Page 48 of Distant Shores (Stapled Magnolias #2)

IRELAND

E ven without the hours riding our boards and Delly’s delighted laughs, the time spent in the salty air punctuated by the sound of crashing waves would’ve been worthwhile.

I did everything I could to keep that feeling of calm as I parked Adair’s Jeep on Camellia Lane.

Because if Adair wasn’t who I hoped he was, I would need it. If his actions actually meant he thought so little of our relationship, even as just roommates, that meant I had some serious thinking to do.

Choices to make.

The thought of it made me sick.

Closing my eyes, I leaned back against the driver’s seat and took a deep breath, conjuring the sounds of the Gulf. The crashing and retreating tide, the gulls, the gusting wind. Delly’s giggle when she was finally comfortable enough to push off on her own.

The muffled sound of actual wheels on pavement sounded, and I opened my eyes, smiling slightly when I saw Delly cruising down the street .

I hadn’t even heard her get out of the Jeep, but I was glad to see the stress from yesterday had melted from her posture.

Leaving her to it, I got out of the Jeep and walked up to the front door.

0-5-0-7

Punching in the code eased the turmoil inside me just enough to keep me level, to keep the worst of the intrusive thoughts at bay.

Because Adair was still the guy who’d done this for me. Everything he did before this one boneheaded decision was already working in his favor.

I put my board in its usual place by the door, kicked off my shoes beside it, and set Adair’s keys on the table. I still had on my clothes from teaching ballroom class this morning, but I’d barely broken a sweat, and the breeze from the Gulf had kept me cool too.

Humming the music that refused to leave my head from this morning’s class, I walked straight toward the sound of voices in the living room.

Cole was sitting in the armchair, his blond hair loose as he leaned over and put on his shoes. Adair was sitting on the couch, leg propped up on pillows stacked on the coffee table in front of him.

Cole straightened and pulled his hair back into a knot, gray eyes flicking between me and Adair. “Looky there, buttercup. You won’t be alone after all.”

I glanced at the new cardboard boxes in front of the couch, then frowned at him. “You thought I wouldn’t be back?”

He shrugged. “Addy told me you usually spent weekends with your dad.”

Hmm. I glanced at Adair, who didn’t look at all concerned he’d been caught talking about me to his best friend.

“I saw him earlier this morning,” I said, slowly turning my attention back to Cole. “And I’ll go back by later.”

Cole nodded and sprung to his feet, craning his neck to look behind me. “Where’s Apple Jack?”

“He means Delly,” Adair clarified from the couch.

I gestured vaguely toward the front door. “Right outside, getting some more miles on her new board.”

“She loved it?” Adair asked, his smile so warm that I swear it kissed my skin.

I nodded. “So much.”

Cole gazed longingly toward my board at the front door, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “Do you know how to ride?”

He nodded eagerly.

“In theory or in reality?”

He scoffed. “I was a total skater kid.”

I glanced at Adair for confirmation, and he nodded. “He was. Vans, swoopy hair. The whole thing.”

I hummed. “You can take my board to the Locc for the meeting with Ari if you want. Delly wants to help style the Zinnia House residents for the glamor shots, so she’s going to the meeting too.”

Cole hurried to the front door like his ass was on fire. He scooped up my board and practically flung himself outside.

“He’s not an indoor cat,” Adair said quietly. “Not really domesticated either.”

My lips twitched as I took a seat in the chair Cole had just vacated, my gaze fixed on Adair.

He held it, and the tension slowly creeped back into the room now that it was just us.

“What were you humming? When you came in? ”

“‘Edelweiss,’” I said. “From The Sound of Music. ”

“I thought it sounded familiar. Another waltz for class?”

I nodded, tucking my feet under me in the chair. “I’ll probably introduce a new dance next week, but for the gala, I think I’m going to stick to waltzes. It’ll help everyone feel confident.”

His hazel eyes warmed as his head tilted to the side, just a little.

“You’re thoughtful like that. Even when others aren’t.

” He took a deep, measured breath and straightened his posture—as much as he could sitting like he was.

“I messed up, Ireland. And I’d like those ten minutes now. I don’t want to wait.”

