Page 11 of To Hate Adam Connor
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.
Chapter Three
Lucy
“I’m sorry, Lucy.”
“Can you two please stop apologizing? I told you it’s okay. Jesus, you’re leaving me in a palace; I’m pretty sure I’ll manage to survive without you two,” I assured Olive for the tenth time as I sat cross-legged in the middle of their bed.
Olive gave me an apologizing look and glanced back at Jason while she continued to throw random clothes into a big suitcase. “Flying to London for the promotion stuff wasn’t on the schedule for at least another week. Why did they switch the timeline at the last minute like this?”
So…remember how I mentioned my talented friend writing a book that made the bestseller lists in no time? Well, that book, Soul Ache, also got made into a movie. The leading actor? Jason Thorn, of course. How did you think they met again after so many years? She wrote a goddamned book inspired by him and voila! She got the dream guy with her dream job.
“You don’t have to hurry, Olive,” Jason said as he captured Olive’s hand and dropped a kiss on her palm. “We still have two hours until they pick us up.”
“You think two hours is enough time to decide what to take with you for a weeklong trip? They’ll follow us everywhere; I don’t want them to write a whole damn article about how messy I look next to you and that maybe I should get my nose out of my books if I don’t want to lose you.”
“They already wrote that, Olive,” I chimed in, just to be helpful.
“That’s exactly my point!” she exclaimed as she started taking clothes back out of her suitcase. “I don’t want to read that again.”
Jason grabbed her attention as he zipped up his own small suitcase, which he’d packed in ten minutes. “I love it when you look messy. It reminds me of how good you look after I love you a little.”
“Ah,” I groaned, trying to hide my smile and doing a piss poor job of it. “Your kid is in the room. Gross.”
He pressed his lips against Olive’s hair, and I noticed how her body relaxed a little. “But,” he continued, “I think I’m gonna wait for you in the living room. I need to call Tom anyway.”
Tom was his agent, and even though he probably did need to call him, I would’ve bet a thousand dollars he was more interested in fleeing the scene than discussing his potential next project with his agent.
“Chicken shit,” I murmured; he gave me a quick wink before exiting the room.
