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We looked at each other for a long moment, and I didn't know what to say. I felt like he had cornered me, and I was fighting the urge to give my typical response. Yet, I didn't know what the right thing was to say.
My worries would be set aside, though, when his phone started chirping furiously. He went to check it immediately, surely worried that it was something to do with Wolfgang. I was worried about that myself. But as I straggled behind him and saw him look at his messages, I noted how his shoulders slumped in relief. "It's a patient, I gotta go. Congratulations, Reagan, you get your way…for now," he said, gathering his clothes and hurriedly pulling them back on. "We're not done with this conversation. We're just pressing pause on it."
"Adam—" I started, but he just turned around and said, with finality in his tone, "I'll see you after school," and stomped out of the apartment.
If the circumstances had been different, I might've laughed at the petulant way he stomped out of my building as I watched him through the window, but my heart was torn up by the words he had thrown at me.
He wasn't the first person to accuse me of repressing my emotions, but somehow, it was more disturbing coming for him, considering that I knew him to also be a person to regularly repress his emotions.
I had a lot of thinking to do before school pick-up.
"Shit, Reagan, you also have a job," I reminded myself as I hurried to my bathroom to get in my suit.
The weight of my personal world would have to remain suspended for the moment.
Chapter eleven
Adam
I cursed Mr. Hodge's love of salty meats and his inevitable angina flareup as I raced towards Brooklyn Hospital to meet with my patient who was experiencing chest pains.
I'd almost gotten Reagan to admit that there was something between us and why she fought so damn hard.
I realized that she and I didn't always get along, but there was something else going on. She had the same sort of reticence in her relationship with Brian. Granted, I told them both from the jump that they wouldn't work out, but there was something very specific holding Reagan back, and I was intent on finding out what it was.
But as I made my way through the familiar doors of Brooklyn Hospital, I saw a little boy sitting on an examination table through a slightly ajar door. He was about the same age as Wolfgang.
I wondered what Wolfie was doing at that moment—if he was having fun, or if he was scared. And as I rushed towards my patient, I began to realize some of Reagan's reticence was because of Wolfie. Not that she didn't adore him, but the fact was that Wolfie and I had a hard road ahead of us.
Reagan was nothing if not practical, so my guess was she was trying to not make an already complicated situation with me and Wolfgang even more complicated, especially, when she wasn't sure if I had made up my mind about Wolfie staying with me.
Maybe it didn't seem practical, but I was beginning to think that Veronica had been right. I knew she and her husband would've never planned to leave their wonderful son, but they'd both decided that if they had to choose, he should stay with me.
"So, that settles it. He stays with me," I said to myself in the middle of the hallway.
After all that agonizing, all that worrying, and all of that doubt, the decision seemed simple now. Wolfgang and I were a team—in a matter of less than two weeks, I knew that down in my bones.
My steps felt lighter as I continued down the hall, and it took me a while to realize that I was smiling like a fool. I felt a huge weight roll off my shoulders. Me and Wolfgang against the world. Now, I just needed to convince Reagan that I was sure and steady, and I needed to figure out what it was that was holding her back so much.
***
After spending the rest of the day catching up with cases, I continued to feel lighter and more relaxed. I knew that Reagan was pissed at me, but I'd win her over, of that, I was sure.
I was new to this whole maintaining relationships thing. It wasn't a strong suit of the Rollins family. But I had the realization that I had broken away from the family in a fundamental way a long time ago. Maybe it was time to really start making some new traditions of my own. Just because I was a Rollins, it didn't mean I had to be in a cold, transactional relationship. I had managed to figure out my own path in life. I could figure that out, too, especially with somebody as intelligent as Reagan.
I just needed to get her to listen. Though, that was going to be highly unlikely while we were picking up Wolfgang. It was just something that was going to have to wait. Our full attention needed to be focused on how his first day went and then making sure he had a fun time tonight.
Reagan had found this great Pokémon café where we would be surprising Wolfgang tonight. We couldn't stay out too late, of course. It was a school night. I was hoping if I played my cards right, I could get her to stay like she had the night before, so I could talk to her after we tucked in Wolfgang.
All of a sudden, everything seemed so much clearer. A successful doctor and a successful lawyer, raising their newfound son. But any fantastical vision I had of our imagined family skipping off into the sunset was dashed when I saw Reagan at the drop-off line at Wolfie's school.
She was dressed in one of her crisp, business suits. It was perfectly tailored to hug all of her curves, and I briefly entertained the notion of what I thought it would be like to have sex in her office. God, that would be hot.
"Heel, boy," I muttered to myself as I grew closer to her. "Remember where you are."
As I approached, she turned to me with a determined expression, "Look, if you think we're going to continue that conversation you were trying to start earlier, you are out of your mind. I am here for Wolfie, and we both need to remember our places." I wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince more: me or her.
I straightened my posture and gave her a salute. "Yes, ma'am."