My breath caught, but I subtly wrestled the reaction back, keeping my face neutral. The deep respect I already held for this man just irrevocably turned into something else.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Not only for everything last night, like us showing up late and?—”

I cocked my head at him in mild warning, and he caught it, pressing his lips together.

He looked away from me, gazing intently out the window for several seconds.

“I’m not good at this, Ireland,” he said, voice raw as he looked back at me.

“At confrontation. At being weak and needing help for the most basic of things. I avoid it—all of that—at all costs, actually, unless….” His gaze grew serious.

“Unless it’s something really important?—”

He paused, and my heart thudded hard. I held my breath until he completed the thought.

“—which, for the record, this is. This is important to me. You are.”

I exhaled as quietly as possible, hanging on to every word .

“I hate making anyone feel like they need to take care of me. Hate it. Probably because I needed it for so many years growing up and never got it.” He pinched the fabric of his T-shirt, pulling it away from his body as his gaze grew distant, lost in some memory.

“Not until Pops and Grams became part of my life.”

The thud in my chest turned into an ache as I imagined it. Adair as a kid. Whatever level of neglect he’d experienced. It turned my anger at our situation to rage for whoever did that to him. “Kids shouldn’t have to ask for care.”

“No, they shouldn’t,” he agreed. “If I’m ever lucky enough to have kids, I will never fail them in that way. Not even once.”

A shiver ghosted my spine at his earnest tone, at the actual hope in his voice, and my mind went places it had no business going. Not now, and maybe… maybe not ever.

“How much time do I have left?” he asked with a smile that was only a little bit teasing.

About seven weeks.

I kept that thought inside and shrugged lightly. “I can be flexible.”

His eyes flashed as he looked me over, but then he caught himself and ripped his gaze away.

So polite, this guy.

“Tell me why you didn’t tell me,” I said, steering us to the root of the issue. “I’m interested to know what you thought would happen when you got back here with a cast on.”

To my surprise, he chuckled. “Your brain. I really love it. I’m glad Delly has you in her life now, Ireland. I would’ve killed for her to have a role model like you growing up. ”

“You…,” I started, face flaming, “are probably the only one who sees me that way.”

His expression shifted, and he looked almost angry. “Then no one is looking closely enough. But to answer your question,” he said, carrying on before I could react, “I don’t know. I’m really not sure what I thought would happen. This is new for me too.”

This.

We were good at dancing around it.

“What would have been your worst-case scenario? If you had told me, I mean.”

He took time to think through his response. A rare quality that only breathed more life into my regard for him. The flex of his thigh muscle where his basketball shorts had slid up toward him didn’t hurt either.

“You would have felt obligated to care for me,” he said eventually, cutting through my blatant objectification of him.

“I’d become another thing for you to have to worry about.

I see you, Ireland.” With a soft grunt of effort, he leaned forward, pinning me securely with his intense hazel eyes.

“There isn’t a single resident of Zinnia House who has a family member as devoted to them as you are to Beck Sewell.

You give him everything— even when you’re not by his side.

I see it . The classes, the work at the Locc, this new job with Ari that’s taken every minute of what’s left.

How could I take away from that, especially when I can’t give you anything in return?

Especially not now that I’m stuck like this for the next few weeks. ”

My nose burned violently, and I scrunched it, forcing the tears back with equal violence. “So, what?” I asked, my voice rough. “You thought I’d just see you come home in a cast and happily ignore you?”

He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well , no. I just didn’t want you to feel obligated. The timing is just…. It’s bad.”

I cocked my head to the side again. “For what, Adair?”

That stumped him. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then jerked off his glasses to cover his eyes with his hand.

Restless, I stood up from the chair.

His head whipped up, and looking panicked, he hastily put his glasses back on. “Don’t go,” he rasped, scrambling like he was going to try to follow me.

The house was dead silent for three beats. Not a yip from Miss Lenny’s dogs or even the trill of birdsong.

Then I went to him.

Careful to not jostle him on the couch, I sat beside him and took his hand, interlacing our fingers and resting them in my lap. He let out a shaky breath while his thumb immediately started stroking the top of my hand.

We sat like that for a long time, letting everything we’d said—and everything we didn’t say, weren’t ready to say—simmer around us.

“Tell me,” I said quietly. “Tell me next time. No matter what.”

