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Bile crept up my esophagus as the immediate, horrifying worry hit me:Is he going to tell him?
Adrian’s name crossed my lips, slightly cracked, slightly hoarse, and sharp blue eyes cut across to me. He shook his head, just a quick, little action that was nearly imperceivable, and he turned back to my Dad as he pushed himself up from his recliner.
“Office, then.”
Dad padded across the floor in his full suit without socks or shoes, the fabric clinging unnaturally to his small beer gut. He beckoned Adrian to follow, and both of them slipped away, leaving me alone on the couch with a glass of wine that I could only imagine Adrian would gush about. But I felt too nauseous to drink it now.
What thefuckwas going on? Why was he here, now, when he knew I’d be here? How did he expect me to act calmly when he and my father were alone in the same room?
Seconds after they disappeared, my phone screen lit up.
Adrian: Not about us.
Adrian: Try not to worry.
Trying not to worry about that was like trying not to breathe.
I knew I needed to be okay with things. Whatever the hell we were doing wasn’t going to magically vanish from memory, and Adrian was close friends with my dad. They wouldhaveto be alone together sometimes. But with whatever the hell was going on that had brought him here with almost no announcement, two hours after he’d last had his hands on me before basically rushing us both out of his apartment, I couldn’t help but feel nauseous and panicked and fuckingworried.
Sinking my fingers into the warm, plush fabric of the throw blanket, I pulled it from its neatly folded spot on the back of the couch and draped it over myself. I wanted to hide beneath it like a child, but I was old enough to recognize how insane that wouldlook to my father if he stepped out of his office with his friend to his twenty-five-year-old daughter lying on the couch with a dark blue blanket over her head.
I had to wait this out. Icouldwait this out.
————
“Stay for a bit. Have a drink with us.”
Two sets of footsteps padded down the hall along with my father’s voice, and it took everything in me to not whip around to look at both of them. Whatever they were discussing wasn’t meant to concern me, and if I tried to insert myself…
“David…”
“Don’t try an’ get outta it. You need it.”
For fucks sake.
I waited until they’d both entered my line of sight to lift my head from my phone. “Everything okay?” I asked, the warble in my voice almost entirely gone.
Adrian stood at the far end of the sofa, his gaze flicking back and forth between me and my dad. “It’s fine,” he said. A muscle in his jaw twitched, and God, the lines on his forehead looked so much deeper. “Nothing you need to worry about, Ava. Just having some issues with Stone & Co. It shouldn’t affect David too much.”
Dad’s hand pressed down on my shoulder as he passed me, and it should have been a comforting touch—it was something he’d done hundreds, if not thousands of times before. But with everything hanging over me, it felt heavy.
“I’ll get you a glass, Adrian,” Dad called over his shoulder.
He disappeared around the corner a second later.
“I’m so sorry,” Adrian whispered. “I should have warned you I was coming.”
“What the fuck is happening?” I asked, keeping my voice low enough that Dad wouldn’t hear two rooms over. The muffled sounds of clinking glass didn’t help with my anxiety.
“I’ll explain later. Please, Ava, don’t worry about it.”
“I’malreadyworried about it.”
His gaze flicked to the entrance of the hallway and back to me. “I know. I’ll get out of here as quickly as I can.”
“That’s not…”
Dad’s footsteps echoed heavily as he walked back toward the room, and all I could do was shut my mouth. I pulled up my texts with Adrian instead.
