I help Mom out of the car, and she looks around us in awe. “Oh my. This is more than I imagined.”
I tighten my grip on her arm, feeling the same way. WIT’s festival is in full swing and busier than I thought it would be. There are crowds of people as far as I can see, and I’m sure the inside of the arena looks the same.
A carousel ride, rows of food trucks, and more carnival games than I could count on both hands fill the field around the arena. I know how hard Adam and Brielle have worked on the planning for this event, and judging by the turnout, it looks like all the late nights have paid off.
Adam has been so busy over the past week that we haven’t seen each other outside of our stolen kisses in the break room and coffee exchanges in the morning. He likes the fancy stuff that requires me struggling with the espresso machine, but his grin each time I bring it to him in a mug with a cheesy saying is worth the effort. The thought has me tightening my grip on my purse, conscious of the gift I have for him inside.
I miss Adam. Spending this week apart after everything that happened last weekend feels like some sicko’s type of torture. My brain has been working in overdrive to try and figure out exactly what comes next.
I know what I want, and that’s Adam and Cooper in my life and the job I love. It sounds simple, easy, but that would be naïve of me to believe. It will take some effort—a lot of it—but I’ve never been scared of hard work. Not when the reward is well worth it.
“We shouldn’t be surprised. Adam never does anything half-assed,” I tell Mom. She laughs beside me.
“No he doesn’t,” she hums, starting to pull me away from the car. Her excitement makes me happy, knowing how hard it’s been for her lately. “He certainly doesn’t love you half-assed. That man loves you exactly how a woman should be loved.”
My chest heats as I walk with her into the crowds. “Mom, don’t start.”
“I’m only speaking the truth. You’ve found what I couldn’t, baby. I can’t begin to tell you how happy that makes me, knowing you’ll be taken care of once I’m gone.”
The ground tilts, and I nearly lose my footing. “Stop talking about yourself as if you’re on death row. You’ve always been one for dramatics, but let’s keep them to ourselves for today, yeah? You’re not going to die anytime soon.”
The smell of cotton candy and popcorn has never been more putrid than it is now. My mood has soured exponentially in the past two minutes. Mom never would have spoken about something like this so out in the open a few years ago, but now she can’t help it.
“You’re upset with me,” she notes when we pass a group of teenagers huddled around a whack-a-mole game.
“I’m fine,” I say tensely.
There’s a break in the crowd, and I spot Ava, Gracie, and their husbands working a merchandise stand. I’m about to turn around and hide, knowing my attitude is about as grim as Death himself, but freeze when Ava spots me. She throws her hand in the air and shouts my name, in turn ensuring that everyone around us notices me as well.
“Shit,” I mutter under my breath before throwing on a smile and pulling Mom in their direction. “No more talk about death, please,” I beg her.
She throws on a bright smile. “A little faith, my love.”
Right. My bad.
“Scarlett!” Gracie greets me excitedly when we reach the table.
“Hi, beautiful.” Ava beams at me.
“Hey, guys,” I say, smiling slightly. Mom tugs on my arm, and I quickly introduce her to everyone. “Mom. This is Gracie, her husband, Tyler, and then Ava and her husband, Oakley. Guys, this is my mother, Amelia.”
“It’s so great to meet you,” Oakley says warmly.
Tyler smiles at her, and everyone tells her how happy they are to meet her. Mom eats it up, the little attention lover.
“Aren’t you a lively group. It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” Mom gushes.
As she starts to schmooze, I eye the table in front of the group with interest. It’s full of hockey gear speckled with the Vancouver Warriors and Minnesota Woodmen logos. Names of the players have been written on the tape labelling the items, and I grab a puck with Leo’s signature scrawled across the middle.
“What is all this stuff?” I ask. “Is Leo here?”
“I saw him around earlier. He dropped off some of his team’s gear about an hour ago,” Oakley says.
“And this is a bunch of stuff from the Warriors and the Woodmen to sell to raise money for Adam’s new program,” Tyler adds.
My brows tug together. “What new program?”
Ava quickly jumps in. “The one for athletes who can’t afford private training. He’s been working on it for a few weeks now. You didn’t know?”
“No.”
This has to do with Willow, I know it does. Fuck, Adam and his massive heart are going to be the death of me. If I wasn’t already in love with him, I would be now.
Tyler shouts in pain, and I look at them to find Gracie pinching his underarm. “Way to go, loose lips,” she scolds him.
He scowls. “I didn’t know it was a secret.”
“It’s fine, guys,” I say. They look reluctant, but I shrug. “Really, it’s okay. I’m sure he was planning on telling me when it was official.”
Mom scoffs. “Of course he was going to. Adam doesn’t seem like the type to keep secrets.”
