The Fifth Lesson (The Bay Boys #2) (28 page)

“Adam?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry about tonight,” she whispered.

“I am too.
 
I handled things badly,” he told her, sincerity shining in his voice.
 
“Did you want to talk about it?”

“No, not tonight.”
 
She was too exhausted to even think.
 
“Stay on the line with me until I fall asleep, okay?”

Christie could almost picture him smiling.
 
She could hear it in his voice.
 
“Okay.”

A comfortable silence settled over them, even through the phone line.
 
Christie could hear him shuffling with what sounded like his dresser drawers in the background.
 
She smiled, picturing him in his bedroom.

She missed him already.
 
She wished they’d had more time together tonight.
 
She wished they hadn’t spent most of that time fighting.
 
She wished they could just go back to Tuesday night, when he’d held her as she drifted off to sleep, when everything seemed right between them.

“How was your day?” she asked him, drowsy.

“Perfectly normal,” he murmured.

“Tell me about it,” she requested, smiling.

“
That
would surely put you to sleep.”

“Adam.”

“Alright, alright.”
 
He launched into a brief overview of his day.
 
Christie’s mind tried to latch onto every single detail.
 
She wanted to soak in everything that was Adam, even his so-called boring day.

But her eyes gradually grew heavier.
 
Her breath evened.
 
And somewhere between the Developers meeting and writing code for Connex’s latest software, she dropped off into sleep.

*
   
*
   
*

Adam smiled, his chest warming, once he heard Christie’s soft, even breath.

“Christie?”

No answer.

He wished he was there with her, cradling her against him as she slept.
 
Her sheets would smell like jasmine and they would lure him into a deep, contented sleep.
 
And he’d wake up with a grin because he’d know that Christie was there beside him.

He was fucked in the head.
 
One minute he was convinced they couldn’t be together, and the next minute he wanted her so much it hurt.

“Sweet dreams, beautiful.”

He hung up.

TWENTY-THREE

The next week rushed past in a blur of stressful days and lonely nights.

Joseph, Christie’s boss, had been in a terrible mood all week.
 
Apparently, Viktor Kent, a curator for a very well-known gallery in San Francisco, had asked him to assist with a charity fundraiser he was preparing.
 
Not only was it for a good cause, but it would bring more exposure for their gallery.
 
And even though it wasn’t for another three weeks, Joseph locked himself in his office most hours of the day and only interacted with her when he yelled through the walls.

Needless to say, the day-to-day running of the gallery fell mostly on Christie’s shoulders.
 
She was proud to say that she was quite good at her job and she only felt a little smug when she informed Joseph she’d already completed all the tasks he’d laid out for her.
 
And, not to mention, mostly-Joseph-free days were the best days in her opinion.

Christie thought that it may have been a blessing in disguise that her days were so stressful because by the time she got home at night, she was too tired to even think.
 
She usually curled up on the couch with Snazzy, ordered take-out, and fell asleep to reruns of
Friends
.

It made the fact that she hadn’t spoken to Adam since his late night phone call on Friday easier to swallow.
 
But she was still pretty torn up about it.

That night had been so confusing.
 
She didn’t know if she’d read him wrong this entire time, or if his actions were an attempt to ‘create boundaries,’ which he’d tried to do before.
 
But he’d called her afterwards and stayed on the line until she fell asleep.
 
That
was telling of his feelings, wasn’t it?
 
Olivia and Kate said Adam had had a thing for her for a while.
 
Was that true?

Every time she thought about him, about their weird, distorted friendship/relationship, she worked herself into a headache.
 
It was easier
not
to think about it.

But the simple truth was that she missed him.
 
Terribly.
 
Whenever her phone rang, her heart pounded.
 
Whenever she saw a tall man with chestnut brown hair or glasses, her eyes lit up with excitement before extinguishing with disappointment.
 
Christie wasn’t the type of woman to wait around for a man to call, but Adam was different.
 
After Friday, she didn’t know where they stood.

She’d find out soon enough though.
 
Sunday was fast approaching.
 
It would be their final lesson.
 
The lesson before Adam would ‘take things into his own hands.’

The lesson where Christie had to convince him to stay with her.
 
Because she’d decided that she wanted to keep him.
 
Indefinitely.

The lesson where everything could change.

*
   
*
   
*

She was grocery shopping on Saturday evening when she spotted a familiar, brooding figure in one of the aisles.

“Caleb?” she asked, disbelief coursing through her.
 
But it was unmistakably him.
 
His dark, disorganized hair, his strong build, his usual icy glare that kept people from coming too close proved it.

His body seemed to tense at the sound of his name and then he shot a quick look over his shoulder.
 
The whole scene struck her as odd.
 
She’d never pictured someone like Caleb doing something so normal as grocery shopping, but of course, he had to sometime.

He was silent as she approached him, eyeing her with his usual distrust.
 
She’d heard his friends call him a ‘woman hater’ on multiple occasions.
 
Christie understood why as he’d always been distant and almost rude to her.
 
He seemed to tolerate Olivia the most, but Livy had a very open and trusting nature.
 
Plus, she’d had more time to grow on Caleb than Kate and Christie had.

When Caleb leveled her with a cold look, she almost wished she hadn’t called out to him.
 
But she gave him a hesitant smile as she pushed her cart closer.
 
He always made her feel nervous, and not in a good way.
 
Not in the way Adam made her feel nervous.

