Page 21

place, and no matter why he had run for office originally or why he’d been preparing to do it again, he’d always taken his

responsibility seriously. But that didn’t change the fact that he lied for a living. It was part of the game. Each campaign

promise was a lie—not because you didn’t truly hope to fulfill it, but because ultimately you had so very little control over

anything.

How many times had he and his cohorts told the press they were “optimistic” a deal could be made as they walked onto the Senate

floor, when the truth was agreements had already been made or squashed in offices or on golf courses or over drinks in the

days leading up to the public actions?

It wasn’t exactly a badge of honor, but the fact remained: Wes Hobbes was a very good liar. But he wouldn’t lie to Addie.

He couldn’t be completely sure, but something in his soul confirmed that the math would check out on his hypothesis: Addie

Atwater was the only person in his entire life, in the entire world, to whom he’d only ever spoken the truth.

“Jo told me.”

“Wow. In her sunset years, Jo has become quite generous with information she has no right sharing and her recreational vehicles.”

Wes stood and circled the bed to stand before her, the chair between them—its four legs on the floor the only aspect of her

stance preventing her from looking like a lion tamer keeping him at a safe distance. “I was just surprised to see you here.

In Adelaide Springs, I mean. Last night. And Jo told me you moved here after your husband died. That’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.” Well, shoot. “And that you were in the CIA. So I did know that already. Sorry. But that’s all. Honest.”

“What? How did that come up in the conversation, pray tell?”

“Same thing. Why you’re here. You were in the CIA, and then you left the CIA.”

“Well, that sounds like two things to me, for a total of three.”

“Now that’s just absurd, Adelaide. I daresay even I am smart enough to connect the dots and figure out that if you left the

CIA, that means you were in the CIA. We’re still at two things.”

“You don’t have any right to go around asking questions about me. You understand that, right? You don’t get to breeze back

into town after twenty-two years—”

“I’m not ‘breezing back into town.’ Good grief!” he growled at her and grabbed the back of the chair, his hands between her

hands. His knee on the seat and her face just inches away. “Yes. I understand. I have no right to details of your life. I

get that. I walked out. I gave up whatever right I had to ask why you’re here or offer my condolences over the loss of your

husband. And I certainly gave up my right to apologize and tell you how much I regret all of it. To tell you how I would give

anything— anything , Addie—to be able to go back in time and not be such a stupid, idiotic, clueless eighteen-year-old kid. Cool. I get it. Thanks.

Thanks for explaining that to me.”

Neither of them blinked or cowered or took a step back from the far-too-intimate space they were sharing, though Wes’s mind

was reeling, and his pulse was racing, and he was trying to remember how to compute geometric equations. She was closer to

the door, and there was a chair between them, and she was going to turn and make a run for it any second, he knew. He wouldn’t

block her way (that hadn’t gone so well the last time he’d accidentally done it), but he had to give himself a fighting chance

at getting to the door before she did. That was geometry, right?

Being the son of Governor McNeese might have come with an inordinate number of disadvantages, but passing Yale courses that

he may have deserved to fail was not one of them.

“Addie, look, I’m sor—”

“I’m just glad we’re on the same page.”

And then she kissed him on the tip of his nose.

Instantly, Addie’s eyes flew wide, as did her mouth, though no words came out. Wes, meanwhile, released the chair and gasped

for breath as laughter overtook him. He stumbled backward until his legs hit the bed, and then he collapsed onto it. There

was something—some tiny but assertive do-gooder in his brain, like that nerdy little bookworm cartoon on those posters in

the school library growing up, telling them to shush—cautioning him to stop laughing. To double down on his geometric equations.

But seriously, he was about as likely to stop laughing as he was to suddenly understand how to figure out the surface area

of a trapezoid.

“Shut up,” she finally said, but laughter was bubbling out from beneath the words, and Wes was able to silence the nagging

bookworm once and for all.

“That’s what you did when—”

“Oh, I know.” She groaned through her laughter and stepped away from the chair. She then walked over to the floor-length mirror,

crossed her arms over it, and lowered her forehead onto her arms—still laughing.

They had been nine years old, hanging out in the clubhouse, as they called it, on the top floor of Laila’s grandparents’ house—

He suddenly breathed in air so quickly it choked him, and he coughed as he jumped up from the bed.

“Are you okay?” Addie asked, turning away from the mirror to check on him.

“Is this the clubhouse?” he hacked out between throat-clearing coughs.

She chuckled. “No. That’s the other room, down the hall.”

“Oh.” He slumped back onto the edge of the bed. “Bummer.”

They’d been nine years old, and she was already his favorite person in the world.

She told him all the time, even then—even when they were younger than that—that she was going to marry him someday.

The idea of all of that was ridiculous to him, of course—not that he could actually wrap his head around it at all.

No, it meant nothing. That was just Addie being Addie.

It didn’t scare him off. It just didn’t register.

And she kept on being his best friend—not that he ever called her that.

He called Cole his best friend, because at that age it mattered.

