Forever summer (Summer # 4) (22 page)

Oh, help.

Adam reached out for my hand, instantly calming me over such a small gesture as he gave it a squeeze.

“It’s all good, Ellie,” he said, giving me a wink before flipping on his shades. “Well, I better head back, you sure you don’t want a lift to work?”

“Back? But you haven’t even ordered breakfast!” I said in dismay.

Adam scratched the back of his head. “Nah, it’s okay. I’ll grab something on the way out.”

I knew he had to leave eventually, but the abruptness of his departure had me panicking.

“Well, are you due to come back to Maitland anytime soon? For your mum, I mean.”

Adam glanced down the street, as if thinking for a moment. “It’s Chris’s turn next time, and then Mum has a bit of a break between treatments.”

“Oh, okay,” I said lowly, feeling the ebb of disappointment. “Well, say hi to your mum for me, do you think I could send her some flowers, you know as a get well soon?”

Adam smiled, leaning down and kissing me on top of my head in that familiar, friendly way he always did.

“I think she would like that.”

And before I could think of another thing to say to stall him, to keep him from leaving, Adam bumped me playfully on the chin. “See ya, Parker.”

“Bye,” I said. I watched him walk away until his figure was dissolved into the footpath traffic and I was left alone with my cold cup of coffee and my thoughts.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

One thing was clear.

I was a danger to the dental profession. Dr Lauren, my boss, had been concerned about me all day.

“You really don’t look well, Ellie, I think you should go home, go to bed,” he said, his kind grey eyes looking at me, his mouth twisted in concern. I felt like an utter fraud. Little did he know that the reason I had hit a wall by midday was because I had been shagged within an inch of my life.

“Thanks, Dr Lauren, I might just go home and take it easy.”

“Good idea.”

I felt terrible, not only from the lack of sleep, but for the fact my reasoning was too mortifying to be truthful about.

I was going to hell with all the lies I had been telling lately.

I gathered my things from the back-room cupboard where all the staff members’ personal belongings were stored, slinking my way out to reception, seeing Sheila swinging back and forth on her chair, her head set permanently affixed to her.

“You off then?” She beamed; her spikey dark hair was always streaked with a different colour. Today she chose red.

“Yeah, I’m not feeling too well.” Trying my best sullen pout.

“Big weekend, huh? How was the engagement party?”

I glanced back down the hall, hoping that Sheila’s voice hadn’t carried to Dr Lauren’s office.

“Yeah, it was all right,” I said lowly.

Sheila leant forward in her chair, lowering her voice. “Did you get on it?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows.

I could actually for once answer truthfully, because as far as the engagement party went I hadn’t actually drunk at all; it was a fact that still shocked me.

“Nope, I just must be coming down with something,” I lied. I couldn’t be truthful for too long, it seemed.

“Oh, that’s a shame, because guess who has been begging me to get you to call him?”

My eyes narrowed at the phone log that lay out in front of her. Had Adam phoned while I was busy working? My heart rate spiked at the very thought; maybe he was sticking around for lunch? Or maybe he was letting me know he had arrived back safely.

But wouldn’t he have rung my phone?

I played Sheila’s guessing game anyway. “Who?” I asked, fearing to hope.

Sheila smiled. “Rory Franklin.”

The shock must have been evident all over my face.

“Excuse me?”

“Ugh, I ran into him on the weekend and he hassled the shit out of me to get you to call him. He said he felt like shit and hadn’t been able to get you out of his head, blah-blah-blah.”

“Was he drunk?”

“Sober as a judge.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think so,” I said, hooking my handbag over my shoulder.

“Oh, come on, Ellie, everyone deserves a second chance, it doesn’t even have to be dinner, maybe just a casual lunch or something.”

“Sorry, luv, guess this is just one heart that has to remain broken. See you tomorrow.”

And with that I left work early, wondering why you only ever heard from all the people you never, ever wanted to.

