SWNOVELS Unravel Me: Chapter 25
Adopted.
There’s this silly part of me, this small child buried so deep down, who sees that seven-letter word scrawled across the animal cage and, every single time, without fail, actually feels…jealousy. Grief for a family I lost, and a second one I was never given a chance with.
It doesn’t change a thing about how excited I am for the animals going home to be with their forever families. There’s nothing I want more than for them to live out the rest of their lives in luxury.
Luxury is being surrounded by all the love you need to walk through life. It’s having someone to laugh with on the good days, and arms to hold you up on the bad ones. Luxury…it’s the people who make it all worth it. Every single day.
I’ve lived with luxury, and I’ve lived without it. I know which one I’d choose.
I pull Mittens from his den, snuggling him against my chest. “I’m glad you’re getting your family, Mitts.”
He crawls up my shoulder, clinging tightly to me as I walk through the shelter.
“It’ll be okay, buddy.” I smooth my palm down his back as I reach the room where his new dad is supposed to be waiting. “You’re going to love your new family.”
He makes a low, growly sound, like he doesn’t believe me.
I push through the door, stopping when I see the large, tattooed man inside.
Jaxon Riley, who I now know to be the Vancouver Vipers superstar defenseman, one of the NHL’s most notorious fighters, a gigantic playboy, and one of Adam’s best friends, smiles. “Hi, Rosie.”
Mittens’ head whips around, and with a meow that echoes across the galaxy, he launches himself off my chest. Jaxon chuckles, crouching to catch him in his arms. My heart warms at the sight, Mittens tucking his fluffy white and orange head into the crook of Jaxon’s neck, the perfect fit.
“Hey, Mitts,” Jaxon whispers against his fur. “You’re coming home, marshmallow.”
I disguise my laugh as a cough when Mittens scurries up Jaxon’s shirt and drapes himself over his broad shoulders. “Does your shirt say Cat Daddy ?”
Jaxon doesn’t even bat an eye. “Fuck yeah, it does. I wanted it to say Slutty Cat Daddy , but Adam wouldn’t let me. He’s no fun sometimes.”
Clearing my throat, I start flipping through the adoption paperwork. “Almost didn’t recognize you without your mustache.”
His smirk is proud as he rubs the spot where that fake monstrosity was when I first met him. Now, there’s only stubble. “Thinking of growing a real one. I can rock it, right? Garrett looked ridiculous with his, though. Right? I looked better?”
“Is who wore the fake mustache better when you came to spy on me really a competition?”
“Everything’s a competition between me and Garrett. And we weren’t spying on you.” He chuckles at the sassy eye roll I hit him with. “Okay, we were spying on you, but only ’cause Adam wouldn’t shut up about you, and we were tired of waiting for him to bring you around.”
My heart sinks at his harmless words, and I clutch the clipboard in my hands. “Um, so, you brought a carrier to take Mittens home, that’s great.”
“Rosie.”
“I don’t think you’ll have any issue, given how much he loves you—”
“Rosie.”
“—but there may be an adjustment period where he hides away and—”
“Rosie .” Jaxon’s chest appears in my field of vision, and Mittens reaches across, laying one paw on my shoulder. “That came out wrong. Adam wasn’t hiding you away from us or anything.”
“Wasn’t he?”
“Nah. That’s not his style.” He laughs suddenly, scratching his stubbled jaw. “Actually, he would, but only because he’d be afraid we’d scare you off. We’re kind of an overbearing group. Like a big, dysfunctional family. A big, dysfunctional, very loving family,” he adds with a pointed look.
“I believe you,” I say quietly, moving past him to inspect his carrier.
“You do?”
“Of course I do. The media loves your relationship.”
Not a lot of what I found online made me smile, but one thing that did was this little family Adam seems to have formed with some of his teammates and their partners. Every time they’re photographed on a night out on the town, they’re together. The media loves referencing their social media accounts, too, especially Carter Beckett’s, the underwear model with the huge dick from the bus shelter and, apparently, the team captain. His Instagram account is bogged down with pictures of his family: his daughter, his wife, and his best friends, always together.
