“Just hang on a minute, your skull is thick and very hard to penetrate.”
“Admit it, I’m a vault and you can’t crack it.”
“Oh, please, you are nothing if not predictable, Adam Henderson.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Then.” Adam slid across the bench until his shoulder touched mine, folding his arms across his chest. “What. Am. I. Thinking?”
I didn’t know what he was thinking, because all I could think about was the feel of his skin against mine, the absolute burn of him touching me. I had felt it a million times before. There’s never been any real feeling of personal space with us, we just were, existed with an invisible string that connected us, or a rubber band that if you allowed too much friction we would undoubtedly come springing back to one another. The only difference now was every touch, every smile, every glimpse meant something to me. It fed the desire in me for more—a dangerous feeling fuelled by the boy who breathed in and out in the same rhythm as me, I swear it. We were the same—a connection that no one could deny with all the jokes and snide couple comments—but the truth was, we belonged to one another. Two misfits floating from scene to scene, doing shots, tearing up dance floors, fighting each other’s battles and picking up the pieces. I may not have had an actual clue to pinpoint what he was thinking in that very moment, but I knew enough to know that he was the boy, and he belonged to me.
Seconds, hell, maybe even minutes passed; I couldn’t be sure with my wandering thoughts, but I opted for just whatever came to mind.
“You’re thinking, I hope I don’t get splinters in my arse,” I said, eyeing the sun-beaten picnic bench he had just slid across.
Adam burst out laughing; it was so loud and sudden I flinched.
“Yep, that is exactly what I was thinking. You nailed it.”
“Really?” I asked, astonished I actually got it right.
“No.” He laughed.
I threw my hands up. “Fine, you win. What are you thinking?”
Adam’s laughter died down. His composure seemed somewhat sober as he reconnected with my eyes again, but the crooked little curve to his mouth remained as he shook his head.
“I’ll never tell.”
I sighed, my gaze narrowing in a mock fury as I shook my head. “And to think I tell you everything.”
Except that I am madly in love with you.
Adam’s mood shifted, and I was worried that maybe he could freakishly read my mind. But his mood was different somehow; he looked pained, blinking and looking out toward where the lake shimmered under the summer sun.
“Yeah, that’s what friends do, yeah?”
But it was a question he voiced almost to himself; I didn’t feel like I had the right to press him further. The mood had definitely shifted, to something awkward, and the Adam next to me seemed reminiscent of a stranger once more. I felt the old panic rise in me again. What was going on? What was causing Adam to shut down into this unrecognisable being? It pained me, more to the point that he wasn’t telling me something, and worst of all he knew it. The mere mention of honesty and I could hear the cogs of deep thought turning in his head, and it frightened me, beyond belief.
Adam kept his eyes affixed in the opposite direction. He sat slightly away from me now, and that left me feeling cold and distant just in the sudden change of his body language.
I had had enough. I didn’t need to have girl-only lunches with Tammy or interrogate Toby to find out what was happening with my best friend: I would simply ask him myself.
“A-Adam I—”
But before I could finish, Adam shouted, “Look out, here’s trouble.” My eyes followed to where he was waving to an approaching figure, stepping across the grass toward us. I flicked my sunglasses down to disguise the uncontrollable scowl I had that was burning in the direction of Megsy closing the distance before us. I don’t know what I hated more. Her unexpected appearance or the clear change in Adam’s demeanour in her presence.
If we were in a movie she would be making her way over in slow motion, flicking her hair over her shoulder as a Whitesnake song played in the background. I thought I was going to be ill.
Cutesy Megsy winced as she sidled up next to Adam. “Am I too early?”
“No, of course not,” Adam reassured, installing instant relief in her.
Blech.
I hid my pained smile behind my Coke bottle that I raised to my lips, sipping on the now hot and rather flat drink, thinking it was exactly how I felt.