***

After committing a semblance of neatness in my flat, clearing out takeaway containers and dumping the last of the stale popcorn in the bin, I somehow managed enough energy to strip my bed, put on fresh sheets and simply face plant onto the mattress for the rest of the afternoon. I knew I was seriously screwing with my clock by doing so and that after my nanna nap I would probably be awake all night, but for now I really just needed to sleep, and to not check my mobile every two minutes wondering why Adam hadn’t messaged me.

I wondered if Adam was taking a nap too, something I seriously doubted. If there was one thing that came from him joining the army, it was that he had incredible stamina. He was probably going for a run or something, making my efforts seem pretty deplorable.

The sun had long gone down before I was woken up by the painfully loud ringing of my Nokia. At first I was disorientated by the darkness, not fully aware of where I was or how I had got here; had what happened been a dream? I had a split second of thinking as much and it made me feel ill, and then of course I remembered.

Nope, it was very real. Surreal, but real.

The phone lit up the darkness, vibrating and shifting across my bedside. I dived on it, wanting to put an end to the assault on my senses.

“Hello?” I croaked. Rolling onto my back and waiting for the voice to speak on the other end, it took a minute before the silence was actually broken.

“Did I wake you?”

I sat up straight in bed, pulling the phone away from my ear to look at the screen, and sure enough I wasn’t hallucinating. “Tess?”

“What, were you expecting Megsy?” Tess joked. It was a good sign to hear the lightness in her voice.

“Oh God, no,” I said, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

“Listen,” we both said at the exact same time, that had us both laughing.

“You go,” Tess said.

“Listen, I’m sorry, I should have told you about the whole Adam thing, I was just, I don’t know, in denial, I guess.”

“I’m sorry too, I am the last person that should be lecturing anyone from keeping secrets, and Adam told me about last night.”

“WHAT?”

He did what?

“He said that he told you about his mum.”

My shoulders physically slumped. “Oh, yeah.”

That!

I threw myself onto my back, relief washing over me.

“Which is so good, everything out on the table now. No more secrets.”

I grimaced, hearing Tess’s words.

Yeah, no more secrets.

“Yeah, um, about that,” I said.

“Whaaat? Please don’t tell me that Sean and Amy have organised a surprise wedding; that’s where I do draw the line.”

I laughed, not putting it completely past them. “No, this is a whole other kind of crazy.”

“Should I be sitting down?”

“I think so.”

***

I didn’t know how Tess would take it, so the long, drawn-out silence on the other end of the phone wasn’t a complete shock.

“You still there?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, sorry. Just processing.”

“Take your time,” I said, pacing back and forth in my bedroom, trying not to look for too long at my bed, because every single time I did a sordid flashback would appear in my vision. I didn’t have time to think about that.

“I mean, not that it changes anything. It was just something that happened.”

Multiple times.

“I mean, everything is as it was: zero weirdness.”

Kind of. Sort of.

“So, you spoke to Adam then?”

“Yeah, we had dinner.”

“Oh, nice,” I said, trying not to sound like it was a big deal. “And he never alluded to …”

“No, he never said a word, just that he had to drop you off because you missed the bus.”

Had to? Sounded like a chore.

“But let’s face it, Ellie, he’s not going to talk to me about it, is he?”

“I guess not.”

“Which brings me to my next point. You haven’t exactly shared any of the juicy details about last night.”

I stopped in my tracks; it was like I was under a sudden spotlight and for once in my life I really didn’t want to be.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Some things are just … private.”

Tess burst out laughing on the other end. My brows narrowed. “What’s so funny?”

“Oh, Ellie Parker, you really are in love.”

Hearing Tess spell out the obvious, saying it out loud, I knew she was exactly right.

I was in love with Adam Henderson, and I was in so much trouble.

Chapter Thirty

I was wide awake. Curled up on the couch eating, perhaps even sulking a little over the fact Adam hadn’t called, or texted me. Maybe he was regretting last night, maybe he just had some personal stuff to take care of, maybe I should just bloody call him. Would that seem desperate? Would I usually call him at 10’clock on a Monday night? I tried to think back to all the times we had spoken lately.

