To Hate Adam Connor

Lucy

“Shhh, be quiet,” I whispered urgently.

“Shhh yourself! I didn’t do anything.”

“I didn’t say you did something, I said be quiet. You’re gonna ruin this before we even get the chance to see anything,” I hissed at Olive. She huffed, probably annoyed with me, but stayed quiet as we carried the enormous ladder toward the stone wall of their property.

Hours had passed since we left Jameson’s apartment, and I had officially moved into my friend’s guest room. As promised, we’d already celebrated the move and the breakup with multiple shots of tequila and several margaritas each. We might have also used the screening room as our own karaoke bar and slaughtered a few songs along the way, but we chalked our bad performances up to bad weather because normally we slayed any and all songs.

While we were lying around and examining the ceilings, Olive got a text from Jason saying he would be late to our little pity party, which was exactly when I remembered it was a bad idea to let Olive drink more than four shots of tequila. After I consoled a crying Olive—she was crying because Jason was going to be late—she decided it was a brilliant idea to get the ladder we’d seen the gardeners use earlier and check out Adam Connor’s side of the wall—the hottie movie star who had moved in a few months ago. Who was I to say no to such a good plan? Our plan didn’t include spying on him or anything—I mean, obviously we weren’t stalkers, we just wanted to see what his house looked like, you know, because houses are really important. It’s always a mark in the winning column if you have a roof over your head.

And if by dumb luck we saw him walking around half-naked—or hopefully fully naked—well, it wouldn’t be our fault we were looking then, would it? The blame would lie solely on his shoulders.

So that’s how we ended up in Olive’s backyard, carrying that damn ladder.

“What if he is naked, Lucy? What do we do?”

“Umm, make sure he is naked by his own will? It’s practically indecent exposure, but we’ll skip calling the cops, I think.”

“Are you being serious?”

“Of course I’m not! Be careful, watch where you’re going—there’s a tree behind you.”

After giving me the stink eye, she glanced over her shoulder and narrowly avoided the trunk of the tree. “Oh, thanks.”

I smiled and shook my head. Jason was about to get one hell of a surprise when he found his wife drunk off her ass.

When we were close enough, I slowly lowered my end of the ladder. “Don’t let go, okay? We need to lean it against the wall.”

“I know what we need to do, stop bossing me around. And will you please stop hitting my bush!”

“Geez, Olive, I’m getting shredded by your stupid bush here, and you’re not even worried that I might die from severe blood loss.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t die from a few scratches. Plus, this whole thing was your idea, I’m gonna keep repeating that when Jason comes home and busts us.” She sing-songed her last sentence while I was trying my best to get away from the deadly bush.

“My idea?”

Groaning, I helped her prop the stupidly heavy thing against the wall. When it made a loud thudding sound, I winced and dropped my ass to the ground between the bush and the stone wall.

“Shit,” Olive whispered and hugged the ladder. “Do you think he heard it?”

“Who?”

“Adam Connor.”

“I think the whole neighborhood heard that, but let’s hope Adam has hearing problems.”

“Come on then, get up. I wanna have a look,” she ordered as she jumped from one leg to the other and looked up at the wall. “We’ll look just for a second, though, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. You said that already. And it’s not like we’re gonna make this into a routine. We’ll just look this one time and that’s it.”

“Yes. That’s it, Lucy. I’m so relieved you said that.”

As far as walls go, it wasn’t exactly the highest wall out there, which was sad for the wall, but also weird considering how obsessed rich people are with security. Then again, I guess when two equally hot and successful movie stars became neighbors, they didn’t have any reason to suspect each other of stalking.

I quickly tied my shoulder-length hair up in a ponytail. Holding on to the ladder, I lifted my butt off the soft soil.

“So, how do we do this?” I asked as I dusted off my jeans. The steps were actually wide enough to hold both of us, but climbing up them at the same time would be impossible—considering we were both intoxicated, quite possibly deadly too.

When I met Olive’s sparkling green eyes, she shrugged and motioned for me to go first, so I did. “When I’m at the top you can come up too. You’re taller than me, so you stay on the lower step, okay?” When she didn’t answer and just kept jumping around, I frowned and whispered, “What’s wrong with you?”