“Okay,” he whispered back. “I will.” His gaze stroked a path from our hands, up my arm, and finally to my face. “It was a mistake not to. I see that now.”

I see you.

God, I believed him. I just wasn’t sure if I was proud of what he was seeing. If he saw the whole picture, would he look at me like that?

Only one way to find out.

“The first facility I handed Dad over to almost killed him.”

His thumb stopped stroking, only for a beat, then pressed down lightly, the smallest encouragement to keep going.

“I found somewhere close to the dance studio, to my apartment. A place most convenient for me. ” I kept my gaze on our hands.

I didn’t want to see his reaction to this.

Not yet. “That seemed the best, right?” I asked, sarcasm dripping from me.

“That memory-care facility didn’t have a bad reputation, but it didn’t have a glowing one either.

But I thought I could just keep my studio, my life, almost exactly as it was, and just tuck him away nearby. Nice and tidy.”

I shook my head. At some point, he’d restarted the strokes of his thumb, but I barely felt my own body.

“I thought I had a village there, in our hometown. But Dad burned some bridges before we got his diagnosis, alienating people in his life. I was too busy to notice. And when I finally got him to the doctor?” I glanced at Adair, then back down.

“They’d already written him off. And sometimes… I think I wasn’t much better.”

Adair made a noise of dissent but didn’t interrupt, which was good because now that this was coming out, I didn’t want to stop.

“The week before Christmas, I got busy. We had several recitals and performances around the community, and I didn’t go see him like I should have.” I laughed, but there was no humor in it. “But they said he was fine when I called, and I took them at their word.”

Finally, I looked at Adair. Looked at the man who took care of everyone around him like it was easy as breathing.

“On Christmas Eve, I finally found time to visit. He was filthy, and there was nothing behind his eyes. He was just… blank. They were giving him sedatives to keep him compliant. He’d lost weight and didn’t recognize me at all when I got there.

Not even a flicker. I fucked up so bad, Adair. So bad.”

There was a sheen in his eyes, his expression matching the devastation I felt, barely tempered by the six months that’d passed since it happened.

“Come here, Indy,” he said gruffly, tugging my hand.

I wasn’t strong enough to resist the comfort. Not from him. Carefully, I moved into his side, leaning into his warmth. He released my hand and draped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me into him.

The relief was instant.

And when he took my hand again and kissed the top of my head? I’d never felt so broken or so put together. Like I’d exposed something that’d been quietly festering, only for him to give me just what I needed to repair it. And he hadn’t even needed to say a word.

But he did anyway because that was who he was.

“You’re here now,” he said quietly. “And Beck is too. You’ve done so well.”

Closing my eyes, I leaned my head on his shoulder, breathing in his words, his pine scent. “You have too,” I said eventually. “Good use of those ten minutes.”

He laughed, and I wasn’t sure how long we stayed like that, but eventually, I felt him tense under me. Leaning away, I watched as he shifted restlessly, his jaw flexing as if he was holding back a grimace.

“Due for your next round of meds?” I asked.

He played with the ends of my hair even as his shoulders slumped and he deflated, looking so run down. “I want to lie to you and say no,” he said with a small, strained smile. “But I think I’ve learned my lesson.”

“I’ll be right back,” I said, squeezing his hand softly.

His fingers trailed down my leg as I stood up, and my breath caught as I met his eyes .

Something in my lower stomach roared to life, making itself known. Instead of walking away to get his meds like I’d planned, I held out my hand to him, letting the challenge to prove what he’d just confessed show in my eyes.

Take my hand . Let me help.

I see you, too, Adair.

One heartbeat later, he eased his foot off the pillow tower and grasped my hand. My heart raced, and I wasted no time helping him to his feet.

He grabbed his crutch, and I walked him back to his bed, going through the same motions as last night.

When I gripped his thigh this time and got him turned the correct way onto the bed, he gasped.

When I handed him his meds and water, he held my gaze as he took his dose, swallowing it down slowly.

When I walked to the door and kicked it shut instead of leaving, I swore he stopped breathing, his chest going still.

And finally, when I flipped the lock and checked it twice, he threw his head back against the headboard.

Then he groaned out two filthy words I’d never heard from his mouth.

“ Holy. Shit.”