SWNOVELS Unravel Me: Chapter 8
“My junk looks huge.”
I push away the photo currently being shoved in my face. “Get it outta my face.”
Carter pumps his brows. “Intimidating, huh? You don’t have to tell me.” He flips through the photos on his phone before he leans into his wife, who sits at the end of the table with Ireland strapped to her chest. He drops his voice, but not low enough that I can’t make out his words. “Don’t you think the sword of thunder looks massive in my dick pics?”
“For the love of God, Carter, it’s called an underwear shoot, not dick pics.”
“Tomato, tomahto. I’m gonna be all over North America.”
She yanks his phone out of his hands, tucking it in her bag. “Stop looking at pictures of yourself. Your friend is asking you for advice.”
He waits for her to walk away, watching with a smile as she joins a small girl playing with dolls. He braces his hands out between us. “Okay, here’s what you do. You wait at least five days, and hopefully she calls first. When she does, you hesitate, like you’re trying to place the name.”
Garrett stares at Carter. “That’s the worst advice I’ve ever heard. Ollie would’ve broken your nose if you tried that on her.”
“She’d have to be able to reach my nose first.”
“I can hear you !” she calls across the room.
Emmett shakes his head, stringing a glittery pink butterfly bead onto a thread. “Listen, man, if you like her, you call her. There’s no rule about how long you need to wait.”
“The sooner, the better,” Garrett adds from his spot on the floor, where a little boy is sitting between his legs, looking through a book about animals. “It shows you’re serious.”
I look at Jaxon. His eyes are closed as a girl dusts bright purple eyeshadow over his lids, then sticks two holographic flower stickers to the outside corners of his eyes.
He cracks a lid. “What are you looking at me for? I don’t call girls after a date, period.” Sarah, the girl currently doing his makeup, kicks his shin. “Ow, fuck! I mean, crap. Crap, what was that for?”
Sarah props a fist on her hip. “No girl is ever gonna love you with that bad attitude, Jaxon.”
“My mama loves me. She’s the only girl I need.”
“Whatever. Tell me that again when you come crying to me for advice because the girl you like won’t call you back.”
“Why would I—ugh, never mind. You’re eleven. You’re not getting under my skin.” Jaxon points at me as Sarah uses a butterfly clip to pull his hair off his forehead. “My point is this: don’t ask me for advice, because I don’t have any. You and I date for two very different reasons.”
Sarah scrunches her nose. “Why would you date for any other reason than to fall in love and get married?”
“Because I like to f—” He stops, holding my glare. “I love friends. I love making friends. So many friends. Why pick just one, you know?”
A tiny hand touches mine, and Lily’s wide chocolate eyes peer up at me.
“Your friends are weird,” she whispers.
“So weird,” I whisper back. “But I’m stuck with them.”
She snickers into her hand. “At least you have me. I’m not weird.”
“And you’re my favorite of all my friends.”
Her eyes spark. “Really?”
“Yup. You’re always kind to me, and you teach me new things. I’m lucky to have a friend like you.”
Lily flushes crimson before examining the bracelet I’m working on. “You’re doing really good. Maybe you can give it to your girlfriend when you see her next.” She cocks her head. “How come you and your friends are fighting over calling her?”
“Because I’m confused, and they’re only making me more confused. What do you think I should do?”
“Well…” She taps her lip. “You have a crush? Like, a super big one?”
“Super-duper big.”
“Easy-peasy then.”
“Easy-peasy?” Nothing about this feels easy-peasy. I’m out of practice. My gut says I should call Rosie. It’s been a whole thirteen hours. I don’t want her thinking I didn’t have the best time, or that I don’t want to see her again. My heart reminds me that nothing’s worked out for so long, warns me to slow down. My brain is like a fucking circus monkey; it has no idea which direction to go in, so it just keeps riding in circles.
“It’s like at lunchtime when there are extra chocolate pudding cups. I love chocolate pudding, so I eat mine superfast so I can grab another one before it’s all gone. That’s what you’re supposed to do with things you really like. Grab it before someone else does.”
I drum my fingers. “I did accidentally keep her hat.”
Emmett arches a brow. “Accidentally?”
I swallow. “Accidentally on purpose.”
“Classic move,” Carter says. “Know what I kept of Ollie’s after our first time together, so she’d have no choice but to come back?” He wags his brows at his wife. “Her heart.”
She rolls her eyes from across the room. “Adam, how was Rosie when you told her about hockey?”
My gaze falls to the bracelet I’ve barely touched.
“Adam,” Olivia repeats slowly. “How was Rosie when you told her about hockey?”
“She doesn’t watch sports,” I say to the bracelet.
“Oh for God’s sake. You didn’t tell her, did you?”