“I need to pee, but I’m holding it. Come on, let’s do this already.”

“I’m going to remind you that you said that if it becomes necessary, and try not to pee on me while you’re at it.”

I grabbed the ladder on both sides and took my first step up as Olive placed her hands on my ass and started to push me up.

“I’m not a pussy.”

“What are you even talking about, Olive?”

“Come on, go faster already!”

“Jesus, fine,” I exclaimed, looking down at her. “Calm your tits, woman.”

When my head reached the top of the wall, I stopped and looked down at Olive, who was already climbing up. “Move your ass to the left a little,” she ordered in a huff before grabbing my ankle as leverage.

“Are you sure you’re oka—”

“I’m sure. Go up one more step. I can’t see a thing.”

“Now who is the bossy one, I wonder,” I murmured, climbing up one more step so I could peek over the wall. While the lights were on in the house, from what I could see, nobody was out in the backyard. Still, I wanted to play it safe and not look like a legit peeping Tom by actually hanging over the wall to try and see inside the house better.

“What are we looking at?” Olive asked when she finally made it up.

“I’m looking at an empty backyard and what looks to be an equally empty house. What are you looking at?”

“I think I’m looking at the same thing. Bummer, don’t tell Jason, but I just wanted to see him once, you know. Of course we drool together every time we watch his movies.” She shook her head and lifted it a bit higher while I tried to stay steady on my feet. “It’s been months since he moved in, but we never run into each other. On top of everything else, Jason isn’t exactly being cooperative about this. I already asked him to introduce me to—”

I gave her a sharp look. “You asked him to introduce us, right? Not just you.”

“Us, right. Of course I said us. Sharing is caring. Oh! Lucy, look!”

She rested her chin on the wall so I did the same thing to get a look at what she was seeing. “What? Where is he? I don’t see him.”

“Not him,” she whispered urgently.

“Who the hell did you see? Tell me!”

“I think…wait, there! Look at the window behind that big plant on the right.”

I craned my neck higher, exposing my entire face. “Oh, is that his son?”

“Must be. Oh, he looks so cute, Lucy.” She awwed next to me, her voice going all wonky.

“Oh God, please don’t start crying again, not while we are teetering on the edge over here.”

“I told you I’m not a pussy. I’m not gonna cry.”

In the quiet of the night, we watched the little boy press his hands against the window and look outside with the saddest expression on his little face. After a few seconds passed, he abruptly turned around and looked up as if he was talking to someone. As much as we tried to, we couldn’t see who was standing behind him.

“Don’t lean on me too much,” I said urgently as Olive’s shoulder pressed against mine in an attempt to see who the kid was looking at.

“I think it’s him,” she squeaked, ignoring my warning.

While I was doing my best not to fall off the ladder, our mystery person stepped forward and lowered himself on one knee.

“It’s him,” I whispered to Olive.

We watched Adam Connor ruffle his kid’s dark blond hair and nudge his chin up with his knuckles. If I said my heart wasn’t doing all kinds of jumping and flip-flapping, I would be lying. After all, he was a handsome bastard, and it wasn’t my fault my heart was weak. We couldn’t see their expressions that clearly, but we saw Adam’s lips start moving and then the kid throwing himself in his father’s arms and hugging his neck.

“I feel like we’re doing something bad,” I said as the kid suddenly let go of his dad and ran away, out of our sight.

“We are doing something bad. That looked like a private moment, Lucy. We should get down.”

“Yes, we should.” Even though we agreed it wasn’t cool of us to intrude, neither one of us moved. We couldn’t.

Adam hung his head for a moment after the kid ran away, then he was up on his feet, walking closer to the glass windows.

Both Olive and I tensed, ready to disappear from sight if he decided to come out, but he simply stood there, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his gaze focused on the dim lights coming from his pool.

“Holy shit,” Olive said quietly, and suddenly I remembered I wasn’t alone.

I shivered and glanced at my friend. “What?”

She looked at me, then back to Adam Connor. “Nothing.” She shook her head. “I mean, we can’t really see him, see him, but he looks good from this close. And…and he looks sad too. The divorce must be tough on him and the kid.”