Munching on the last of the chocolate Maltesers, I had decided to re-watch
The Blues Brothers
. I was smiling to myself as I watched Carrie Fisher threaten John Belushi in a dark, muddy tunnel with a semi-automatic weapon; he was on his knees pleading for forgiveness.

“You go, gurl!” I said, with a mouthful of chocolate.

Yeah, nobody puts Princess Leia in the corner.

After the movie was over and the Maltesers long gone, I shuffled along, dumping the bowl into the smallest sink, in the smallest kitchen in all the world, before getting ready for bed. If nothing else, I really needed to put my thoughts to bed. I tried to tell myself that he hadn’t messaged during the day because maybe he thought I was at work. I was struggling to think of other excuses for all the other unaccounted hours in the day, but at least that made me feel a little better. The thought of Adam being like any other typical boy, that he had simply used me for sex, well, that just was too much to bear. I had held him on a pedestal all my life, I couldn’t bring myself to think badly of him, not just yet. I peeled back the doona to my freshly made bed, basking in the clean sheets. One foot hadn’t even left the floor by the time I went to hop in when my phone rang, always scaring the life out of me. My main objective was to just answer it as quickly as possible, scrambling for it and juggling it to stop the ear-piercing ringing.

“Hello?” I answered, settling into bed, adjusting the pillows for the night.

“Tell me a story?” a familiar voice asked.

There was no controlling the grin that spread across my face, or the way my heart skipped a beat just by simply hearing his voice.

“So you made it home safely then, I see?” I didn’t mean to sound snarky, I didn’t want to be that girl, but I was still kind of pissed at him.

“Chris, God bless his soul, called me up to do a grog run while I was in the city. I won’t be answering that call next time.”

“Oh noooo.”

It was the common theme whenever anyone did a trip to Maitland. It was usually accompanied by a list from Chris with a “Can you do me a favour?” We all caught on pretty quickly to head to the city on the down low, if we didn’t want to have to return with a boot full of slabs, and a back seat of Samboy salt and vinegar chips and bottles of tonic water; we had all been there.

“Yep, there goes a few hours of my life I won’t get back.” Adam sighed; he sounded tired, no chance of a nap by the sounds of it.

“How was work?” he asked. I couldn’t quite bring myself to admit that I had been so exhausted from our late-night rendezvous that I had to go home early. It really was as bad as it sounded and I couldn’t bring myself to voice it.

“Good,” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral. “So how was dinner with Tess?”

“Yeah, good,” he said, and then silence fell between us. Ghastly, drawn-out, awkward silence. There was never any silence between me and Adam, not in our entire lifetime had we suffered from the affliction. And if there was to be any kind of silence, it had always been a comfortable silence: this was not comfortable. This was drum-your-fingers-and-look-up-at-the-ceiling kind of uncomfortable.

“So, you heading back to Onslow on the weekend?”

I snapped to attention, relieved that Adam had broken the silence, excited that he asked that kind of question.

Why, did he want me to?

I wanted to voice that exact question, perhaps use it as a means for some harmless flirtation. That’s what came to me naturally. Instead, something else entered my mind, something infuriating and responsible.

“Ugh, I can’t. Mum’s coming for the weekend,” I pouted, and then I felt instantly awful. I know I complained about my mum often, but in light of Adam’s situation with his mum, I kind of felt like a spoilt brat. “Which will be good, to have some girl time,” I quickly added.

“Yeah, cool.”

Was that the sound of disappointment in his voice? I couldn’t tell what was real or what was overthought anymore.

Again, I kind of expected the whole “Hey, about last night” to pop up in conversation, Lord knows I had been mentally psyching myself up for it the minute I woke up. So, much like dousing myself in a self-inflicted stream of soda water, I thought I would put the ball in my court, so to speak.

“Listen, um, about last night …”

“Oh yeah, about that,” he interrupted. My mouth gaped, my body went rigid as I braced myself for the onslaught of “We’re friends, right?”

So when he started with, “You know what?”

“W-what?” I breathed, clutching my mobile with a white-knuckled intensity.