“I do.”
“And?”
I take my coffee to the linoleum table, where he’s already sitting.
“It’s a surprise,” he mumbles, blowing on his coffee.
“I love surprises,” I reply with a smile.
“It’s not enough to be fake dating and making sex tapes. I want to really hit him where it hurts. Spit in the face of everything he loves.”
His voice is dark and serious as he talks, and it pulls on my heart to see him struggling so much. Adam is going through something major. The nice guy who bought me breakfast last month would have never said anything so menacing. Reaching across the table, I place my hand on his.
“What happened yesterday?” I ask, remembering the way he called me in a panic, clearly upset by something.
“He came over.”
“And?” I gently pry.
His expression darkens as he stares downward at the coffee. “I wanted to knock him out. He tried to threaten me, control me, intimidate me.”
“Did you?”
He looks up at me, and there’s something burning in his expression, his gaze holding mine for a moment before he shakes his head and stands up. “No. I didn’t. But it’s clear he knows how to push my buttons, so I want to push his.”
My heart breaks for him again.
He takes a sip of his coffee, places the cup on the counter, and nods toward my bedroom. “Get cleaned up and let’s go.”
“So bossy,” I reply, taking another drink.
Within minutes, I’m dressed, and we’re both heading out the door.
Twenty-Two
Sage
“Y ou must be joking.”
As Adam turns down the access road, avoiding the long line of traffic ahead, I realize he is, in fact, taking me to his father’s church.
On a Sunday morning.
“I am not,” he replies.
He reaches into his visor and pulls out a laminated card, rolling down his window as we pull up to a security station blocking the entrance to the back of the church.
“Morning,” he greets the guard waiting there.
“Morning, Mr. Goode,” the man replies. Adam waves his card at him while I try to duck down in my seat. As I sneak a peek through the window at the guard, he gives me a terse, furrowed glare.
“Morning, miss,” he says politely.
“Morning,” I chirp in response, trying to feign confidence, like I’m supposed to be here—which I’m not.
After a moment of clear hesitation, the man finally waves us through as the bar rises. Adam pulls into the massive parking lot behind the church.
“How on earth are we going to get through here unnoticed on a Sunday?” I ask.
Just as he pulls into the spot labeled A. Goode, he turns to me and gives me a devilish grin. “Who says I don’t want to be noticed? What’s he going to do? Beat me up in front of the congregation?”
My stomach turns as I imagine walking into that building.
I haven’t been inside a church since I was thirteen and my aunt dragged me to Sunday school after I got in trouble at school for kissing a boy in the bathroom during PE.
She thought I needed Jesus. Like he could somehow make me not love making out so much.
It didn’t work. I ended up getting to second base with a boy in Sunday school instead.
“And where exactly are we going to film this video?” I ask.
Adam appears far too cocky about this and I’m slightly concerned that the wheels are coming off the tracks of this plan. As if his anger at his father is clouding his judgment.
“I have an idea…”
He opens his driver’s side door and hops out. Meanwhile, I take a long, heavy breath before following him. As we walk up to the back entrance of the church, I scurry along to keep up with him.
“Please tell me we’re not doing it on the altar during Sunday morning service,” I say.
He scans his card on the door lock and it unlocks with a click before he pulls it open.
“It’s called a pulpit, and no. I wish,” he replies with a laugh.
The inside of the church, from this perspective, seems more like an office building with doors on either side that are labeled Marketing Director, Treasurer, Outreach. The ceilings are enormous, giving the entry space alone a grand, larger-than-life sort of vibe.
It makes me instantly uncomfortable.
So far, there are no other people around, but I hear chatter in the distance. When we turn a corner at the end, I spot a group of people with headsets on who are dressed up for church but seem to be frantically speaking about something I can’t make out.
Adam grabs my hand and pulls me in the opposite direction.
Before long, we hear a “Mr. Goode!” in a woman’s surprised-sounding voice.
Adam turns around and waves toward them. “Morning, Beverly. Good luck with the service today.”
She hesitates, and I don’t need to turn around to know it’s me she’s looking at. What are the odds any of these people here have seen the videos of us going viral at the moment?
“Uh, thanks,” she calls out.
My hand squeezes Adam’s. I hate this. I want to leave right now.
He glances down at his watch and then back at me. He does a double take—and then he stops.
“What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” I shriek just above a whisper. “I don’t belong here, Adam. I feel like a freak, and I don’t like it.”
His expression softens as he pulls me down a hallway, pushing me toward the wall and stepping so close it makes it hard to breathe.
“It’s a church, Sage. Of course, you belong. Everyone does.”
“That’s what you think, Adam. You were practically born here. Not everyone feels the same sense of comfort in this place that you do.”
“Do you really not feel comfortable here?” he asks, like there’s something wrong with me. My temper rises.
“No. These people hate me, and I know, I know…that was sort of the point. But it doesn’t feel good to see the way they look at me.”
When he steps a little closer, he draws my attention out of my own head and onto him. I’m focusing on the planes of his chest in that tight shirt and the feel of his hands on my arms.
“Why do you give a fuck what these people think about you?” he asks.
“I don’t,” I stammer, looking down to avoid eye contact.
He puts a finger under my chin and lifts it until I’m staring into his eyes. Then he opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something, but nothing comes out. His eyes search mine for a moment, and I’m waiting on bated breath for something, anything.
Finally, he quietly utters, “Take a deep breath.”
And I try to obey, pulling air into my lungs, although it feels heavy and difficult. When he sees me struggling, he says it again, this time with a deep, authoritative tone.
“Take a deep breath, Sage.”
I freeze, staring up at him with surprise. Suddenly, I’m able to pull long, slow breaths into my chest, and my panic slowly subsides.
It’s the first time Adam has ever commanded me like that, and I think it might be the first time I’ve ever obeyed anyone.
But there was just something soothing and safe in his tone that made it almost impossible not to obey.
When he notices me starting to settle down, he leans closer and softly whispers, “I don’t think you’re a freak.”