“I read that they both wanted the divorce. You think he still loves her?”

“After everything they wrote about me and Jason, you should know better than to believe what you read online. They have a kid together; it’s never simple when there is a kid in the middle of everything. I’m pretty sure we know nothing about what’s been going on in their lives.”

“That’s true. In that case, I could offer him my shoulder.” I paused to think about that statement for a second. “Or better yet, my boobs.” Olive’s head turned to me in a sharp movement. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s just so he can, you know, cry. My lovely boobs aren’t as comfy as yours, but I’m still rocking an almost C cup, and I’d be so gentle with him. Pat his head, put him to bed, maybe warm him up if he is cold from all the crying. Sharing body heat is a very important process. We could snuggle up under the covers…play hide the pickle to get his spirits up.”

“I thought you said you were done with guys.”

“I’m done falling in love with them, and even if I do, I sure as hell won’t let them know that I’ve done so. I never said I’m done falling on top of certain body parts. They have many, many other uses that don’t require me falling in love.” Ignoring Olive’s eyes on me, I shrugged and kept watching Adam. “You know what they say: to get over someone you should get under someone else. We can get over and under each other. I’m not picky at all.”

“Okay, let’s get down before you crawl over the wall to get to that poor guy. I don’t like the look in your eyes.”

“What look?” I asked, giving my best friend an innocent look, complete with a sweet smile. “I’m an angel.”

She laughed and patted my head. “More like the devil.”

“Hey! I take offense to that.”

Just as we were bickering, Adam Connor suddenly reached up to loosen his tie, causing a softly uttered curse word to leave my lips.

“What?” Olive asked.

“I find it extremely hot when a guy takes off his clothes in slow motion.”

We silently watched him take off his suit jacket and throw it on something we couldn’t see clearly from our point of view.

“Is it getting a little hot?” Olive mumbled.

“Shhh,” I whispered, completely focused on seeing what the six-foot-three hunk with the broad shoulders would do next.

When his fingers started unbuttoning his white shirt’s left sleeve as he kept his eyes on the horizon with an unreadable expression, I had to swallow down the lump in my throat. Slowly but expertly, he started rolling it up, exposing his forearms—forearms I would’ve killed to see closer. Then he started on his right sleeve, repeating the same process while Olive and I watched the whole thing without a peep.

“Holy shit,” Olive finally whispered when Adam was massaging his temples with his fingers, his head bent down, those thick arm muscles bulging even to our eyes.

“I think I’ve just creamed myself,” I admitted.

“What do you mea—oh my God, Lucy!” she yelled loudly enough to wake up the whole neighborhood, then started laughing. Evidently, bursting my eardrums wasn’t enough, so she hit my arm too—hard, almost causing me to lose my balance.

“Hey!” I shot back, laughing quietly. Before I could topple over, I grabbed on to the wall.

“Oh my God, I hate you!” she seethed when she had calmed down enough to speak. “Why would you even say that?”

Giving her a hurt look, I rubbed the spot she’d hit. “What? The guy almost took off his shirt, loosened his tie, and then rolled up his sleeves. I just think the whole thing was sexy. There is something called forearm porn. You know that, right? Besides, it’s not my fault my body reacted to the guy.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Thank you, I try to stand out. And relax, I was just messing with you. If I were closer to him, I might have creamed, but nope, the distance between us and the fact that I couldn’t hear his breathing ruined it. I still wanna jump him, though.”

“His breathing? You think you would learn—”

We heard a click and then a sliding sound. Olive stopped talking and grabbed my arm. Both of us had that ‘oh shit’ look on our faces, and if you were wondering, we wore it pretty damn well.

“Dan? Is that you out there?”

Olive squeaked and then slapped her own hand over her mouth to muffle the noise before we were completely screwed. Our only saving grace was that our side of the wall was pitch-dark and there was no way in hell Adam Connor could see us. I motioned for Olive to lower her head, and she obeyed without argument.

“You better be a goddamn raccoon because I’m not in the mood to invite the cops into my home,” the voice said from the other side of the wall.

