The Anti-Hero (The Goode Brothers, #1)(73)

It feels like all the air in the room has been sucked out, and I stare into his eyes as tears spring up into mine. “Do you really?” I whisper.

He nods.

“Then let’s stay here. Let’s not go to their galas or dinners.

Let’s not even go to the club. Fuck the whole plan, Adam.” As I blink, my throat stings with emotion. “Fuck them.”

“Okay,” he says, and a smile cracks across my cheeks as I take his face in my hands and kiss him hard.

“You’re good enough. You’re more than good enough,” I mumble against his lips.

I don’t even know what time it is when I finally emerge from my apartment. After the talk this morning, Adam and I showered together, had sex again, and then he drifted off to sleep. Since I couldn’t sleep myself, I climbed out of bed and cleaned my apartment for a while, scrolling the app for updates on our videos.

I said we were done faking it, but I hope this doesn’t mean we’re done posting videos. There’s a part of me that really loves that part, and now that we get to do it for real, it should be even better.

The sound of voices coming from the front of the Laundromat makes me pause as I close the stairwell door behind me. It’s a man’s voice, and he’s speaking loudly. For a moment, I pause.

Then I hear Gladys and Mary break out in laughter and my shoulders melt away from my ears. It takes me a moment before I recognize Dan, one of the regulars, telling an animated story like he always does. Walking through the rows of washers toward the front, I smile as I reach the crowd gathered there.

At the front of Gladys’s Laundromat is an eight-foot white folding table covered in food. Around the table are mostly regulars and a few newcomers, quickly devouring the meals in front of them.

For many of them, this might be the first warm one they’ve had in months.

“Hey,” Gladys calls when she sees me coming. “Come get some enchiladas. They’re delicious.”

“Sure,” I say with a sleepy smile as Mary hands me a plate. Waving to the guys and one girl sitting around the table, I lean against the counter and take a bite of Mary’s famous chicken enchiladas. When one of the guys gets up to offer me his seat, I shake my head and insist he take it.

While I eat, they continue their conversation, and I feel Gladys’s eyes on me.

“You okay?” she asks, turning her back to the conversation.

“It’s been a long weekend,” I reply with honesty.

“Adam’s treating you right, I hope.”

As I take a bite, I nod at her with a smile.

“He showed up here last night looking like a mess. I tried to tell him you weren’t home, but he just sat in the stairwell for over an hour and waited.”

“Yeah…I know.”

For a moment, she just watches me, and I wait for the nugget of wisdom I know is coming.

“He seems like a good guy,” she says.

To which I immediately reply, “He is.”

“But…”

I glance up at her, not quite understanding why there has to be a but. When she doesn’t say anything, I realize there’s a big but I’ve been harboring. Aside from everything Adam has been going through and this whole fake dating scheme, there is still a lot that’s keeping me from saying, Yes, this is the one.

I set my plate down and turn toward her. “He and I are so different, Gladys. We come from different worlds. And I know. I know…love conquers all—and I’m not saying that’s what this is. But…eventually, the honeymoon period will fade and reality will set in and all the things that separate us will be insurmountable.”

Pressing her lips together, she nods. Then to my surprise, she agrees.

“You’re right. They will.”

“Wow, that’s encouraging,” I joke.

“But it’s true, Sage. Those differences will never go away and love will not make them any easier to ignore. I was married to Walter for forty-seven years. He was in the Navy for twenty of them and I burned my bra and went to Woodstock.”

I laugh, biting my lip at the image of a young Gladys running around high on everything she could get her hands on.

“There were fundamental things we could never agree on.

Things we were raised to believe that would never change.

Good things and bad. He could be a stubborn, pigheaded asshole, and so could I. But I loved him more than anything in the world.”

Tears moisten her eyes as she speaks, shutting them for a moment as she gets lost in a feeling.

“How?” I whisper. “How could you get past all of that?”

“Because,” she replies, “we built a life together. A life we loved. And underneath all the bullshit and all the things out of our control, we agreed on the things that mattered. And no one had to change.”

Reaching out, I touch her hand. “That was beautiful, Gladys. Thank you.”

“Sage, baby. You deserve all the happiness in the world, whether it’s with him, someone else, or all alone.”

“I love you,” I whisper as she pulls me in for a tight hug.

Just as we part, I look up and see Adam emerging from the stairwell. He’s dressed in the same bloodied clothes he wore last night because he doesn’t have anything else at my apartment.

As soon as he sees me, he smiles. Then he crosses the room with his disheveled hair and sleepy eyes.