“Hi,” she greeted, her voice soothing as though trying to tame a wild animal.
 
“I didn’t know you lived around here.”

“I don’t,” was his only response.

Now that she was closer, she could see the grease stains on his masculine hands.
 
The rough texture of his fingertips stood out as they clenched around the grocery basket he was carrying.
 
She remembered that he worked at his uncle’s body shop, but lately, he’d been running it.
 
Although, obviously, he still put in some labor.

“Oh.”
 
She tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear as uncomfortable silence stretched between them.
 
Christie wondered whether he’d forgiven her for the things she’d said about Adam at the barbecue.
 
One thing she’d observed whenever she was around Caleb was that he was fiercely loyal to his friends.
 
And at the barbecue, he’d looked at her like she was something stuck to the bottom of his boot.

She was surprised when he offered, “My uncle lives here.”

“Oh,” she repeated.
 
She shifted on her feet.
 
“How is he doing?”

His face screwed up into something like annoyed anger and Christie unconsciously took a step away.
 
He observed her reaction and he actually
smiled
.
 
Although it was more like the baring of his teeth.
 
“He’s dying.
 
How do you think he’s doing?”

Christie swallowed, wishing Adam was here.
 
She was struck by how different the two men were.

“I know.
 
I’m sorry,” she offered lamely.
 
“Adam said…”

She trailed off.
 
Adam had told her once how close Caleb and his uncle were.
 
She’d pieced together that his uncle was sick, from snippets of conversation over the six months she’d known the men.

Caleb towered over her, so it wasn’t hard to imagine that he was looking down his nose at her.
 
Obviously, he hadn’t forgiven her.
 
Or maybe this was how he acted with all women.
 
She thought both options were equally likely.

“Well, it was nice seeing you,” she murmured, lying through her teeth.
 
Coward
, her mind whispered.
 
Maybe she was, but being alone with Caleb unsettled her.
 
He had none of Adam’s warmth.
 
And it felt wrong.
 
All wrong.

Caleb gave her a mocking grin and pushed past her, heading for the checkout line.
 
Christie let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding and leaned more heavily against her shopping cart.

She waited at least five minutes before heading to the front of the store herself, picking up the last of the items on her list along the way.

When she was safely settled into the driver’s seat of her car, she found her fingers wrapping around her phone.
 
She needed to hear Adam’s voice.
 
She was absolutely
aching
to hear it.

“Hey,” he murmured, when he picked up on the second ring.
 
“What are you up to?”

She blew out a breath, closing her eyes.
 
Christie smiled for the first time in what seemed like all week.
 
Her muscles relaxed and she sank back into the seat of her car.

“Nothing.
 
I’m just…I’m sitting in a grocery store parking lot.
 
And I wanted to call you.”

He was quiet for a brief moment before asking, “Is everything okay?”

“What, I can’t miss you?” she murmured, somewhat amused.

Adam gave a small chuckle.
 
“Of course you can.
 
But you sound…”

Christie sighed and told him, “I saw Caleb in the grocery store.”

“Did he say anything to you?” Adam asked, his voice alert.

“No,” she was quick to assure him.
 
“He just…he’s so…”

“I know.”
 
Christie could feel a rustling sound as though he was running a hand through his hair.
 
“I’m sorry, Christie.
 
I’ll talk to him about it.”

“No, you don’t have to,” she rushed out.
 
She didn’t want to give Caleb the satisfaction.
 
He would love to know he’d rattled her, although she strongly suspected he already knew.
 
To get his mind off a potential confrontation, she asked, “Why is he like that?
 
He’s just always so…rough.”

She didn’t know a better word to describe him but
rough
fit him well.
 
Perhaps a diamond lay underneath, but Christie pitied the woman who went looking for it.
 
Not that Caleb would ever let a woman get that close to him.

Adam hesitated over the line.
 
“He had a bad childhood.
 
And he has a thing about betrayal, so he doesn’t trust people very easily.”

“And the whole ‘woman hater’ issue?”

“Well, who do you think betrayed him?”

Oh.

“It’s more than that,” Adam went on.
 
“But it’s not my place to tell.”

“I understand,” she said quietly, admiring Adam’s loyalty.

He changed the subject.
 
“I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch.”

“I’m sure you’ve been busy.”

“Yeah…”
 
It sounded like he wanted to say more.
 
Christie read between the lines.

“And it’s been weird between us,” she guessed.
 
His silence confirmed it.
 
Christie didn’t expect it to hurt as much as it did.
 
But when she swallowed, her throat felt tight.
 
“Do you still want me to come tomorrow?”

“If you want to,” he answered carefully.
 
Christie felt another pang whip through her chest.
 
“But maybe we shouldn’t do anything…you know… We can just hang out.”

Christie didn’t know how she felt about his answer.
 
The one man she wanted to touch her and know her intimately was suddenly acting like she was the plague.
 
Something had changed between them.
 
The uncertainty ate at her.

“Sure,” she found herself whispering.
 
Clearing her throat, she added, “If that’s what you want.”

Christie had to convince him tomorrow that she wanted something more with him.
 
Otherwise, she thought, they were never going to move forward.
 
Adam was attracted to her.
 
She could use that to her advantage.

“So, I’ll see you around seven?” he asked.

“Yes, I’ll be there.”

After they hung up, Christie was more nervous than ever.
 
And tomorrow couldn’t come fast enough.