Olive looked at me in alarm, but I shook my head and pressed my index finger to my lips so she wouldn’t speak. We knew there was no way Adam could know there were two girls hanging off a wall on the other side of his property, but the fact that we could hear his footsteps coming closer toward us didn’t help me relax at all.

Silence fell again. Another few seconds ticked by, then the footsteps started retreating. After we heard the telltale sound of his sliding door, Olive released the breath she was holding.

“We are not doing this again,” she whispered, taking a step down on the ladder.

When I didn’t agree with her immediately, she tugged at my shirt to get my attention. “Did you hear what I just said?”

“Yes. Yes. We’re not doing this again.”

“I’m being serious, Lucy.”

“Excuse me, Mrs. Thorn, but weren’t you the one who first mentioned we could take a peek over the wall?”

“I didn’t hear you say no—the opposite, actually. I remember you congratulating me on my great idea. Come on, get down.”

I felt another tug on my ankle as she kept descending.

I slowly raised my head up to see if the fine specimen was gone, and to my dismay there was no sight of him. Lights were still on, but no eye candy. I looked down to see a frowning Olive looking up at me.

“What?”

“You remember the girl who hid in our hotel room in London, right?”

“Don’t worry, my green Olive, I’m not planning on breaking into his house.”

Not that it hadn’t crossed my mind, but I drew the line at breaking and entering; I wasn’t that crazy. I had thought about taking a peek through one of those gigantic windows, but like I said, the line had to be drawn somewhere, and looking over the wall was where I drew it.

Don’t judge me. Tell me, what would you do if you ended up being the neighbor of one of your favorite actors? Of course you’d spy on the guy…or at least you’d attempt to. Don’t even try to deny it.

Despite his legendary parents, Adam Connor was a closed book. Of course, everybody knew about him—even before he landed his first movie—but he was still somewhat of a mystery. Who doesn’t love a mysterious guy? Certainly not me.

He was a quiet guy, one of those actors who smiles at the cameras when he doesn’t want to answer a question, one of those hot guys who only talks when he has something good to say, wildly successful at his job, married at twenty-three, a seemingly good dad, possessor of an out-of-this world body…and those were just a few of Adam Connor’s attributes. Of course, how much can you really know a public figure just from stalking them online every now and then…

“Lucy, you can’t break into his house.”

“Didn’t I just say I had no plans to do such thing?” I asked Olive in a quiet voice as I took a step down.

“You even mentioning it scares me. It means it crossed your mind at some point.”

When I was finally standing on solid ground, I gave all my attention to Olive. “I’m not stepping foot on the other side of this wall, cross my heart. Okay?”

She narrowed her eyes at me, and I gave her a reassuring smile with a thumbs-up. I really wasn’t planning on jumping over the wall, so I wasn’t actually lying to my friend. Now, if I ended up climbing the ladder again…well, I couldn’t see any harm in that.

Done with the intense eye contact Olive was making, I reached out and forced the edges of her lips upward with my fingers. “Smile, Olive. Show me your teeth.” Just to help her along, I gave her a big grin. “Come on, you can do this. I know you can. I’ve seen you do it before.”

When she cracked and started smiling on her own, I took a step back and almost fell over another damn bush. “What was the point of surrounding the whole damn place with these things? To kill me?”

“You’ll have to ask Jason about that,” she said, pulling me away from the greenery. “I’m feeling a little dizzy, I think. Let’s just sit down for a while.”

Heading toward the pool, we plopped down on the grass when she found a spot she was happy with.

“Are you going to call Jameson?” Olive asked after we quietly watched the stars for a while.

“Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know. It was a stupid question, forget about it.”

I glanced at her from the corner of my eye and felt uneasy when I saw her expression.

“Olive, are you okay?”

“Nope. I’m still angry.”

“Angry? At me?”

“No. At Jameson.” She turned her head and frowned at me. “Why would I be angry at you? Anything else you’re keeping from me?”

“Nope. No reason.” I sighed and glanced back at the stars—the few we could see above the city lights. “I’m sorry for not telling you before. I didn’t want to bother you since I knew you were getting close to your deadline. And maybe…maybe I didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t just shrug it off and move on like he didn’t mean anything to me.”

