Author: Cassia Leo

I pry his lips away from mine and look him in the eye. “I’m gonna come.”

He stops moving and smiles. “Let me help you out with that.”

He pulls out of me and slides his hand between my legs. He barely touches me and I dig my nails into his shoulders as I explode. But he doesn’t give me any time to recover as he plunges right back into me. He kisses me hard as he moves in and out of me, until we both orgasm together.

He lies on top of me, tasting my neck and shoulder, as we both attempt to catch our breath.

“God damn,” he says as he pushes up onto his elbows and looks me in the eye. “I miss the way I fit inside you. You’re my missing piece, babe.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Adam

THE LOBBY IN THE LAB is a lot darker than I expected. The wallpaper is a dark forest green with pink rosettes and the industrial carpet is a dark blue that matches the color of the chairs. The squat woman at the front desk is on a phone call when I approach, but she raises her dark eyebrows when she sees me as if I should make my intentions known.

“Picking up some test results,” I whisper.

She nods and mouths, “Last name.”

“Parker.”

I don’t know if Lindsay and Nathan had the sense to put the test under my last name, and I almost wish they hadn’t. If this baby isn’t mine, I don’t want anything left tying me to Lindsay, not even a paper trail to a negative DNA test.

She pulls a folder out of a rack on her desk. “Adam?” she whispers.

I nod and she opens the folder. There’s an envelope clipped to the inside of the folder.

“I.D.?” she whispers.

I show her my North Carolina driver’s license and she looks over the details, probably checking that the name and birthdate match. She hands me the envelope and I’m surprised to see that it’s still sealed. I guess they take this privacy thing seriously.

“Thanks,” I whisper as I tap the desk and set off to open the envelope inside my rental car.

The car has that new car smell that I can’t stand, like plastic and carpet. I miss my truck that always smells a little like ocean and coconut sunblock—and Claire when she used to ride with me.

I slide my finger under the flap of the envelope and quickly pull out the paper folded neatly within. I don’t waste any time unfolding it and searching for the words I want to see. The words materialize in front of me as if they were spelled out in the heavens with stars. I am not the father of Lindsay’s baby.

I kiss the paper and I’m tempted to run back inside the lab and hug the receptionist for giving me the best birthday present ever.

I have never cried from sheer joy, but I’m almost happy enough to cry right now. I can’t even imagine what Claire must have gone through being pregnant all alone. I don’t think I ever realized just how fucking strong she is until now.

My first instinct is to call her and tell her I’m coming home, but I don’t know if she’ll even answer her phone. For all I know she’s changed my name in her phone to “Not Worth It” or “Asshole” the way Lindsay’s friend Michelle did when she broke up with her boyfriend. Just the possibility of Claire ignoring my calls or giving me a shitty nickname makes me anxious. I can’t call her. Besides, I want my arrival to be a surprise.

I take a picture of the lab results and text them to Lindsay and Nathan then I delete the text messages and their numbers from my phone. Next, I call the airline and book a flight to Kauai so I can get my stuff and hop on a plane back to the mainland tonight. Then I’ll arrange for Tina and Cora to help me plan the surprise for tomorrow, Friday, when Claire has the day off.

Just thinking of finally seeing Claire again after four weeks apart makes me ache inside. I hope I haven’t fucked things up too badly.

I pull out of the parking lot and head straight for the airport. My suitcase is already packed and tucked away in the trunk. As I head down the highway with the green mountains on my right and the Pacific Ocean on my left, all I can think of is the gift I left for Claire in my apartment.

I actually left it in my apartment the night before I left to Kauai, but I had to ask Tina to go into my apartment to attach a note to the gift a couple of weeks later. I hoped that I could get Claire to go to my apartment and search for the gift while I was gone. I thought that if there were anything that would make her wait for me, the gift and the note would be it. I never expected to be coming home to so much uncertainty. I guess I’ll have to save that surprise for another time.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Claire

I LAY MY FINISHED QUIZ on top of the stack on Mr. Collins' desk and scurry out of the lecture hall. I am so glad it’s Friday. All week long, I’ve had butterflies in my stomach anticipating tonight. I can’t believe that after so many years together, Chris and I feel new again. I guess absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

I head back to the dorm to get some clothes and the rest of my textbooks so I can spend the night at home, but when I enter the dorm Senia is sitting on her bed looking totally bummed out. I drop my backpack onto the floor and take a seat next to her.

“What’s wrong?”

She looks up at me with an expression that says she’s about to tell me something I don’t want to hear. “Tina just called.”

My heart stops as I think of the worst news that Tina, Cora’s caregiver, could deliver.

Senia notices the horror in my face and shakes her head adamantly. “No, Cora’s fine, but Tina asked if I could go check on Cora this weekend because she’s going to be out of town and….”

She doesn’t have to finish this sentence. If Adam weren’t in Hawaii, he would be the one checking up on Cora. The way he cared for Cora was one of the things that made me fall in love with him.

“I know you’re going home this weekend so I offered to go,” Senia continues as she stares at her hands in her lap. “I guess I’ll miss the party.”

