Dear Adam, page 8
“Likewise,” Levi answers dryly. We make our way outside, and I’m locking the door when Levi speaks up again, loud enough for Hudson to hear. “Aly?” When I look at him, he’s biting back a smirk. He glances towards Hudson and says, “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, okay?”
I bite the inside of my cheek, trying not to laugh. I would give anything to have the look on Hudson’s face right now framed.
“What’s tomorrow morning?” Hudson asks, brow furrowing.
I ignore Hudson’s question and let my lips curl into a tiny smile. “See you then,” I say to Levi. With a huff, Hudson climbs into his fancy car and speeds off, and Levi takes off down the block.
I get in my own car with Pretzel and, a few minutes later, drive past Levi in time to witness him shoving Hank’s butt into the tiny backseat of a turquoise Mini Cooper. I roll down my window and wait for him to turn around, enjoying the view in the meantime. When he faces me, he instantly pales.
“It’s not mine,” he stammers.
“I think it’s cute.” I stifle a chuckle with my fist and roll up my window, wondering exactly what I’m getting myself into, making plans with my childhood crush.
“Well, was it any good at least?” Emma asks, referring to Hudson’s kiss. She spoons another dollop of sour cream onto her taco.
“It was…a kiss?” I say with a shrug. We’re sitting outside at our favorite Mexican restaurant, trying to enjoy our margaritas and tacos. Unfortunately, Pretzel has nearly knocked over the table twice by wrapping her leash around the legs and then bolting for anything that catches her eye.
“Come on. Give me some details. Tongue, no tongue? Chin caressing? I want to know it all.”
“I mean…his lips are soft? I don’t know what you want, Emma. It lasted half a second. I didn’t feel the Earth move beneath my feet, if that’s what you’re asking.” I take another chip from the bowl sitting between us and dip it into the guacamole.
She takes another bite and nods her head, clearly thinking while she chews. “So did Levi look like every dream you’ve had of him since you were a kid?”
“I don’t dream about him,” I say in a voice that’s about two octaves too high.
She narrows her eyes. “Why can’t you just admit you like his butt?”
“Emma!” I scold, and great, now I am thinking about his butt in those perfectly worn and faded Wranglers…again.
“Fine, whatever,” she says and holds a chip under the table for Pretzel.
“You know you’re not sneaky if I can hear her crunching on it, right? Besides, she’s going to expect people food at every meal now.”
“Have you ever considered that maybe Pretzel hates you because you’re no fun?” Emma teases, tossing a chip at me. Pretzel shoots out from under the table, nearly knocking it over again, and immediately gobbles it up. The umbrella above the table wobbles precariously, and I reach out to steady it before shooting Emma the dirtiest look I can muster.
“Okay, ouch? And I don’t think she hates me anymore. I think we’re starting to bond. I think she’s just missing Adam,” I say, giving her a scratch under her chin. Her back leg thumps in appreciation, but her nose nudges my palm for a chip that isn’t there.
“How’s he doing?” she asks, her voice softening.
I let out a small sigh and trace the water droplets beading on my glass with my finger. “I went and saw him this morning. He’s still doing okay, I guess. His labs are all good and his vitals are stable. We’re just waiting for him to wake up.”
Emma leans back in her chair with folded arms. “And how are you doing?”
“I miss him,” I whisper. In a second she’s beside me, her arms wrapped around my neck.
“It’s going to be okay,” she tells me. “He’s missing you right now just as much as you’re missing him.”
“I didn’t realize how much I relied on him until he wasn’t there to talk to,” I say quietly. “I think our relationship with our parents really forced us to rely on each other. No one but him understood the pressure of growing up in a household where everything had to be perfect and nothing was ever good enough, you know?”’
Emma nods, aware of what life was like growing up in the Bloomington household.
She hugs me for a second longer before she pulls away. “Want to go surfing tomorrow morning? Maybe get your mind off things?”
I bite my lip and busy myself with fixing up another taco. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I’m…already going,” I say.
“With who?” she presses.
Maybe if I ignore her, she’ll go away.
“With who?” she asks, again.
“Levi,” I murmur.
“LIKE A DATE?” she screeches so loud that Pretzel whines from under the table.
“No! Definitely not a date. We’re just working together. I’m going to help him with the social media for his business and he’s going to help me with cottage renovations.”
“And you’re going to do that in the ocean on a surfboard. Okay. Got it.” She gives me an over exaggerated wink.
“He lives in California, Emma. Things would never work. And besides, Adam always made it very clear that he wanted his best friend and his sister to stay far away from each other,” I say.
“Do you hear that?” she asks, suddenly.
We both turn our heads and find Pretzel, who somehow managed to jump onto the table while we were in deep conversation. She’s got both front paws in the bowl of salsa, lapping it up enthusiastically.
“Pretzel, NO!” I yell. As soon as I reach for the bowl, she lifts her head only enough to make eye contact with me as she nudges it straight onto the floor.
Open-mouthed, I stare down at the mess. My feet and ankles are completely covered in salsa.
Breaking the silence, Emma says, “I can definitely see where you’d think you two are bonding.”