“I know what you mean, but you don’t have to do everything on your own. And, Lucy?” She paused, so I looked at her again. “I’m your friend. Your sister from another mister. Nothing is more important than you. I don’t care how deep I’m buried in words, you always come first. And now that you know it, you can never use that against me again.” She turned her head back toward the sky and added, “Which means if you take away my friendship rights again, I’ll have to kick your ass.”

I let out a small laugh and looked away too. “Gee, Olive, I had no idea you were looking forward to being miserable. I promise, the next time someone breaks my heart—which is pretty unlikely since I’m never falling in love again—you’ll be the first person to hear it.”

“Good.”

“You know you’re my person, right?” she asked a minute later.

A small smile played on my lips. “Grey’s Anatomy? Like Christina and Meredith?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, you’re my person too, my green Olive.”

And she always would be.

“Good. Lucy?”

I glanced at her again. “Olive?”

“Don’t tell Jason I said this, but I think Adam is seriously hot.”

“Is that so?” someone asked from right behind us; both Olive and I let out a shriek that echoed through the night. If the neighbors around the property hadn’t heard Olive’s first scream, they were sure to hear that one.

“Jason!” Olive yelled at him as she struggled to get up.

I pressed my hand to my chest. “Did you want to give me a heart attack just because I’m staying over for a few days?” I asked, helping Olive stand up. “Why would you sneak up on us like that?”

“I wasn’t sneaking up on anyone. I simply walked into my house to hear my wife admit”—he paused to give Olive a look—“how ‘hot’ she finds this guy…this guy who is not her husband.”

“Jason,” Olive repeated in a completely different tone as she started walking toward him. She was drunk off her ass and had stars in her eyes, pretty, shiny little stars.

Jason took a few steps forward to catch his wife so she could fall into his arms instead of falling on her face. Glancing at me, he asked, “I take it the celebrations went well?”

“She is angry at me for not sending her an invite for my very own pity party, but she kinda got over it after the second shot of tequila.”

He caught Olive in his arms and let her pull down his face to give him a long kiss. Looking at them, so beautifully in love, I caught myself smiling and realized once again that I loved very much how beautiful love looked on my friend. For me it had never been like that.

“I missed you,” Olive whispered, or more likely thought she whispered—she was still yelling. “And you missed our impromptu concert. We were so good, Jason.”

Gently pushing the hair out of her face, he gave her a warm smile, one that clearly said, I’m deeply in love with you, and kissed her lips again. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, we had to stay late to wrap things up on set.”

“I think it’s sleep time for your wife, Jason,” I said, interrupting their private little bubble, and they both turned to look at me. “I’m planning on waking her up pretty early, and I know for a fact that she’s going to hate that, so…”

I wasn’t trying to get rid of them, not necessarily, but I didn’t want them to feel awkward around me, or feel the need to keep me company when I knew they had much better things to do—like get their freak on in their bedroom before I made it to my room that was right across from them. Not to mention, it wouldn’t hurt to be alone for a short while.

Olive let go of Jason and walked back to my side to give me a hug. “I love you, Lucy Meyer,” she said, still holding on to me. “And I promise you’ll fall in love again.” Taking a step back, she looked me in the eyes and added, “And you know what? When you do, it’s going to be epic, and not just your plain old epic, it’ll be out-of-this-world epic.”

I grinned at her, and she nodded with a straight face.

“Now, don’t go to bed too late, and we’ll talk more about this in the morning.”

“Okay, Mom,” I yelled as I watched them walk back into the house, hand in hand. “By the way, thank you so much for adopting me, guys!”

“God, no,” Jason said as he got ready to close the door. “We’re not adopting you, Lucy.”

“So, you’re thinking about it? Great! I can’t wait to call you Daddy, Jason!”

With a smile playing on his lips, he shook his head and slid the glass door closed.

Laughing to myself, I lay back down on the grass, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. It was a beautiful night—not too hot, not too chilly, perfect temperature for September. I kept my eyes closed and imagined myself standing on the edge of a cliff, my arms wide open as the wind caressed my skin and played with my hair, a big smile spreading across my face.