Senia’s family is having yet another party, but this one is for her parents' 25th wedding anniversary so it will be huge. I would have gone with her, but I had already made plans with Chris when she asked me to go a few days ago. There’s no way she can miss this party.

“I’ll go.”

She looks up at me with so much hope, I try not to let her see the utter disappointment I’m feeling.

“Really? I know you had this weekend all planned out. I don’t want to mess that up for you.”

I roll my eyes. “Please. I can see Chris and Jackie any time. If Cora needs me, I need to be there.”

“Thank you.” She hugs me hard and I give her a few pats on the back. “I’ll help you pack.”

She helps me empty out my backpack and toss in some clothes and toiletries. When we’re done she looks me up and down, raising one of her perfect eyebrows as she takes in the jean jacket I’m wearing over a dress and some leggings.

“What?”

“Lose the leggings. You’re going to the beach.”

“I’m not going to the beach. I’m going to Cora’s.”

“Even more reason to lose them. Do you really want Bigfoot rubbing himself all over those leggings?”

I immediately pull off the leggings and put my ankle boots back on, silently thanking myself for shaving my legs this morning.

“Beautiful,” Senia says, pulling me in for one last hug. “You can pass this hug on to Cora for me.”

She slaps my ass then pushes me toward the door where she hands me my backpack.

“Trying to get rid of me, huh?”

“Cora needs you.”

I’m not looking forward to sleeping on Cora’s thirty-year-old sofa tonight, but I’ve missed the hell out of her. It will be fun to have a nice drama-free weekend with Cora and Bigfoot. Of course, Jackie will be disappointed. Now that Chris and I are back together, she’s been dying for me to spend the weekend there. I hate disappointing Jackie.

The two-hour drive to Wrightsville Beach gives me time to call Chris and break the bad news.

“Finally,” he says when he answers my call.

“Finally, what?”

“Finally, I can stop checking my phone. Where are you?”

“Oh, shut up. You were not checking your phone.”

He laughs and I’m reminded of the first few months Chris and I were together when we were sixteen. He bought me a cell phone and I threatened to drop it in the toilet because I was becoming obsessed with checking for missed calls and texts from him. He made fun of me, but after that he never made me wait longer than five minutes for a response to a text or voicemail. When I told Senia about this she nearly threw up.

“Okay, I wasn’t checking my phone, but I was dying to hear your voice. I can’t wait to kiss you and sing to you. I finished your song today.”

And the butterflies are back. I really don’t want to have to give him the bad news, but Chris will still be there next weekend. In fact, I’m pretty sure I can count on Chris to be there for me forever.

“Chris, I can’t make it out there today.”

He’s silent for a moment before he responds. “Why? What are you doing?”

There’s a note of suspicion in his voice that makes me wonder if he’ll even believe me when I tell him where I’m going.

“I have to check on Cora.”

“Who’s Cora?”

“I told you about Cora. She’s my old landlady and my friend. Her caregiver is going to be out of town and she doesn’t have anyone else to keep an eye on her.”

He pauses again. “So you’re going back to your old apartment?”

“Chris, I’m going to Cora’s apartment. I’m only going because he’s not there. If he were there, he would be the one checking on her.”

It really bugs me that I don’t feel I can speak Adam’s name around Chris, but I understand feeling like you despise someone so much you don’t even want to hear their name. I feel that way about Joanie Tipton and, though I don’t know his name, I feel that way about my father. I hope I never know his name.

“I trust you, babe. I guess I’ll just have to go see you during the week. I’ll help you study.”

Study is Chris’s code word for oral sex. He used it all the time when we were together. The thought of his mouth on me is enough to make me squirm in my seat.

“I’ll call you when I get there.”

“No, call me when you go to bed so I can sing you to sleep. I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

I pull the phone away from my ear to plug it into the stereo and I already have a text message from Chris.

Chris: The song is called Pieces of You. I wrote it for you and Abby.

The closer I get to Wrightsville Beach, the tighter the knots in my stomach become. By the time I pull into the parking lot at my old apartment complex, I feel as if I might vomit. I turn off my car and pull my feet up onto the seat so I can hug my knees. My entire body is shaking with nervous energy as memories of Adam come back to me: all the conversations we had while sitting in his truck in this parking space; all the eye roll inducing jokes he told me while hanging out in his apartment; all the times he touched me or kissed me and made me feel like the most beautiful person in the world. Adam and I were only together for eight weeks and we’ve been broken up for four weeks, but I can’t deny how much I miss him and how happy he made me.

I meditate for twenty minutes before I get out of the car. The breeze rolling in from the ocean smells like my old life, but it brings with it a slight chill. I button up my jean jacket and heave my backpack over my shoulder before I set off for Cora’s.

It’s almost seven p.m. If Tina already checked in on Cora today, she’ll be gone by now, which means that I may have to wait upwards of ten minutes for Cora to answer her door. I knock on the door three times and stuff my hands into my pockets to keep them warm. My hand hits my phone and I think of Chris’s text message. I pull my phone out of my pocket while I wait—to gaze at the name of the song he wrote for me. When Cora’s door opens, I drop my phone on the concrete. It’s Adam.