Ava is quick to defend her friend. “He really isn’t.”
My appreciation for her grows.
“I know.” I set Leo’s signed puck back on the table. “Where is Adam, anyway?”
“Last I saw, he was waiting for Beth with Cooper. He’s probably close by,” Tyler says.
Ava rounds the table and grabs my hand. “I can help you find him if you want.”
I don’t pull my hand away as I turn to Mom. She’s not paying any attention to me, too busy chatting with an enthusiastic Gracie about what colour she should paint her toes tonight.
“Gracie’s got her. She won’t let her out of her sight,” Ava adds a beat later.
I find myself nodding before we’re moving through the crowd. Looking back again, I glance at Mom and smile at the carefree look in her eyes. She looks truly happy.
Facing forward again, I ask Ava, “You offered to take me because you wanted to grill me, right? The best-friend special?”
We pass two dunk tanks, and I choke on a laugh when I see both Braden and Leo each sitting above a tank of water, waiting to take a swim. Sierra is handing out balls to the kids in line, a sneaky smirk on her face as she looks at her husband and winks. A second later, she rushes toward him and slams her hand on the target, sending him falling to the water, sinking deep.
Ava laughs. “Guilty. I didn’t get the chance during Gracie’s party.”
“Go ahead. There isn’t much to tell, but I’ll try.”
“I doubt that—oh, there! Let’s sit on that bench. My feet are killing me.”
We swerve toward a wooden bench in the shade of an overgrown tree and sit. It’s a bit away from the chaos of the festival, which I’m grateful for.
Ava crosses one leg over the other and turns her body to face me. “You know, when I first met Adam, he couldn’t go ten minutes without saying a sexual innuendo or making fart noises in the library. He’s single-handedly responsible for the dirty jokes Oakley says, thinking he’s an absolute comedian.”
I snort a laugh. “That must feel like a lifetime ago.”
“It does and doesn’t. Adam is one of those guys that you can’t shake. Once you let him in, you don’t want to let him back out again. He’s just always there, like family.”
“Yeah, I’ve begun to realize that.”
She twists her mouth, as if she’s thinking about what to say. Like she wants to make sure everything she says is perfect.
“He worries about Cooper,” she begins. “He would do anything to see that boy smile, like I’m sure you know. I worried that he would let that control his life. That he would never want to risk that smile for anything, even his own happiness. I can’t even tell you how happy I am that he didn’t let that stop him from chasing you. I’ve honestly never seen him like this before.”
“Like what?” I ask quietly.
“In love.”
A flush rolls up my body as I look down at my hands. It’s silly to feel nervous about this, but this is Adam’s best friend. The woman that, at one point, he thought he wanted to be with romantically. It’s a different feeling having her tell me this—trusting me with this.
I clear my throat and gather my confidence as I say, “Look, I’m not like Adam. I’m not someone who can find the good in every situation or smile when I’m feeling like shit. I have utterly no first-hand experience with children, and I may not have the kind of success in my career that he does, but I do love him. And I want to be with him. I want to get to know Cooper with the hope that one day he’ll grow to care for me in the way I’m beginning to care for him. I know it won’t be easy and that I’m probably too young to want all of this, but it doesn’t matter to me. All I know is that Adam is the person I want to be with, hopefully forever, if he doesn’t kick me to the curb before then.” I choke on a laugh.
Ava huffs and wipes under her eyes with her thumbs. “You and Adam are both going to kill me with the stuff you say about each other. But I need you to understand something that I fought for years to believe myself.”
She sniffles and blinks before saying, “When you find someone who loves you as much as you love them, your differences don’t matter. The person that you think is too good for you fell in love with you for who you are. If they wanted someone different, they would have gone and found that person. And your age? Fuck it. Society has engrained it in our heads that it’s wrong for people in their twenties to know what they want instead of getting drunk at parties and making mistakes, when that’s not true at all. I was planning a wedding and getting pregnant when I was in my early twenties, and I don’t regret those decisions in the slightest. You are who you are regardless of your age. Just because you’re more mature and at a further point in your life earlier than others doesn’t make it wrong. Adam doesn’t see it that way either.”
Her reassurance strikes deep. A feeling of contentment sinks over my shoulders, and I exhale a slow breath. Having her cut down insecurities I didn’t even know were there, lurking in the shadows, has me reaching over and hugging her.
She hugs me back instantly. “He’s not going to let you go now. Not as long as he’s breathing, anyway. You’re theirs, and ours, no matter what.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
She laughs lightly and squeezes me once before releasing me. “You’re welcome. Now, let’s go find your man. I’m sure he’s losing his head not knowing where you are.”
