Rebound (Boomerang #2)(56)

I sigh. “It’s such a long story,” I tell him. “We’ll freeze.”

“Imagine my arms are around you,” he says, and his breath stirs against my cheek. “I’ll keep you warm. Just tell me.”

And so I do. I start with all of the things I see now that I didn’t see then. I tell him about that weekend I found my father with another woman, how I ran away, spent the night at the airport, got back to college, and couldn’t tell Ethan anything. Because I felt I needed to be loyal to my father and because Ethan seemed to admire him so much. I kept it a secret, and that secret made everything different between us. It made me different.

“I started partying more,” I tell Adam. “And just . . . I stopped caring. I stopped believing in whatever Ethan and I had. And to be honest, I knew I wasn’t in love with Ethan. And he wasn’t in love with me. Not really. We had a lot of nice moments together, and I was excited by his success, I think, because I felt all of this pressure to be successful myself. I don’t know. I just know that I let it all get out of hand. Because I didn’t know what to think or feel. I just numbed myself to everything. I cut myself off from him and then I resented that he couldn’t share my pain. It was so wrong of me. But I couldn’t pull out of it. I just kept making terrible choices. Telling myself I didn’t care. That none of it mattered.”

“And the guy you cheated with?”

“One of those terrible choices.” Tears sting my eyes, and I reach under the blindfold to wipe them away. I could remove it entirely, of course, but there’s a comfort in it, in not being able to see Adam while I tell him my story. “I was so lonely. It felt like I didn’t have my family anymore. Not in the same way. I pushed Ethan away and blamed him for being so busy with soccer and studies and his friends. The guy was my research partner, and we were with each other constantly. I just wanted to feel like . . .”

“Like what?” Adam asks, and his tone is so earnest and so understanding that more tears come.

“I wanted to feel like I mattered, I guess. Or like . . . I don’t know . . . I wanted to know if it was true, what my father said. That it didn’t matter. That it could happen and not mean anything.”

“But it meant something?”

I nod. “I let myself go with it because I was buzzed, and I wanted to escape myself. But I pretty much hated it—which wasn’t the guy’s fault. He was . . . nice enough. He stopped when I got upset, but we were still in bed together when . . . when Ethan found us.”

I start crying again, my whole body seized by the memory and the pain—and, in some small part, by a sharp sympathy for the person I was just a few months ago.

“I’m happy Ethan’s found someone. They seem so . . . in love. But I’ll never forget that look on his face. I spent six months trying to forget that look, drinking and acting like none of it mattered. It killed my studies. I mean, I killed them. I lost almost every friend I had. My parents had to bail me out of the whole thing. It was just a disaster. I was a disaster.”

“But you’re not anymore,” he says quietly.

I shake my head, shivering. “No. I’m not.”

“Come on,” he says, and gives the rope another gentle tug. “Just a few steps straight on, and we’ll be done.”

I follow his directions and come to stand in front of him. “Last question,” I say. The air temperature has dropped again, and the wind slices into me, starting my teeth chattering.

I feel his arms around me, and then the blindfold lifts away, and it’s just the two of us, face-to-face in the blinding winter sunlight.

“Okay,” Adam says. “Last question.” There’s nothing in his expression but regard and tenderness. “Want to go inside and get a goddamned cup of coffee?”

I smile, brushing away the last of my tears. “That sounds really, really good right now.”





Chapter 32



Adam


The lodge has a library off the great room that’s small and dim, with dark mahogany bookshelves and two stuffed chairs. It’s as much privacy as I can get us right now, while still being part of the day’s program. I claim it for Team Quick-Wood, taking Ali there as the other teams stake out other spots throughout the house.

We weren’t the only team hustling inside for shelter five minutes ago. The weather’s taking a turn for the worse, which could be a problem. Jackson airport only has a single runway and a good storm could get us stranded here for a few days—not a good thing with Thanksgiving the day after tomorrow. As much as my employees like me, I’m guessing they’d rather be with their families for the holiday.

“Right here, lovely,” I say, sitting Ali down in one of the huge leather chairs in front of the fireplace. If there’s one takeaway from this retreat, I think lovely is going to be it. Thanks to Jazz, everyone’s taken to the word. “I’ll get a fire going.”

“That’d be great,” she says. She’s a little shaken up by what she just told me, and she’s shivering from cold, but I feel a steadiness in the air between us now, and a keen awareness of the trust she just placed in me.

It feels incredible to have her faith in me. I want to let her know she’s safe; I won’t let her down. I want to take her hand and tell her she’s brave, and that she should forgive herself.