Page 36 of Run Home

My apartment complex isn’t known for extraordinary exterior lighting, so it’s mostly dark as I walk toward my door at the far end of the narrow walkway. I nearly jump out of my skin at the shadowy outline of a man sitting on the wood deck, leaning against my apartment door with bent knees.

Before I can scream or run away, the man rises to his feet, and I recognize Adrian’s silhouette.

“Adrian? What are you doing here?” I ask around the heart crowding my throat. “You have an early game tomorrow—shouldn’t you be home sleeping?”

I inch my way to him as I ask the questions, until I’m standing close enough to see the half of his face lit by a street lamp. There’s no classic Adrian grin lighting up his eyes, no mischievous quirk of his lips preparing a joke.

His eyes are intense, his lips a straight line.

“Sam, I . . . I need to talk to you,” he says, a slight tremble in his voice.

“Right now?” I ask, hardly a whisper. I’m firmly in freeze mode, the constant motion of every atom in my body suspended.

“Right now,” he murmurs. “I need to explain something to you.”

My heart sinks back to my chest, a bag of rocks rapidly submerging to the bottom of the ocean. He must have picked up on the feelings I didn’t even realize I had until tonight. He’s going to explain that the gala wasn’t a date. That he’s afraid I read into things. He’s going to explain that we’re just friends, and we need to keep our distance now.

I visualize hunkering down, hiding my heart behind my knees, insulating myself from the blow to come. My bottom lip quivers, so I bite hard on the inside of my cheek.

“I can’t wait. I’m done waiting,” Adrian says with more strength. “I have to tell you the truth. The truth that I like you, Sam. Not as a friend.”

Releasing my cheek from between my teeth, my lips part with shock. I’m back to the freeze response.

Adrian steps forward, taking one of my motionless hands in his. “I’ve been thinking about you, dreaming about being with you for a really long time now. For too long. I don’t know how you feel about me, and I told myself that I didn’t want to stress you out if you didn’t see me the same way, but I was being a coward to not speak up sooner. Because you are the most . . . the most . . .” He struggles to find words, and I’m still too frozen to respond.

“You’re the most. The most of everything. I want to be with you, and you deserve to know that,” he says as he squeezes my hand between his, rocking his weight back and forth between his feet. “You deserve to know that I see you as everything, even if you don’t see me that way. Even if I’ve messed up our friendship forever, I can’t regret that because you needed to know you’re that important to me.” His confession sinks in, and movement returns to my muscles as he says, “So, I said it, and now you can tell me if I’ve screwed up the—”

I throw myself at Adrian, wrapping my arms around his torso, resting my cheek against his chest. His arms fold around me as he lowers his cheek to the top of my head. One of his hands cradles behind my neck, holding me tightly against him as though afraid I might float away.

For my part, I hold as still as a statue, afraid that moving will snap me out of a hallucination. I don’t even breathe until Adrian murmurs into my hair, “Please tell me this means what it seems like it means.”

Taking a full breath, I nod my head against his chest, and his arms cinch tighter around me.

We stand there, two threads knit together, until a door clunks opens on the floor below us. Tipping my head back, I feel the pressure of Adrian’s fingers against my scalp and nearly forget what I intended to say. “We should go inside so we can talk,” I whisper, even as I clench my fingers tighter against the muscles of Adrian’s back, reluctant to ever let go.

The first hint of a smile appears on Adrian’s lips before he tilts my head to the side and presses a whispering kiss against my temple.

I think I’ve just died. This is heaven—his lips against my skin.

He unwraps his arms even though mine remain locked in place around him. This brings a full smile to his face, and he murmurs, “I’m not going anywhere, cielo.”

Voices below us break me out of my stupor, and I quickly unlock my apartment door so we can be safe from any intrusive eyes. As I step through the doorway and flip on a light, I ask, “What were you thinking sitting out there? Someone could have seen and recognized you.”

Adrian doesn’t answer—he swiftly pulls me back to him as he kicks the door shut with one foot. This time, his arms envelop my waist as he buries his face in the crook of my neck. I clasp my hands around his neck, reminded of our slow dance two nights ago. Sighing at both the past memory and the present reality, I allow myself to melt against him.

He says, “I wasn’t thinking about it. I was too terrified you would tell me you could never see me this way to worry about being recognized. I was worried that you’d kick me off the deck and yell at me for ruining a good friendship. The longer I sat there, the more scared I got that you’d hate me for asking for more.”

“It’s impossible to hate you when I like you this much,” I reply as I tangle my fingers through the curls on the back of his head.

Adrian groans and pulls his face away from my neck, only to take my face in both hands. “You don’t even know the tortured thoughts I’ve had since you touched my hair trying to hide it under the hat. Did you even understand what you were doing to me?”

My lips twitch. “Honestly, no. If you had said all of this to me a few weeks ago, I would have been blindsided. Because I was completely oblivious to the feelings I had for you until, well, until today, basically.”

His smile is tender as he says, “It’s been conscious torture for a little bit longer than that for me.” His gaze drops to my lips, and he murmurs, “Sam, I’m dying to kiss you. But I’m not going to do that now. Not on the first day you pieced all this together. I’m going to give you time to wrap your head around us being more than friends. I’m going to woo you until you understand just how much I cherish you before I kiss you.”

Heat floods my cheeks as I picture—very vividly—him kissing me, and I can’t stop my lips from softly parting again. Adrian watches the movement, then slowly leans down, pressing a searing kiss to the spot where my ear meets my jawline. He whispers against my ear, “But I want to. Know that.”

My instincts tell my vocal cords to announce that he should just go ahead. My heart tells my muscles to press forward and kiss Adrian myself.