“The media doesn’t know everything,” Jaxon reminds me. “They spin stories to make them seem more interesting than they are.”
“So Adam isn’t really the NHL’s most eligible bachelor?”
He hides his smile behind his hand. “Nah, he really is. Or was, until he met you. But look me in the eyes and tell me all those articles about him being a serial dater didn’t make him sound like the biggest fuckboy.” Amused eyes move between mine. “You can’t, can you? I’m the fuckboy, not Adam. I was just trying to get laid; he was just trying to find his happy place. And he failed, every time, until he took you on a picnic date and stole your hat just so he’d have a reason to see you again.”
My heart flutters, and happiness crawls up my face, tugging at the corner of my mouth. “He told you about that?”
“I told you, he never shuts up about you. Connor too.”
I take Mittens from Jaxon, snuggling him for the last time. “Did he tell you he started a new scholarship at my school just so I could graduate on time?”
“I thought he was staying anonymous?” Jaxon’s face falls at my smile. “Ah fuck .” He shakes his finger at me. “You sneaky little shit. Adam’s gonna kill me.”
It hurts to think about Adam, all the ways he’s been so selfless, so supportive. I’ve wanted to be angry with him for being selfish in his decision to hide himself from me, but in all my research, in everything I’ve read between the lines on the internet, I understand. I don’t like it, but I do get it. He’s been hurt, time after time, and I can’t fault him for being afraid to get hurt again.
Aren’t we all afraid of heartbreak? It comes in too many forms, from the people you least expect, and it never hurts any less.
Thing is, though, in trying to guard his heart, he broke both of ours in the end. And Connor’s, who asks for Dada every single day, breaking my heart all over again.
Hugging a purring Mittens against my chest, I close my eyes. “I’m gonna miss you, buddy, but I’m so happy for you.” He nudges his soft head against mine, and I press a kiss to it before securing him in the carrier.
“You can come visit him sometime, maybe,” Jaxon says, taking the carrier and following me out to reception. “He’s gonna live like a king.”
“I have no doubt.”
He pauses at the desk, looking me over. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
“You’d be surprised, but years of fuckboy behavior have taught me that when a woman says she’s fine, she’s never fucking fine.”
I manage a tired laugh, scrubbing my exhausted eyes.
“Seriously, what’s up? You look like you’re ready to crumble.”
“It’s just been a tough couple of weeks. It’s nothing.” I sniffle. “I’m fine.”
I wait for him to nod, to walk out the door with his new best friend, but he doesn’t move. Just stares at me. Waits.
“I lost a dog yesterday,” I blurt. “At school. Her name was Pepper and she was still just a baby. I held her paw while she took her last breath, and then I had to tell her mom…” Tears blur my vision, and the memory squeezes my throat. “I had to tell her mom she wasn’t going home. And all I wanted was to go to Adam, because he just listens, he doesn’t try to fix things that can’t be fixed. He lets me feel what I need to feel, and he makes me feel safe while I do it. But I’m still so hurt. He was my safe place, but I wasn’t his.” I swipe at my cheeks. Of course I’m crying again. Feels like all I’ve done these past two weeks. “I want to be someone he’s proud to be with, but instead, it feels sort of like I was his dirty secret rather than his first choice.”
The carrier hits the desktop on my last word, and Jaxon’s arms come around me, bringing me into his chest. He holds me like that until my body stops shaking, until my tears stop coming, and when he finally releases me, I can’t look at him.
I watch out of the corner of my eye as he rounds the desk, shakes the mouse to wake up the computer, types on the keyboard. Then he pulls me back into him. I feel his chin on top of my head, and for a moment, I sink into the compassion.
“I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but I promise you everything will be okay.” He releases me, picks up Mittens, and walks to the door before pausing once more. “You were never his dirty secret, Rosie. You’re his world, and I’m pretty sure it’s stopped spinning since you’ve been gone.”