“I got scared,” I blurt, ignoring the surprised looks from my friends. “She asked me what I did, and I was going to tell her. The words were right there, I swear. But everything was going so perfectly, and in the moment all I could picture was everything that could go wrong.” I pull at the bracelet, watching it slowly unravel, the way this little white lie is sure to at some point if I don’t handle this quickly. “Hockey changes everything. I don’t want to be Adam Lockwood, Vancouver Viper. Not to her. I just want to be me.”
It’s the perfect storm, really. I don’t lie, ever. What’s the point? But here I am in the off-season, nothing but free time and sunshine on the horizon. Days on end to explore things with Rosie without the time commitment hockey pulls from me. Without the media on my back, cameras in my face. I just need a few days to figure this out, to screw my head on right and explain this to her.
Olivia’s brown eyes shine with compassion, but it’s Lily who speaks up first.
“I don’t like hockey, but I like you. Hockey isn’t what makes you special.” She taps her chest and smiles. “It’s your heart.”
She’s right; I know she is. But that doesn’t stop the panic that squeezes my throat at the text message that pops up on my screen two minutes later.
TROUBLE
Hi Adam. I had a great time last night, but I think we need to talk.
In the history of not being sure what I’m doing, this takes the cake.
Call her , they all said. And what did I do?
Said a rushed good-bye, ran out to my truck, and drove somewhere I probably shouldn’t be.
And now here I am on the twelfth floor, standing outside the same door I watched her disappear behind last night with a dopey, bashful grin, and cheeks the same color as her name.
I look down at her sun hat in my hand before raising my fist to the door.
Then I pull it away, shove my fingers through my hair, and turn away.
“Hi, Rosie,” I practice saying. “It’s me, Adam.” I squeeze my eyes shut. “No, that’s stupid. She knows who you are, and she can see you.” I clear my throat. “Hi, Rosie. You left your hat in my truck, and I…no, no, no. Hi, Adam, it’s me, Rosie. Holy fuck.” I drag my hands, and the hat, down my face. “I’m going home.”
“Adam?”
I spin around, my gaze colliding with Rosie’s. Besides seeming slightly amused and curious, there’s an edge in her gaze, the way she says my name, too, that has me second-guessing.
This was a bad idea. I got too ahead of myself, and now we’re miles apart.
Rosie shifts on her feet, glancing over her shoulder. “What are you doing here?”
“I…I…” My thoughts are a jumbled, hazy mess; I don’t know where one ends and the other begins. I think that’s why I open my mouth and word vomit all over her. “I had a really great time last night and I was with my friends this morning and I was telling them everything and I asked for help because I didn’t know how long I should wait to call you, and some of them told me to call you right away and some of them told me I should wait, and I got really confused, and then you texted me that we needed to talk, which is normally the worst thing a guy can hear from a girl he really likes, and I was a little overwhelmed, and I kind of panicked, and I…” I trail off, rubbing the nape of my neck. “I really wanted to see you again.”
A grin spreads across her face, the tiny dimple in her chin begging for a kiss. “You didn’t know whether to call me, so you just showed up here instead?”
I hold up her hat. “I also kinda stole your hat so I’d have a reason to see you again.”
She cocks her head. “But I still have your sweater.”
I swallow. “Double whammy. You woulda had to see me.”
She giggles, but before she can put me out of my misery, the door is pried off her leg where she keeps it propped open, and a tiny boy toddles out from behind her, holding up one shoe and one sandal.
“S-ooes,” he says proudly, holding them up to her. His eyes come to mine, a vibrant shade of green. “S-ooes!”
“Well, hey there, little buddy.” I crouch down in front of him. “You got some shoes?”
He nods excitedly. “S-ooes!” He shoves them into my chest, then plops down at my feet, showing me his bare toes.
“Connor,” Rosie says on a sigh, kneeling beside him. “Adam doesn’t want to put your shoes on.” A devilish grin claims her mouth, and she starts tickling his feet. “Your feet are too stinky for him!”
The little boy squeals with laughter, wriggling his way into my lap, until I’m laughing too.
“I’m sorry.” Rosie props him on her hip before wheeling a red wagon out and setting him inside. “He’s usually pretty shy. He doesn’t go up to strangers often.” She takes the shoes from me, swapping one out so that she has a pair of matching sandals. She straps them to his tiny feet while he bounces along in his seat, like he can’t wait to go wherever they’re going.
“Who’s this?” I finally ask.
Rosie stares at the little boy, running her purple fingernails through his wispy hair. A smile blooms on her face, one so full of love it’s nearly painful, and when I watch those two sets of sage eyes peering back at each other, I’m not surprised to see the same love reflected back in the little boy’s gaze. I watch them a moment longer, noting the shape of his mouth, the way it matches Rosie’s, the matching honey hue in their waves, and I know before the words leave her mouth.
“This is Connor. He’s my son.”