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The hold he had on me was intense, and although we’d been texting, he’d wanted to spend the weekend with Lucas after barely seeing him all of last week. Of course I understood, and I didn’t dare question it or push him on it.
But the palpable relief I’d felt when Adrian had texted me to meet him at the cafe across the street from the Darkwater building for lunch today was…significant.
The chill in the air had gone from bitter to downright freezing, and as I clutched my jacket shut and held my scarf in place for dear life while walking along the front of Darkwater, I nearly ran directly into him as he stepped out of the building. It took him a moment to register it when his gaze was focused intently on the cafe opposite, but after a couple of seconds, recognition flickered across his face.
The face that looked nearly ten years older from stress.
“Hey,” he said, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me in tightly. He picked me up and moved us closer to the wall of the building and out of foot traffic, setting me down only once I’d loosened my grip around his neck.
“Hi,” I grinned. “Lunch?”
————
The silence that hung between us felt…uncomfortable.
We ate our food with small talk in between, him giving me little updates about the sheer amount of damage canceling the conference partway through had done, and me telling him about how we’d finally gotten the walls painted in my little office block back in Dad’s building. But something about it felt wrong, like there were things left unsaid, like we were walking on eggshells.
I couldn’t put my finger on it directly. But it made me feel smaller than I already did, and that was fucking horrible.
“So,” Adrian sighed, resting his head on his knuckles as he leaned onto the table. “Lucas knows.”
Oh, shit.“You…told him?” I didn’t want to ask the unspoken questions—what does this mean for me? I’ve barely come to terms with potentially being a parent to him and I have to start that now?
His jaw ticked. “No. He saw us on the couch last Thursday.” He reached across the table with his free hand, lightly dragging his fingers along the tops of mine. “He asked me directly. I couldn’t lie to him.”
I nodded, but I was fucking reeling. I wanted to ask him why, but I wouldn’t question his judgment on this. He was the parent, not me. For now. “Okay,” I said. “What the hell do we do about that?”
“I…have no idea,” he huffed. “He’s happy about it, for the record. The kid fucking loves you. But I think we need to take astep back and give it a little more time before confronting what that could mean for him.”
A step back? What the hell did that mean?
“I think we should wait to tell your father,” he said softly. “At least a little bit longer. I’ll keep Lucas away from him in case he lets anything slip. I just need time to figure this out.”
The relief from the idea of not confronting my dad was soured from whatever this meant. “What do you mean bytaking a step back?”
He shook his head. “Nothing major. I’m spending a lot of time at work right now and I need to allocate some of my time off for you, but mostly for Lucas,” he explained. “I barely got to see him last week and he’s noticed. He’s begging me for time that I can’t produce out of thin air.”
“So…” I blinked as I tried to arrange my scrambled thoughts. I couldn’t help but feel slightly defeated, rejected, even—but I knew he had good reasons. I couldn’t and wouldn’t expect him to put time with me over Lucas. But after the chaos of the last few weeks, it felt like we were hitting the pause button, or even worse, erasing the whole tape. “I’m sorry, for my own peace of mind, I just need to make sure…you’re not saying we’re done, right?”
His hand wrapped around mine and squeezed the living daylights out of it. “No, Ava. I’m not saying we’re done. I’m just saying we should take it a little bit slower until I can figure things out.”
————
I didn’t know why, but I didn’t quite believe him.
He hadn’t invited me over after Lucas went to sleep, but he had texted me at five-thirty in the morning telling me that he couldn’t get me out of his head, so that was a positive. He hadn’t been expecting my reply so early.
But I’d barely been able to sleep.
My anxiety over the situation had turned into never-ending nausea. I’d spent half the night next to the toilet, scrolling through my phone for a distraction. His texts hadn’t helped abate the bile, but it was enough to keep me occupied for a little while until he had to wake Lucas up for school.
But the handful he’d unexpectedly sent a couple of hours later as I pulled myself up from the bathroom floor had made me feel miles better on the anxiety front. Not so much the nausea, though.
Adrian: I can bring some soup over to your place for lunch if you want.
Adrian: Or some anti-nausea meds.
Adrian: Or both.