Dear Adam,
Hudson brought me flowers to Bloomie’s today…from Fourth Street Flowers. It was super annoying, and he now wants to go to dinner. Do you think he knows what I do for a living? Also, I just realized I haven’t updated you on Levi. He’s doing really well and is in town right now. He said he stopped by to see you. He stopped by Bloomie’s, too, and fixed the leaky toilet in the back of the shop. I almost didn’t recognize him. I can’t believe it’s been ten years.
Chapter ten
Levi
“Hey, do you know where the paper clips are?” Glenda, my assistant back in California, asks. I set my phone on Aly’s counter and hit the speaker button so I can use both hands to hang a light fixture in the hallway.
“Glenda, I don’t even use paper clips. Why don’t you know where they are?” I say, annoyed.
I hired Glenda based on her highly impressive resume, which I’m now suspecting she printed off Google and swapped the name. In fact, she does not have incredible organizational or problem solving skills, nor do I believe she’s ever even opened QuickBooks, let alone knows how to use it proficiently. She does, however, have the same pair of pants in five different colors that she likes to rotate throughout the week. She always wears them clear up to her chin with a different printed button up shirt each day. She’s in her early-sixties, never married as far as I know, and incredibly bad at her job. Somehow though, she’s weaseled her way into my life, and though I’m reluctant to admit, I don’t know what I’d do without her.
“Well do you know where the stapler is, then?” she asks.
“Why do you even need a stapler, Glenda?” As my office manager, she should really know where all of this is. I take a deep breath to calm my rising impatience.
“Teenie emailed me a recipe this morning, and I want to keep the pages together,” she answers matter-of-factly.
“There might be one in my left desk drawer,” I tell her, eager to get off the phone. “Wait…you talked to my mom? Why?”
“I tried to call you four times this morning and you wouldn’t answer. I looked through some of your discharge papers from the hospital and found your mom’s number as your emergency contact. I thought maybe she might be able to get a hold of you,” she says, like it’s the most normal thing in the world to look through your boss’s private documents.
“Glenda…” I say through gritted teeth. “Those papers were on my dresser in my bedroom. Why were you in there?”
“I already told you! I needed to get a hold of you and you weren’t answering!” I hear some clanking, and she utters a curse word under her breath. “Your stapler is jammed.”
“What was so important that you called me four times this morning, Glenda?” I ask, my voice rising ever so slightly, on the verge of losing my mind.
“Oh, right!” she says. “You received a letter in the mail that you are past due on your rent for the building here.”
“How much?” I ask. She tells me the number, and I sigh as I run my hands through my hair. “Okay. I’ll figure something out. Who was that addressed to?”
“You, duh,” she says.
“Glenda, it’s a federal offense to open someone else’s—” I start.
She pretends to not hear me and says, “Your mom said you went on a date this morning! She said the girl is just the cutest little thing. She’s going to email me a picture of her later if she can pull her on the FaceButt app. Why didn’t you tell me your mom was so nice?”
I dash toward my phone on the counter and fumble around, trying to take it off speaker. The second Glenda’s voice cuts off, Aly pokes her head around the corner. She’s got paint in her hair, and she's holding a wriggling Pretzel. Hank trails behind, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, stars in his eyes as he stares at Pretzel.
“I’m going to take them out,” she whispers and goes out the back door.
“I’ve got to go,” I say to Glenda with a sigh. “Call me only if you really need me, okay?”
Around midday, we take a break from working to sit on Aly’s back deck and eat. It’s a gorgeous early summer day, with cotton candy clouds overhead and cargo ships pulling in and out of the harbor. She made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and I don’t have the heart to ask how she managed to make the simplest food in the world taste so terrible.
One look around her kitchen earlier might explain things, though. She had exactly one pot, one pan, and a salt and pepper shaker which tells me she either doesn’t love to cook or just doesn’t know how. Her fridge even rivaled that of the most eligible bachelor I know, me, holding only a case of strawberries, a half-gallon of almond milk, and a jar of grape jelly which I’m beginning to think is expired.
She looks over at me. “Do you not like grape jelly?” she asks, her brows drawn in concern at the barely-eaten sandwich in my hand.
“I love grape jelly,” I tell her and quickly shove another bite in my mouth.
Right as I'm wondering how I’m going to stomach the rest of my sandwich, Hank comes up from behind me and snatches it from my hand.
Problem solved.
“How’s the bathroom painting going?” I ask quickly, before she can notice.
“I should be finished in the next hour or so. I know you’ve only been helping me for a day, but I feel like we’ve accomplished a lot,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear. My mood instantly shifts. I don’t want to think about our time together ending. “Thanks for putting the cabinet doors back up in the kitchen. Once I order a new stove, I think we can check that room off the list.”
I nod, and reach for another chip. “Everything okay?” she asks. “You seem a little quiet.”
I want to ask her how much of my conversation with Glenda she overheard. If Aly heard Glenda refer to surfing this morning as a date, I might never forgive her. While surfing had been nothing short of incredible, I don’t think either of us would classify it as a date.
