Rebound (Boomerang #2)(70)

“Adam, I didn’t . . . That’s not what I meant.”

My ankle throbs violently, and I’m having a hard time staying upright on the scooter. I need to sit down. I need him to hold me and to believe what I’m saying. But his expression, his rigid posture, tells me how impossible that is.

“Really? Because it’s pretty obvious what you meant. And it’s pretty obvious you went right to Daddy and gave up my life and my pain, so you could both get what you want.”

“No, I didn’t.”

But I did. I did exactly that. Only it wasn’t planned. It wasn’t a scheme I’d been concocting all along. “You have to believe me. It wasn’t like that.”

“Did it make you feel good to run her through the mud? That’s what you Quicks do, isn’t it?”

“Adam, that’s not fair. I didn’t mean—”

“I loved her, and you f*cking used her. I just don’t understand why,” he says. “Don’t you get that Boomerang is the one thing I do right? That it’s the one thing in my life that’s not f*cked up? Why would you want to take that away from me? Those people. The work. I created all of that. Maybe that feels like trivial bullshit to you and your father, but it’s everything to me. Everything.”

“No one wants to take it away from you,” I say.

He arches an eyebrow. “Right. No one except your father.”

“We’re just trying to invest, not control it.”

His laugh is an ugly bark, but understanding brightens his clouded gaze. “Jesus Christ, Alison. You really don’t know, do you?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Reaching out a hand to seize his, I say, “Please, just explain it.”

But he pulls away from me and backs off a few steps. “Ask your father to explain it,” he says. “Ask him about how he just came over to my house to blackmail me. And call me a killer.” He puts his hands over his face, and his shoulders shudder. Muffled sounds fill the silence between us, sounds of raw agony that rake through me. “You gave him everything he needs to ruin me.”

I can’t stand to see him like this and know I’m the cause of it.

“I never said anything like that,” I tell him finally. “I never called you a killer. I’d never do that. I just said you drove drunk and had an accident. I know I shouldn’t have said even that, but I was so hurt. I didn’t know why you left me there. I felt like you used me and threw me out. Those texts. I was just giving him an answer so he’d leave me alone. I never planned to hurt you. I’m so sorry I did.”

I try to get off my scooter, to go over to him. I want to put my arms around him and help in some way, but I can’t. I know I can’t.

He sees my intention and backs closer to the door. “No, leave it alone,” he says.

“Adam, you’re not a killer. You’re good. You’re so—” There aren’t words for everything he is. Everything he means to me. “It was just a mistake.”

“You’re right,” he tells me. “It was a huge mistake. It should have been me. I should have been the one driving the car. But it was Chloe who drove.”

And then he disappears through the stable door, and I hear his footsteps, slower now, receding into the quiet night.





Chapter 40



Adam


After seeing Alison, I regress and end up back in the chair in my room. I want night. Darkness. The sunshine offends me. But the day seems to want to continue, despite what I want.

My phone rings on the table beside me. Linda and Lucky throw the tennis ball for an hour and go home. A family I don’t know has a picnic and rides boogie boards and builds a sandcastle. Don’t understand that, building sandcastles. Why build something if it’s only going to get washed away? All of this as the sun drops lower and lower.

At six at night, my phone is still ringing and buzzing every ten minutes.

Texts come from Rhett. Cookie. Brooks.

My mother. My father.

Rhett again. Brooks again. Mom again. And so on.

Even Jazz calls. Sweet of her.

But no Alison.

And I hate that that’s the one call I’d take. The one person I wouldn’t be able to resist right now.

She didn’t know? Is that true? Am I supposed to believe that?

The problem is I want to. I think I need to believe her.

Yeah. I do.

I tell myself I’ll go to work tomorrow—Tuesday. Tuesday I tell myself Wednesday, and the whole week disappears that way.

It’s a shitty mindset, but I didn’t build a company from nothing to end up having a minority stake in it. But I can’t think of a way to get it back without dragging Chloe’s memory through even thicker, shittier mud.

Finally, on Friday, Grey barrels into my room. It’s maybe noon. Midday, I think, and I’ve gotten too tired to sit and drink. I can’t keep up with the waves and the sun, and Lucky’s gone and sandcastles depress me so sleep has become my new thing.

“You know what?” Grey announces. “I changed my mind. You can fail, Adam. Actually? I think you need to fail. I think you need to f*cking fail, and I’m here to help you.” He claps his hands together. “Let’s do this. Right now.”