Now Or Never by Stella Rhys

31

IAIN

Well, this was unexpected.

I’d been prepared for a surprise today, but it hadn’t been this.

With Holland set to leave her boss’s party around one, I had planned on making a few light work calls before she got into the city. Just a quick round to check in on some clients. I was in the middle of mollifying one about an apparently underwhelming endorsement deal when my intercom got a ring from the desk downstairs.

“Hello, Mr. Thorn. Adam Maxwell is here to see you.”

And just like that, my day—potentially my entire weekend—had been hit by the human path of destruction that was Adam Maxwell.

Sitting in front of him now at The Oxford Social, our third round of beers between us, I eyed him, letting him talk with the flirty waitress before checking my latest text from Holland.

HOLLAND:Trust me I want to. I really really do. But I’d feel terrible Iain

I winced.

Mostly because I knew she was being more rational than I was.

With Adam at my side since eleven this morning, I couldn’t call her, so we’d been texting, and for the past half hour, I’d been trying to tell her we could still go through with her plans. She’d spent a good week making them and it didn’t matter how low-key they were compared to Adam’s. They were still her plans.

And beyond all that, I wanted to be with her more than anyone in the world right now.

HOLLAND: He worked overtime this week so he could surprise us and it’s not like it’s just him. He had a bunch of your Stanford friends fly out from Cali and other parts of the country to celebrate you.

HOLLAND:Trust me there is nothing I want more than to be with you right now. But per your rules my birthday plans cost me about $12

I smirked at the sequence of laughing and silly emojis she added—I suspected for the sole purpose of making me laugh, because as disappointed as she was herself, she knew I was upset too.

Really upset, considering the first long text I’d sent her.

Which was why she was taking on the role of the calm one right now.

Because just as I took care of her, she always tried to take care of me.

HOLLAND:And Adam already went all out. Plus I think he’s having some kind of brotherly epiphany right now so I feel like it’d be terrible to hang him out to dry this weekend when we could easily make this up next weekend or another time. Right?

My chest expanded as I breathed in deep.

But then I let out an inaudible sigh and texted back “right”, because that was exactly what she was.

We had plenty of time to get to her plans since we’d agreed to extend our two weeks. To do this for as long as we wanted. Everything was fine and she was being perfectly reasonable right now. The adult. I just had to take a deep breath and reset my mind a little, because it wasn’t like I wouldn’t be seeing her tonight. I would still be seeing her as soon as she got back from the beach.

I’d just be seeing her in the presence of her brother.

Blinking, I suddenly frowned, finding myself with a brand new question.

But before I could ask, she beat me to it.

HOLLAND: How are we going to act in front of Adam?

A version of my question, at least.

Mine was whether or not we were going to tell him.

The rational side of me knew it was premature, despite the fact that Holland and I had agreed to keep seeing each other. The fact of the matter was that it had only been three weeks and we had yet to even speak explicitly about what we were doing. The rational side of me knew it was best to tell Adam once things were stable. Serious.

But the other side of me—which was long-suppressed and had been steadily fighting its way back through the whirlwind that was the past three weeks of my life—told me that he could afford to know now.

Because I knew in my heart what I felt for Holland.

And I knew it was real.

It was more real than anything I knew I was capable of in my head, my heart and in every fiber of my being, and I was ready to tell him as soon as he turned back to face me.

But the moment he did, he dropped a surprise question on me.

“So you’re still doing that bullshit, huh?”

I looked at him, my eyebrows pulling tight in confusion. “What?”

He looked serious now.

“I know you’re still seeing Camila,” he said, making my heart slam against my ribs like it was trying to break them.

I was still reeling from the lurch, feeling instantly heated as I looked at him.

“Okay,” I said slowly, trying to figure out where this was coming from. Trying to fight off the sick feeling in my stomach as I was forced to think about this right now. I flipped on my poker face as I asked, “How do you know?”

Adam took a drink of his beer, and as solemn as he was being with me right now he still managed to toss a wink across the restaurant at the waitress, who was no doubt giving him eyes from across the room.

“I talked to your assistant,” Adam finally said, his voice hard despite the playful look in his eyes directed behind me. “Erica.”

My secretary.

I clenched my jaw, wanting immediately to be pissed at Erica for being so uncharacteristically unprofessional. But Adam had a way with charming women senseless, whether it was in person or over the phone, and it didn’t help that Erica had an obvious crush on him since he visited my office early this year.

“Yeah, I was calling to see what your schedule looked like this weekend, and I was surprised to hear that your workaholic ass took a whole weekend off for once,” Adam explained, still smirking and shaking his head at whatever the waitress was indicating to him. “And Erica told me it was probably because you had a really rough week.” The smile was gone from his lips by the time he turned his eyes back to me. “Because of Camila.”

I knew I wasn’t doing a good job at disguising my emotions anymore, because Adam’s solemn look shifted to something tinged with sympathy.

“Look, I’m not judging, Iain. Lord knows I make some questionable decisions in my own life, and we’ve been through enough together that I will never judge you,” Adam said seriously, looking me dead in the eye to tell me that he was coming from the place he always was when shit got serious. From a place of brotherhood. “All I’m saying is that I think it’s time you made a decision on that shit already. Get some closure. Hell, do it tonight for your birthday, because we both know it’s slowly killing you. It’s fucking poisoning you every time you go.”

I felt my jaw tick as my pulse rose, but I made sure to keep my voice even as I spoke. “You never said anything for years. Why now?” I asked.

“Honestly?” he laughed weakly. “Because I’ve been doing a lot of shit I never do this week.”

“Like what?” I questioned.

“Reflect,” he said sincerely. “And think.” The faint hint of humor faded from his face as he frowned down into his drink for a second. “I saw this week the way my little sister handled her demons, and it just made me realize that she’s been so much fucking smarter than me this whole time.” His voice and his eyes glimmered with a mix of pride and remorse as he looked up at me. “I mean it’s kind of crazy, right? We thought she was just this shy little girl, but she’s actually been a fighter for a really long time. Longer than either of us. She suffered in silence for twenty-two years with my crazy, toxic asshole of a mother, but she just kept going and going. She busted her ass to figure out the right way to live, and now she’s finally doing that. She finally has the peace she deserves, because she cut out the bad people in her life. The people who were only ever going to hurt her in the long run.” Adam’s shoulders went up then fell harshly back down as he heaved a big sigh. “Which I’m pretty sure is what we’re all supposed to be doing,” he said, hitting me with a pointed look before finishing his beer and nodding behind me at the waitress for another round.

He said something about doing the right thing.

And then he went right into talking about baseball.

Outwardly casual, I nodded along. Shot the shit about our crazy line of work. Diva clients and the new collective bargaining agreement.

But underneath the table, I was wringing them so hard I thought I might break my own fucking fingers.

Because my mind had yet to actually move on from what Adam said.

From the fact that he was absolutely right.

About Camila.

About Holland.

He was so right in fact that I was smarting from the truth. Pissed off and wounded. Like he’d just sunk his fist into my face to wake me the fuck up.

It was a reality check.

A bucket of water dumped over my head to wake me up from the dream.

The bitter cold still stung as I sat there with Adam, talking away, shifting seamlessly back into the Iain who could so effortlessly pretend that everything was fine when it wasn’t.

Of course, my muscles tightened when my phone buzzed in my lap with a new text from Holland, and all I could do was be grateful right now that what she sent me wasn’t anything with words.

It was just a single question mark.