The water was cold enough to make goosebumps dot across my flesh and the waves were perfect height, curling over at just the right time. I was enthralled by how effortless Aly made catching each one seem. Her confidence and grace were mesmerizing, and it was hard to peel my eyes off her for more than a second. The distraction had me flailing in the water, looking like I’d never surfed a day in my life.
Really, though, I was a goner the moment Aly had jumped out of that Bronco in nothing more than an itty-bitty orange bikini and a pair of unbuttoned denim shorts rolled at the waist.
And the way the water droplets ran from her long, wavy hair down her spine as she straddled her board when the sun was just beginning to rise in the background? That was an image I hoped I never forgot.
“My assistant, if you even want to call her that, called this morning to let me know some bad news. We just really need to drum up some business before too long or I’m not sure what might happen.”
Aly puts a finger to lips, considering me for a moment.
“Let me take some pictures of you today!” she squeals suddenly. “Maybe we can put the ladder back under the light fixture in the hallway, and you can pretend like you’re hanging it again! Your biceps looked huge when you were doing that earlier. I bet if we made you an Instagram account and posted it, people everywhere would be lining up outside your door to make an appointment with you.” Her eyes sparkle with excitement.
“You think my biceps are big?” I say and give her a little nudge with one arm while I unabashedly flex the other.
She swallows hard, as if finally realizing what she said. “That’s not what I said.” Her cheeks are the color of ripe little strawberries, and she’s trying and failing to look anywhere but my flexed arm. “I basically just said anyone who needs a light fixture installed or anything of that sort may give you a call.”
“You basically said I was a hot contractor,” I tease.
My eyes are drawn to her lower lip as she sucks it in and chews nervously. As she fidgets, she quickly turns her attention to the harbor. “Fine, don’t pose for a picture,” she says. “I’m just saying what I think might work. It’s part of our deal anyway. You help me, I help you. I don’t tell you the best way to hang light fixtures, and you don’t tell me the best way to market your company.” She crosses her arms and looks at me again, face set in determination.
A chuckle escapes me. “Fine. A deal is a deal, and I’m a man of my word.”
I dust the crumbs from my fingers off on my pants then get up to go inside, Aly following me. Eagerly, she scoots past me and grabs the ladder, positioning it under the light fixture. After several adjustments, she motions for me to climb on.
“Move your left arm up just a little more…perfect! Flex it a little maybe? Yes!” she says, and snaps a picture. She looks at it for a second and frowns. “Okay, maybe take your right arm and move it forward just a little.” I try to do what she says and she shakes her head. “No, more forward.” I try again and she huffs. “Hold on,” she mutters and steps on the bottom step behind me.
Any other time, I would be thinking how incredibly unsafe this is, but right now, all I can think about is Aly’s closeness. When she grabs my elbow softly and positions it how she wants, I realize I’m holding my breath. A shiver runs down my spine when her body brushes against mine. Then, in an instant, she’s gone, back across the room and snapping more photos.
“Every new picture you take, my self-esteem drops a little more,” I say, pretending to be irritated. “Is it really necessary to take that many?”
She giggles and finally, after a few more pictures, puts her phone down. “I think one of these will do.”
Moving next to her, I watch over her shoulder as she opens up her Instagram app and pictures of flowers, Bloomie’s, and random shots of Charleston fill the screen. Each little square looks so bright and happy. I want to look through each of them and catch up on the past ten years of Aly’s life before she clicks away.
She quickly creates a new profile for me and asks, “Which filter? This one or this one?” She shows me the different options but I know nothing about filters, and they both look the same to me.
“I don’t know,” I groan. “I don’t even know what a filter is. Can’t we just post a picture of the light fixture and call it good?”
“Levi,” she says, her face set in a determination again. “If I were scrolling through Instagram and I saw a picture of the light fixture in my hallway, I would absolutely not like that photo. That’s so boring.”
“But, you’d like it if a hot contractor was in it?” I ask, grinning.
Her cheeks turn pink again and she looks away. “Fine. I’m picking this filter whether you like it or not.” She types a few more things and then exclaims, “Done!”
She hands the phone over to me, and I read the caption.
Need an extra hand with renovations? Call Middleton Construction!
She also posted my phone number below and only about a million little pound signs with words that don’t make sense to me. Immediately, her phone pings with a notification.
“Look,” she says, pointing to her screen. “You’ve already got your first like.”
She clicks on the name, and a brunette’s profile fills the screen, featuring pictures that leave little to the imagination. “Maybe I went a little overboard on the hashtags,” she mutters, and I wish I knew what she was talking about.
“Maybe we can post every other day. I think that should gain a lot of attraction to the page and I bet your phone will be ringing off the hook in no time. Do you want to know your handle and password so you can login and look around?”
“My handle?” I ask, cocking an eyebrow.
“Maybe not. We’ll take baby steps for now.”
She grins and walks into the living room, where Pretzel and Hank have been playing with Pretzel’s stuffed unicorn. “Umm…Levi?” she says. “Why is your sandwich on the floor? And covered in…”
I stop in my tracks right behind her. A half-eaten sandwich covered in slobber sits next to Hank’s nervously thumping tail, and I choke back a laugh. The sandwich must’ve been worse than I thought if he didn’t want to eat it. She whirls around and gives me a quizzical look.
