“Yup.”
“Well, here goes nothing.” She smiled at Jo. “Thanks, by the way. For coming after me.”
“No problem.” Jo had a feeling she was the one who should be thanking her.
With that, Kim took off, leaving Jo and Adam alone. “She okay?” he asked.
“She will be.”
Leaning against the railing beside her, he held up the bag. “I had them box up both our stuff.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I know, but…” His mouth did something complicated. “I was kind of ready to be away from them all.”
And a part of her wanted to run. She’d been avoiding this conversation more or less since they’d started whatever it was they were doing together. Avoiding thinking about it and avoiding giving Adam opportunities to bring it up. But they were running out of time, and Kim had all but started it for them anyway.
There really wasn’t any more holding back.
“Okay,” she said.
When he held out his hand, she took it. And with a sinking feeling, she let him lead the way.
Chapter Twenty-Three
They ate their dinners on a bench by the side of the road, knees touching. Barely speaking. It all tasted like ash to Jo. When they were done, Adam balled up their trash and threw it away.
They had to be careful, finding their way down to the beach in the darkness, but Adam’s footing was sure, and with him guiding them along, Jo could trust in where she was placing her steps, too. They left their shoes behind and walked barefoot onto the sand. Any fears she would’ve had about cutting her toes died unspoken.
It wasn’t until they hit the water’s edge that Adam cleared his throat. “We should probably talk.” His face lit by the palest sliver of moon, he gave her a sad half-smile. “Before one of us ends up screaming at the other or stalking out of a restaurant.”
It forced a weird rumble of laughter out of her. “Like that would even hit the top ten for scenes we’ve made this summer.”
“You’re not wrong.” His chuckle echoed hers. “I don’t know, though. If we really worked at it, we could definitely crack top fifteen.”
“If we worked at it.”
He led them in a path parallel to the shore, the tide just licking at their heels, the wet sand firm beneath their steps. “We have had a time of it, haven’t we?”
And hell, this already sounded like goodbye. It made something skittery and painful twist inside her chest. But she’d always known this was how this would have to go.
At her silence, he tightened his grip on her hand. “This time next week, I’ll be at my parents’ place in Florida. Hang out there for a little while, then head up to Philly before the semester starts.”
“And I’ll be in my apartment in Chicago.” The “alone” didn’t really need to be said.
Before him, she’d always been alone.
“Philadelphia and Chicago are really far away from each other.”
“Yeah.” The twisting feeling deepened, sharp enough to steal her breath. “They are.”
“Jo.” He said her name like he meant it, like it was the most important syllable in the universe, and shit, fuck, she couldn’t do this.
“Don’t.”
He stopped, and she turned, put her back to him. Pulled her hand free from his to cover her face, as if that could hide her. As if that could make any of this go away.
His palms settled on her shoulders. They should’ve been reassuring, but they felt like even more weight driving her down into the sand. “Jo.” He drew closer to her, his chest a broad expanse of heat against her spine, and they were alone on this deserted beach at night, but it was as if the walls were closing in. He sucked in a breath that sounded like it choked him as much as hers did to her. “Please.”
“I can’t.” She shook her head. It was too much. To have had this and to have to give it up.
“Please. This summer is almost over, and… God, when I came here, I never expected to find someone like you. I wasn’t looking for it. Didn’t want it, even.”
Then maybe that would make it easier for him to let her go.
“But there you were,” he said, and nothing in his tone said he was anywhere close to letting go. “Angry and full of spit and fire, and I wanted you. More than I’d ever wanted anyone. And that was before I got to know you. You didn’t take any bullshit. You told me the truth to my face, and it was like you opened my eyes. You changed me.”
Except she hadn’t. He was still the same strong, amazing, giving person he’d been before he’d turned her whole life upside down.
“Not as much as you changed me,” she said.
“I’m not ready for it to end.”
And then there they were. The words she’d known would ruin everything.
She dropped her hands from her face, her mouth crumpling. When her voice came to her, it was scarcely a breath. Scarcely anything. “But it has to.”
The world around them seemed to go very, very still.
Then he was turning her, whirling her around to face him, and his face—those eyes. They radiated a hurt that reached straight into her chest.
And yet beneath that, beneath that glaze of pain, there was a fierceness. “If you don’t want more from me, just say the word.” He paused, giving her the time to tell him she didn’t want to spend the next few days, weeks, hell, the rest of her life with him.
There were a lot of things she could do. Lying to him right now, though? That wasn’t one of them.
Except honesty was cruel, because the hope that sparked in his gaze at her silence was even worse.
“Jo.” The fingers around her arms dug in. “We can do this. I’ll do anything, I swear…”
Of course.
Of course that was what he would say.
All the parts of her that had unfurled this summer began to slowly, achingly close. “I know.” A shudder coursed through her, and she shook herself free of his grip. Took a single, terrible step back. “And that’s the problem.”
“What—” He looked like she’d slapped him.
“You think I don’t remember what you were like? When we first got here? How many times did you check your phone a day?”
“How does that—”
“I know you.” Goddammit, it’d only been a few short weeks, but she did. “I saw you. With Shannon, you kept that alive for how long? You thought you were head over heels for her, and you held on to it. Way past the point where you should’ve. You said it yourself.”
“That was different.”
“How?” The word came out too loud, and her voice cracked, her eyes going hot.
And she’d cried in front of Adam once before. She’d cried for her father and for the childhood she hadn’t quite gotten to have because of him. No way she would hold it in now.
But no matter how badly her eyes burned, the tears didn’t come. Her voice didn’t shake as she wrapped her arms around herself and gazed up at him. “When you came back from seeing her, you said you’d realized you’d been wrong all along. You were settling. And I’m not going to let you settle for me.”
He worked his jaw, but no words came out.
“You would’ve done anything for her, too,” she said. “Don’t you see? You keep these things going for too long, and I can’t.” The pressure crushed in on her, grinding through her ribs. “I can’t have you do that to me.”
How much time could they waste like that? Her clinging to the only person who’d ever clawed his way past her defenses and him staying out of some sense of obligation. Because it was comfortable.
He’d accepted scraps of affection from his last girlfriend. What if scraps were all Jo had to offer him?
What if one day he realized he could’ve had a meal?
In the reflections of the moonlight off the water, Adam’s eyes gleamed, his skin pale. “Jo. Is there anything I could say to convince you? It’s not like that. Not this time, with you.”