Thoughts of Adam run rampant in my mind as I watch Jaxon drive away. Footsteps approach, and Archie’s familiar whistle sounds behind me before it comes to a sudden halt.
“Rosie? What is this?”
Archie’s leaning over the desk, staring at the computer. He gestures me over with the tip of his head, and my heart tries to claw out of my chest at the video waiting for me on the screen, the caption up top.
Adam Lockwood breaks hearts everywhere: he’s taken!
The video is cued up, paused at a spot halfway through. Adam is sitting on a stool, wearing the same outfit he had on the last time I saw him.
Archie reaches for the mouse, but I grab it away.
“Jesus,” he mutters as I press Play. “I was gonna do that, bossy girl.”
“Not fast enough.”
Everything in my body rolls to a slow stop when the video starts, Adam’s heartbreaking smile on display, his blue eyes electric, the deep timbre of his voice as he talks about his life in Vancouver. My stomach squeezes like a fist at the reminder from the reporter that I wouldn’t have ever found Adam if he hadn’t re-signed to Vancouver shortly before we met.
I might’ve lived through a whole life before him, but now it hurts to imagine one without him. Because when Adam tells the camera his heart is in Vancouver, I know mine is too.
“I’ll have a lot of angry women on my hands later on if I don’t ask the question everyone wants the answer to, especially since the NHL’s resident serial dater seems to have completely disappeared off the dating scene in recent months,” the reporter says. “So, Mr. Lockwood, everyone wants to know…is there someone special in your life?”
I’m hyperaware of Archie’s stare, ricocheting between me and the video, the way everything around me falls away and slows, until all I can hear is the patter of my heart, the drum of blood in my ears. My hands tremble, and I’m nearly about to shut off the computer when Adam’s eyes come alive, a familiar spark that holds so much love, the grin that comes over his face, splitting his cheeks.
“Yeah, there is someone special. Two someone specials, actually.”
The reporter’s brows jump. “Two ?”
Adam chuckles. “It’s not how it sounds. She’s got a little boy.”
“Stepdaddy Adam !” someone shouts from off camera, followed by a slew of hoots and whistles. His cheeks blaze before he ducks his head to hide his smile.
“You look pretty smitten,” the reporter muses. “It’s nice to see you so happy.”
“I wasn’t sure I’d be this happy again.” Adam rubs the back of his neck and shrugs. “They make me want to be the very best version of myself.”
“So, it’s serious then? This woman and her son?”
“The only thing I take as seriously is hockey.”
“Are you planning on following in your captain’s footsteps?”
“I normally strive to do the exact opposite of Carter,” he says with a chuckle. “But I assume you’re referencing him settling down, getting married, starting a family…”
“Exactly.”
Adam’s fingers tap against his knee for a quiet moment, and then he smiles. “I’ve always loved the idea of being married. It’s always been an important part of my life plan, because my parents have been an incredible example of two people who love each other working through the toughest parts of life. They’re proof that you don’t have to do it alone, and I don’t want to. I want to do all the hard stuff with the right person by my side.
“So, do I see myself settling down with her? Yeah, I really do. And starting a family?” Adam looks directly into the camera, and for a moment, it feels like he’s looking right at me. “We already have one, but I can’t wait to keep building it.”
This is the first time I’ve been here on my own in over two months.
I’ve had Adam at my side since I stumbled into him in July. Without him, I haven’t been able to bring myself to come back here.
But this is my space. Before Adam, this was where I felt safe. There’s something so innately comforting in the feel of earth beneath your feet, where everything is so green, so fresh, a sign of life, renewed energy. Where each breath of mountain air makes you feel alive with clarity.
Clarity. It’s been missing for two weeks, and right now, it’s all I need.
“Quit looking at me like that, sassy girl,” I tell Piglet as we trudge through the forest, because it’s about the hundredth time she’s thrown that grumpy look at me over her shoulder. “I get it: everything is way less fun without Adam and Bear. I’m not exciting enough.”
