“Whatever you want.” His voice was hoarse, and he seemed . . . absent. Retreated to some place inside himself. “Whatever you need.”
“I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me. Not just about Anh. When we met, I felt so alone, and . . .” For a moment she couldn’t continue. “Thank you for all the pumpkin spice, and for that Western blot, and for hiding your taxidermied squirrels when I visited, and . . .”
She couldn’t bring herself to go on anymore, not without choking on her words. The stinging in her eyes was burning now, threatening to spill over, so she nodded once, decisively, a period to this dangling sentence with no end in sight.
And that would have been it. It would have surely been the end. They would have left it at that, if Olive hadn’t passed him on her way to the door. If he hadn’t reached out and stopped her with a hand on her wrist. If he hadn’t immediately pulled that hand back and stared at it with an appalled expression, as if shocked that he’d dared to touch her without asking for permission first.
If he hadn’t said, “Olive. If you ever need anything, anything at all. Anything. Whenever. You can come to me.” His jaw worked, like there were other words, words he was keeping inside. “I want you to come to me.”
She almost didn’t register wiping wetness off her cheek with the back of her hand, or moving closer to him. It was his scent that jolted her alert—soap and something dark, subtle but oh so familiar. Her brain had him mapped out, stored away across all senses. Eyes to his almost smile, hands to his skin, the smell of him in her nostrils. She didn’t even need to think about what to do, just push up on her toes, press her fingers against his biceps, and kiss him gently on the cheek. His skin was soft and warm and a little prickly; unexpected, but not unwelcome.
An apt goodbye, she thought. Appropriate. Acceptable.
And so was his hand coming up to her lower back, pulling her into his body and stopping her from sliding back on her heels, or the way his head turned, until her lips were not brushing the skin of his cheek anymore. Her breath hitched, a chuff against the corner of his mouth, and for a few precious seconds she just savored it, the deep pleasure that ran through them both as they closed their eyes and let themselves just be, here, with each other.
Quiet. Still. One last moment.
Then Olive opened her mouth and turned her head, breathing against his lips, “Please.”
Adam groaned deep in his chest. But she was the one who closed the space between them, who deepened the kiss, who combed her hands into his hair, short nails scraping against his scalp. She was the one who pulled him even closer, and he was the one who pushed her back against the wall and moaned into her mouth.
It was frightening. Frightening, how good this felt. How easy it would be to never stop. To let time stretch and unbend, forget about everything else, and simply stay in this moment forever.
But Adam pulled back first, holding her eyes as he tried to collect himself.
“It was good, wasn’t it?” Olive asked, with a small, wistful smile.
She wasn’t herself sure what she was referring to. Maybe his arms around her. Maybe this last kiss. Maybe everything else. The sunscreen, his ridiculous answers on his favorite color, the quiet conversations late at night . . . all of it had been so very good.
“It was.” Adam’s voice sounded too deep to be his own. When he pressed his lips against her forehead one last time, she felt her love for him swell fuller than a river in flood.
“I think I should leave,” she told him gently, without looking at him. He let her go wordlessly, so she did.
When she heard the click of the door closing behind her, it was like falling from a great height.
Chapter Nineteen
HYPOTHESIS: When in doubt, asking a friend will save my ass.