I wasn’t alone long, however, because Lindsay tucked her head inside the room and froze when I turned to meet her gaze. To my astonishment, instead of leaving, she entered.

“Hey,” I said awkwardly.

Lindsay looked around the room. “This is Liam’s room, you know, not Adam’s.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I knew that. I was coming to get another look at the figurines.”

“Oh yeah, his little statues. He’s spent hours on those for years. Poor guy.”

I looked at her in surprise. “He seems quite happy.”

Lindsay shrugged. I’d noticed little interaction between her and William. In fact, it seemed like William had studiously avoided her.

“I’ve known this family for a long, long time,” she said, giving her little factoid dump a nonchalant air but saying something completely different with her meaning. As if her having known Adam longer gave her some kind of weird seniority over me. I didn’t reply, replacing a tiny huntress on the shelf and picking up a musketeer.

Lindsay cleared her throat. “So how long have you and Adam been together?” she asked in that same blasé tone as she moved toward a bookcase that held some trophies. I squinted. They looked like track trophies but I couldn’t see the name on them. They must have been Adam’s.

And I had no idea at all how to answer her question. “Not very long.” I said.

“Really,” she said and I wondered when she’d spring her previous relationship with Adam on me. I almost yawned. How very predictable.

Surprisingly, she didn’t.

“Has he stood you up for work yet?”

I shrugged. “Once or twice,” I lied, wondering what she would do with that.

Lindsay looked taken aback. “It’s still new. You don’t have to worry much yet.”

“Worry? What about?”

“Adam’s a married man,” Lindsay said as she took out a trophy from the bookcase, studying it. The light reflected off the metal plate and I could easily see Adam’s name and his event—the Hundred-Yard Dash. First place. 2002.

My stomach dropped at her words. Adam? A married man? “What?”

She turned to me with an enigmatic, almost condescending smile. “He’s married to his first love: work. I’m afraid no woman could compete and will always come a distant second.”

What a shitty thing to say to someone whom she thought her “friend” was dating. Did she mean to scare me away?

“I’m always up for a good challenge.”

We were interrupted when Adam appeared in the doorway. Lindsay replaced the trophy and turned toward him with a smile. Adam looked at me. “We have to get going. Something came up at work. I gotta run in for a little while.”

I wished I hadn’t looked at Lindsay after he said it. The knowing smile she shot me made my blood boil. Adam had just confirmed every crappy thing she had just said.

He waited for me at the doorway, then took my hand and turned and bid Lindsay good-bye.

Okay, she was annoying but she wasn’t terrible. In fact, she could have been a lot worse. She had said some things that were blunt but nothing that was untrue. Anyone who knew Adam for any amount of time—and in my case, only a month—would have to be an idiot to not figure out he had a serious problem with work.

But it didn’t matter to me. It couldn’t matter. It was some other woman’s problem. Some distant woman in the future, maybe when he was forty, like he’d said. As we drove home and as those thoughts raced through my head, I felt twinges collecting in my chest, making it hard to breathe deeply.

My fists closed in determination. There was no future for us. There could never be. Our lives were speeding in completely different directions and our beginning had almost predestined one certain ending.

But I couldn’t commit to it with everything in me. Something was holding me back. Something deep inside didn’t want to see the end. When he pulled up at the curb, I didn’t move to get out of the car.

He turned and looked at me expectantly. “What’s up?” he asked.

I turned to him. “Why did you bid on the auction?”

He expelled a long breath, ran a hand through his hair and looked out the windshield ahead of him. The question had clearly taken him by surprise.

When he didn’t respond, I continued. “I know, now, how you must feel about this situation—because of what—because of your sister. And I totally understand that. But what I don’t understand is why you chose to participate in the first place.”