She cocks her head, those beautiful brown eyes blinking at me. Then she trots back to my side, nudging my hand before carrying on beside me. She has a funny way of slowing my racing thoughts, reminding me to go easy on myself. Maybe that’s why we get along so well. We give each other the patience and love we both need.
“I know it’s here somewhere,” I murmur, creeping through the trees. I’d long since given up on finding those thirteen-year-old initials my dad carved into that tree when I was eleven. I must’ve looked a hundred times over my years in Vancouver. It’s silly, but when Adam found them, I thought maybe it was my parents’ way of letting me know they were with us, that they approved of Adam.
And I think that’s part of the reason I haven’t been back here since. Because I know if I don’t find it now, when I really need it, I’ll wonder. My mind will wander to that dangerous what-if territory that I hate, where I second-guess everything. And I’m so damn tired of second-guessing. I just want to be sure. I want to move forward with certainty that I’m making the right decision for me. No matter which way this goes in the end, I want to know that I believed in myself, that I gave myself a true chance at love, at a happy ever after with someone who only lifts me up.
And if I can’t find this tree, if my brain tries to convince my heart it’s a sign…what if I’m not strong enough to battle that voice? What if the voices overwhelm me, and I give in to the pressure to give up?
I tell myself I’m not really looking, that if I find it, I find it. But five minutes turns into ten, and when I’ve been wandering in circles for forty-five minutes, everything in my chest pulls taut.
“It’s here,” I tell Piglet. “I know it’s here. It has to be.”
But the longer I come up empty-handed, the more I doubt myself. And the more I doubt myself, the more I just want to crawl into the arms of my parents, remember how it feels to be surrounded, protected by that kind of unconditional love.
So when my heart grows heavy and those voices try to win, I give myself grace. I pick a tree, just any old one, and I sink to my butt at the base of it. Piglet drapes her head over my lap and licks my fingers as I fix my sight on the blue sky filtering through the trees, focus on pulling in breath after breath of fresh air, clearing my mind.
“I am stronger than the voices in my head that tell me I’m weak,” I remind myself. “I prioritize myself and my family, and I make decisions with my well-being at the core.” I take a deep breath and sink into the moment, the earth beneath my hands. If I listen carefully, I can almost hear it. My laughter ringing through the trees, Mom telling me to stay close, Dad suggesting a splash in the creek. I can hear the slosh of the water as we dance through it, feel its chill kiss my feet, and in this moment, I feel them. Placing my hand over my beating heart, I say with certainty, “Even though I can’t see them, my parents are always with me.”
Piglet and I stay there for a half hour, and when I finally pick myself up again, my head is clear. There are no voices telling me what I can or can’t do. Everything feels steady. Sure. Like I know exactly where I’m going, and the relief that brings, the sense of freedom, it’s staggering.
For the past two weeks, I’ve been battling the overwhelming ache inside me that’s felt so damn hollow. I’ve never been empty, though, and I had to remind myself of that. I have Connor, and our little family is enough. It will always be enough. He’s sunshine seeping through the cracks of shattered glass that’s been glued back together: he fills every empty space with light.
The thing is, when some of those broken pieces came loose and I tried to stuff them back into place, Adam helped me realize it was okay to leave them where they lie, out in the open. He held them in his hands and showed me how much more light shone through when you learned to let go and let things be.
I guess what I’m saying is that even though I have everything I need with the family Connor and I have created with each other, the family I think we both want…well, I think that family includes Adam.
Because even when he’s not here, he’s everywhere.
Maybe that’s why I’m not surprised when my eyes settle on that heart carved into the towering pine before me, nestled in the thick of the forest. My gaze traces the lines of those initials, the numbers that mark the time I spent here with my parents. And finally, my eyes coast down. Down the trunk, where the tree meets the earth.
Where stems of bright pink peonies lie scattered around it, making this tree impossible to miss.
Because even when he’s not here, he’s everywhere.
And I don’t think I want him anywhere else.