EXCLUSIVE BONUS CHAPTER!

CHAPTER 16

Adam

There is a brief moment, just a handful of seconds after Olive’s mouth first presses against his own, in which Adam considers coming clean to her.

It’s a shit idea. One of his worst to date, even after truly outdoing himself in the last month. He was the one to propose this farce to Olive, as though anything good could ever come of pretending to be in a relationship with the only woman he’s looked at twice in the past decade. And he was the one to offer that she room with him, even though there are about thirty people in Boston who could put him up for the night.

He should have reached out to grad school friends. Jack’s in Pasadena now, but George still lives here. So do Annika and Riley. Tom, of course, though he’d probably ask why Adam’s not staying with Olive and make a few more

jabs about how “whipped” he is. He’d have to make excuses, come up with a few lies, which… annoying. Tom can be annoying. People are annoying.

But at least Adam wouldn’t be right here, Olive’s hand soft on his face, her lips moving clumsily against his own, hesitant, delicate, a little fumbling in a way that tells him she hasn’t done this in a while, and….

Adam’s cock is hard as a rock. He’s thirty-four years old. He’s fully clothed, barely touching a woman who’s fully clothed herself, and yet this kiss is without a doubt the most profoundly erotic experience of his life.

This must be it, the thing that’s fucking with his head. The reason he’s considering telling her everything. But Olive’s lips are cool, her damp hair tickles his face, and her skin smells sweet, edible, glowing. Like the shower she took a handful of feet from him, the one he sternly ordered himself not to think about. He managed to, at least until he realized that she hadn’t locked herself inside the bathroom. That’s when he forgot to breathe, only cheap plywood and opportunity between them, and Olive trusted him to stay put.

Not that he would ever do anything else. But Adam has it even worse than he thought, if the idea of this girl trusting him with basic human decency has more of an effect on him than full-blown pornography.

“You’re in love with her, aren’t you?” Holden asked last week, noticing that Adam’s eyes kept straying to his phone rather than the game on TV. And Adam rolled his eyes, looked back to the screen, and answered, “I just want her to be safe. And happy. And to have what she needs.” Holden didn’t say anything, just nodded and smiled knowingly, and that was the closest Adam had come to punching him since grad school.

So, what if Adam went ahead and did it? What if he told Olive the truth?

Pretty fucking tragic twist of fate, but you don’t seem to remember that we first met years ago. An issue, since I remember a little too well. I like no one, absolutely no one, but I liked you from the start. I liked you when I didn’t know you, and now that I do know you it’s only gotten worse. Sometimes, often, always, I think about you before falling asleep. Then I dream of you, and when I wake up my head’s still there, stuck on something funny, beautiful, filthy, intelligent that’s all about you. It’s been going on for a while, longer than you think, longer than you can imagine, and I should have told you, but I have this impression, this certainty that you’re half a second from running away, that I should give you enough reasons to stay. Is there anything I can do for you? I’ll take you grocery shopping and fill your fridge when we’re back home. Buy you a new bike and a case of decent reagent and that sludge you drink. Kill the people who made you cry. Is there something you need? Name it. It’s yours. If I have it, it’s yours.

There is no scenario in which any of this won’t send her screaming. And after the last few days, weeks, years, all Olive needs is to have a little quiet.

A safe space. A place to run to, not from. So Adam makes his decision: he tucks the truth away one more time, and when she pulls back, a faint smile on her lips and a hopeful look in her eyes, he shakes his head.

“Olive, this is . . . no.”

“Why?” There is a frown between her brows. That Adam put there himself, because he is fucking bad for her.

“This is not what we’re here for.”

Her nostrils flare. “That doesn’t mean that—”

“You’re upset. And drunk.”

She rolls her eyes, impatient, and his hands itch to pull her closer. Kiss her again. Kiss her in every fucking place. She’s a brat. An incessant, outrageous smartass, and he has to clench his fist to avoid reaching for her.

“I had two beers. Hours ago,” she says irritably, and Adam feels himself grow just as irritated. He’s in no condition to fight her on this. Not when he’s already busy fighting himself.

“You’re a grad student, Olive, currently depending on me for a place to stay.

And even if not, the power I have over you could easily turn this into a coercive dynamic—”

She laughs. Like the one thing that scares the shit out of him and keeps him awake at night—that she’ll get hurt from this thing they’re doing, that there are signals he’s not picking up, that he is harming her or taking advantage—

is little more than a funny joke. “I’m not feeling coerced.” She scoffs, like the possibility is ridiculous to her, maybe it’s her tone, maybe her scent in his nostrils, but Adam’s control snaps.

“You’re in love with someone else,” he tells her, angry, cruel, sparing nothing.

And Olive stops laughing. Instead she flinches, nearly recoils away from him, and Adam instantly wants to punch himself and take it back.

Great job, asshole. Throw it in her face. Remind her that the guy she doescare about is off somewhere with her closest friend. It’s not like you know exactly how it feels, wanting someone who’d rather be with someone else.

It’s not like you can relate every fucking minute you spend with her.

“Olive.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to calm down. Being brusque and short-tempered should be nothing new to him, but Olive does something to the chemistry of his brain, something that makes him mellow,

patient, as content as someone like him can hope to be. A snarly, feral beast, tamed at last. Problem is, neither of them seems to be doing great tonight.

Olive is tired and confused. Adam is tired, too, but also horny, and tempted, and ground-down to the bones after weeks and weeks of wanting and not having. More than a little pathetic about this girl.

He needs to be better, because this is not about him. He promised himself at the very start that his time with Olive would always be about her, and that’s why he needs to attempt something radical to his nature: diplomacy.

He closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath, and thinks of a sensitive way of saying, You think you want me to fuck you, but you don’t. The problem is, I really, really do, which makes this a risky conversation for us to have. You should go to sleep. Get some rest while three feet away from you I try to forget that black dress of yours. Or the time you brought up the idea of us fucking in my office. Or when you wiggled in my lap for one hour, and all I could think was that in a just world, an ideal world, this thing we’re doing would have been real, and those intrusive, half-formulated, lurid fantasies I have about you wouldn’t send you screaming, and—

“Adam, I…”

He needs to wrap up this conversation, and then go for a ten-mile run. He’s exhausted and not fit to be around.

“This is how you’re feeling now,” he says, trying to sound reasonable even though he feels anything but. Olive presses her lips together, her nostrils flare, and Adam powers through. “A month from now, a week, tomorrow, I don’t want you to regret…” he trails off the second he notices something: maybe she isn’t angry? Because what she looks like is… hurt? Betrayed?