Every Other Weekend(38)

I had cause to rethink my so-called indifference when Jeremy entered the lobby first. He took one look at me, scowled while muttering something under his breath, and stormed toward the stairs. The two-second encounter made my skin feel like it didn’t fit. But then Adam was there.

He wore a scowl identical to his brother’s until he saw me. He stopped halfway inside the building and took a deep breath without taking his eyes from me. Then he dropped his bag to the floor and crossed the lobby in three long strides, sending my heart pounding.

His arms went around me, and my feet were lifted from the ground as his face was buried in my shoulder. If he noticed how I stiffened when he embraced me, he didn’t show it. “I really needed you to be here, right here. I wouldn’t have made it another step. How’d you know that?”

Adam was still wrapped around me, almost too tightly. He smelled really good, like spicy apples, and my whole body finally sighed into him. “I was actually just down here getting the mail.”

He laughed into my shoulder, and his breath stirred the baby hairs at the nape of my neck, making me tingle. With one last squeeze, Adam released me.

“Easy, Adam. You know, I think you cracked my rib just now,” I said, lightly running my fingers along my side.

“Nah, you’re just not used to it.”

Something prickled behind my eyes, but I ignored it and went to retrieve Adam’s bag. I felt his gaze on me the entire time.

“Sorry, that was a stupid thing to say.”

“Trouble in paradise, I take it?” I nodded in the direction Jeremy had gone. We could still hear him stomping up the stairs. “And call me nutty, but I think your brother is falling in love with me.”

“It’s not you,” Adam said, dodging the lighthearted life preserver I’d thrown him and focusing on the empty staircase. “He thinks I should be spending time with our dad.”

“I already knew you were Team Mom in the split.”

“There shouldn’t have been a split.” One of his eyelids started to twitch. “If Dad had stayed instead of leaving when Mom needed him, we wouldn’t be here. We’d be home together, missing him together.”

Oh.

I mean, not oh, I totally get what’s going on, but one big piece just got added to the mix. No wonder Adam had gotten so upset when I’d implied one or both of his parents had cheated. They’d lost someone.

“Who?”

“My older brother. Greg.”

He did that guy thing where he locked his jaw tight enough to crack and tried to keep his eyes from doing more than looking extra shiny. I should have touched him or said something—that was what people did when someone revealed something like that, right? But patting his back or saying I was sorry felt woefully inadequate.

“Recently?”

Adam hunched, and his hand moved from his jacket pocket toward the phone I could see in his jeans. “Yeah. I mean no.” His fingers flexed like he was forcing himself not to touch his phone. He shoved his hand back in his jacket. “It was a couple years ago, but I don’t really want to—”

“You don’t have to. I’m just—I’m sorry. That sucks.”

“Yeah, it does.”

His gaze grew distant—more distant—and I could tell he didn’t like any of the places his thoughts were taking him, so I changed the subject.

Gazing outside, I said, “Do you ever feel like the earth hates us? I mean, look at that.” That was the snowstorm currently obliterating the view, such as it was. It was gray and screaming and completely impenetrable. “How do you interpret that as anything other than deeply held hatred?”

“I am feeling strongly disliked at the moment,” he told me. “But that might have more to do with the hour I just spent with Jeremy.” He looked at me. “Shelly pick you up today?”

I made a face. “Yes. She didn’t get out of the car, and I ran out the second she pulled up. It wasn’t too bad.” Though that was largely due to the fact that I’d hidden Mom’s watch and phone and changed all the clocks in the house back an hour before she had gotten up, so she’d been caught unaware when I ran out.

“She try to talk to you the whole drive over?”

“Hmm? Oh no.” I grinned at him. “I pretended to be on the phone with you.”

He half smiled. “You know, you could have actually been on the phone with me.”

I shrugged. It always took me a little while to recover when I left my mom’s on these weekends, and I wasn’t sure I wanted Adam to see—or hear—me while I was still frayed.

Another howling gust rattled the glass of the doors, and we both eyed the seemingly thin panes.

“That’ll hold, right?” Adam asked.

“It held last year.”

“Okay, that’s good.”

“But maybe it was weakened enough that it’ll shatter apart any second and impale us with large shards of glass.”

Adam looked at me. “Why do you say things like that?”

I shrugged again. “I don’t know. I should probably watch fewer movies.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s what’s wrong with you.”

If he only knew. “So where do you want to go?”

“Away from the potentially homicidal glass doors for a start. I’m assuming Shelly is in your apartment?”