The Anti-Hero (The Goode Brothers, #1)(47)

I’m glad it could help.”

I glance at her, seeing the tears welling in her eyes as she smiles warmly back at him. Mary is always smiling. She’s like a warm glowing light wherever she goes, but to see her react to Adam in this way, as if he is the one emitting light…makes me feel strange inside.

The room is bathed in quiet tension for another moment before Adam clears his throat. “So, what book are you discussing tonight?”

Sylvia hands him the worn paperback, and he looks it over with interest.

“It’s about a baron who is kidnapped as a boy and raised by pirates. When he returns home as a man, he has to marry the woman he was betrothed to, but they hate each other,”

Sylvia explains. Adam looks mildly interested as he reads the back of the book.

“But what we can’t understand is why the rake hated the baroness so much,” Mary adds.

Gladys grabs a handful of chips and drops them on her plate. “He didn’t always act like he hated her,” she says with a laugh.

“Maybe you can help us understand,” I say, glancing playfully at him. “Why would a man hate a woman he’s so attracted to?”

Adam’s forehead wrinkles. Then he glances down at the book, looking deep in thought for a moment.

“Maybe he doesn’t understand her. I mean…they grew up in different worlds, right? And it seems that everything in his life is out of his control, even the woman he’s supposed to marry. So, the only thing he can control is how he reacts to the situation.”

He glances up at the ladies around the table, and I notice the way he won’t look at me as he continues.

“So I imagine he was pretty frustrated to find that the woman he was forced to marry was someone…he also wanted to marry. I’m sure it felt as if he had no power in his own life.

And the only person he could take that out on…was her.”

Finally, his gaze falls my way and our eyes lock for a brief moment before I turn my eyes downward.

“So, he never hated her at all. Not really,” Mary says wistfully.

“I don’t know. I didn’t read it, but I’m willing to bet he didn’t,” Adam replies.

“Men are always shit at expressing themselves,” Gladys says, and I can’t help but laugh. Next to me, Adam chuckles too.

“I agree,” he says, taking a bite of the potato skin from his plate. He seems deep in thought for a moment, and when he reaches for a drink, I hand him my margarita. He takes a swig and winces from the strength of it. Then takes another drink.

I glance around the table, and the women seem enamored by him. Even Gladys is smirking. For once, I can feel what it’s like to have a boyfriend people actually like.

But then the guilt creeps in because Adam is not my boyfriend. Lying is so much worse when it runs this deep. It’s not our words that lie, but our actions. And it feels wrong.

“All right,” Adam says, passing my drink back to me with a smirk. “Now tell me about this garden scene.”

Immediately, Sylvia launches into a very descriptive retelling of her favorite scene in the book.





Twenty

Adam

I t’s nearly ten at night when we’ve finally cleaned up the leftover food from the card table. I help Gladys place it in the storage closet in the back, along with the chairs.

Sylvia keeps starting up a conversation as we try to say our goodbyes, and Mary hugs me for the third time. But we eventually usher them out the door, and I turn my attention to a clearly tipsy Sage, who is holding a platter of cookies with a beaming smile. She stumbles, knocking her shoulder into an industrial-sized washing machine.

“Better get her to bed,” Gladys mumbles under her breath.

“On it,” I reply with a huff. Peaches giggles at me as I take her by the arm and steer her toward the door that leads up to her apartment.

“You’re not scowling,” she says with a slur in her voice, tripping over the first step and sending the cookies flying onto the floor.

Rolling my eyes, I help her pick them up and wrinkle my face in disgust as she pops one into her mouth.

“You’re a mess,” I say. “And I am scowling.”

“No, you’re not,” she replies with a laugh. “You’re smiling. Ever since that gala, you stopped smiling.”

I pause for a moment as I let that sink in. Of course, it’s true, and I hadn’t even realized it. He did ruin my mood. And I’ve been a bit of a jerk ever since.

But that’s what I want, right? For her to keep her distance, to never cross a line or let anything grow between us. The longer she sees me as a broody asshole, the better. Right?

Once we get the cookies picked up, we finish the climb up her stairs, and as soon as I hear Roscoe yipping on the other side, I realize that she’s right; I am smiling.

I’ll blame this one on the tequila.

“Roscoooooe,” Sage croons as the front door opens and the three-legged rat-sized dog starts bouncing against our legs.

She picks him up and he starts kissing her face affectionately.

When she looks up at me again, she stops and points with wide eyes. “See! You’re smiling again.”

“Stop it,” I grumble as I take the cookies to the kitchen and dump them into the trash before she can eat any more.