I really think I could exist in the same forty-mile radius and not run into him? It was obvious I was living in a delusional fantasy if I thought that were possible.
Stupid, stupid Meg.
And there was Adam looking beautiful in every possible way. The damn man had actually gotten better looking. How was that even possible? Shouldn’t there be some sort of plateau in hotness for men like Adam Ducate? It would level the playing field for the rest of us. He jump-started my hormones in every annoying way. My girlie bits tingled just looking at him. Why was it possible to despise him so totally but still want to strip him naked and touch every inch of him?
Ugh.
Dinner was a test of patience, unlike anything I had ever experienced. I wasn’t the kind to hold my peace; if I felt it, I said it. My quick mouth had gotten me into quite a bit of trouble over the years. Adam had to intervene on my behalf many times when I had lipped off to the wrong person.
Of course, his aw-shucks good ol’ boy charism had been the perfect antidote to my more…um, fiery disposition.
So, I sat across the table from him and ate my steak and answered Marion and Tom’s questions about life in New York and pretended I didn’t want to rip their son’s hair out.
And then stick my tongue down his annoying throat. It’s the eyes. They got me every time. And the dimple. And his chin. And his nose wasn’t too bad…
Like I said, ugh.
By the time we left, I was exhausted. The effort to maintain civility was harder than one would think.
When Mom told me two days ago that Marion and Tom had invited us to their house for a cookout, I thought, No sweat. I can handle Adam. He doesn’t matter to me. I had pumped myself up like Rocky Balboa before a fight.“I’m a sort-of successful artist. I’ve been living in New York City for six years, not stuck in one horse Southport. I have friends. I have a life,” I told my reflection out loud as I got ready to head to the Ducates’.
“Who cares if Adam is super rich and super successful. So what if he married Chelsea?” I popped my hip and stuck out my chin defiantly. “I’m Meghan Galloway, and I’m amazing.”
I felt like some damn self-help infomercial, but I thought it had worked.
Until the bastard went and pressed all my buttons. Every. Single. One.
Mom wasn’t much help in soothing my jangled nerves about seeing Adam again. She knew Adam and I had a falling out during our senior year of high school but never knew the specifics. I thought it was better that way. I didn’t want my mom insisting that we reconcile. She would have pushed and pushed until I had no choice but to do as she said.
And I did not want to make up with Adam.
There were some indignities you wanted to keep to yourself. Like the way that my stomach turned inside out when I saw him with her. What a blow to my pride it had been to be ditched at the Homecoming Dance only to find the two of them in the hallway, her arms around him like vines and his mouth pressed to hers, his hand up her dress.
And then later the way she linked her hand with his in a way that clearly said, He’s mine, back off.
And I definitely didn’t want to share how I had run out of the Homecoming dance sobbing. That all of my classmates had witnessed me reduced to a puddle of humiliated tears while Chelsea I’m-a-Witch Sloane had danced the night away with my best friend.
In the months after, Mom frequently asked why I wasn’t spending time with Adam. Why Skylar, and sometimes Kyle, still dropped by, but why Adam was never around.
“He’s got a girlfriend, Mom. Just leave it alone,” Whitney had told her, and Mom surprisingly enough listened.