His best friend couldn’t be a girl. That wasn’t how it worked.

(Never mind that Laila was Cole’s best friend and Cole never shied away from admitting it.

That wasn’t uncool. That was just Cole and Laila being Cole and Laila.)

Then one day, it was just Wes and Addie in the clubhouse, waiting for Brynn to get back from the bathroom and for Cole and

Laila to get back from the kitchen with popcorn, and Addie said, “I think we should be boyfriend and girlfriend.”

Once again, it didn’t scare him off. It just didn’t mean anything. He told her he didn’t want a girlfriend, and she told him

that was okay. “Never mind,” she’d whispered, and then she’d gone over to look out the transom window at the moon.

He felt bad for making her sad, so he joined her at the window and said, “But if I ever do have a girlfriend, it will probably

be you.”

And that was the moment. She turned to face him—she was about six inches taller than he was then—and said, “I’m glad we’re

finally on the same page.” And then she kissed him on the nose.

He had no idea if nine-year-olds could actually fall in love, and certainly none of his feelings for her shifted into a recognizable

higher gear until a few years later, but still. If he had to look back and pinpoint a precise moment when Addie Atwater became

the great love of his life, that was it.

“A Whole New World” from Aladdin had been playing. He wasn’t sure why he remembered that all of a sudden, but despite the fact that the Aladdin soundtrack had always been playing around that time, the irony was no longer lost on him.

“I don’t think Jo locks the doors to the rooms when there aren’t guests staying in them. I’m sure you could go look in the

clubhouse if you wanted.”

When they got older—when all those gears had been shifted as high as they could go—he’d rarely, if ever, missed an opportunity to pull her into every empty room of this house or any other as they passed by unlocked doors.

Just to steal a kiss without their friends teasing them about their PDA or to tell her he loved her.

Sometimes just to spend thirty seconds looking at her without distraction.

Wes swallowed down the lump in his throat and smiled as he looked up at her. “Nah, that’s okay. It just would have been sort

of cool if both times you kissed my nose, thirtysomething years apart...”

“Yeah.”

He tilted his head and studied her. “Now that we both fully understand that I am not to pry or show any interest whatsoever

in your life, mind if I ask if you and Joel had kids?”

The smile on her face got a little more subdued, but it didn’t go away. He took that as an encouraging sign. “Nah. We tried

for a while, early on, but didn’t have any luck. And then at some point, I think we realized we were okay without them. Like,

it would have been nice, but there wasn’t anything missing between us. You know what I mean?”

Somehow, though his marriage had to be examined through a very different lens, he felt as if he did. “Yeah, I think so.”

She returned his gaze, and he couldn’t help but marvel at the easiness between them. “I think it’s okay for you not to hate

me,” he offered. “Now, I mean. I feel like...”

What are you doing here, Wes? What are you hoping to achieve with this one? If he’d been sitting beside someone who was cracking up watching a movie, would he lean over and tell them it was okay to

think the movie was funny? If he did, nothing was going to get the other person to stop laughing faster. “Never mind. I don’t

know where I was going with that.”

“Yeah, you do.” She crossed her arms and jutted her chin toward him. “Say it.”

“It’s just...” Okay, she said to say it.

So say it. “We’re obviously two very different people than we were growing up.

Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, I won’t pretend to know.

And I know there are a million things we aren’t saying to each other that we probably should.

But as stupid as I’m sure it sounds, separate from—or I guess on top of—all the feelings from the past.

.. I like you. Now. I’m enjoying talking with you, despite the fact that I enjoy very little of what we’ve talked about.

It’s just... it’s nice to talk to someone I know I can trust. And yes, I know that’s super weird, because in some ways it is like we just met, and in other ways—”

“I know.”

“I’m not trying to minimize or dismiss anything. I’m not suggesting we just pretend it didn’t happen or that we move past

it.” He had lost the thread of whatever he had wanted to say, not that he had really known what that was. “Just... I guess

if nothing else, I hope you know that today... all the talking... it feels like a gift. For me, I mean. That’s all I’m

trying to say.”

Addie pulled her eyes away from his when they had lingered just a little too long. “We’re still on for dinner?”

“Absolutely. Yes. I’d love it. Besides, Jo has banned me from the UTV, so I don’t have anywhere else to be.”

Her eyes met his again as the trace of a smile crossed her lips. “Okay,” she whispered and scooted the chair back under the

desk. “See you then.”

She walked to the door and had her hand on the knob as she turned back to face him and shook her head. “I don’t hate you.

I could never hate you. Trust me, I spent a long time trying. And I’ll admit it: I haven’t completely hated spending time

with you today. But I also have to admit...” Her nose scrunched up. “I hate that I haven’t hated it. I don’t know how to

make sense of that. So sure, let’s have dinner. But anything beyond that...”

“I’m not asking for anything beyond that.”

She nodded and looked down at her feet briefly and then faced the door again. “See you tonight.”

“Add?”

She froze in place but didn’t face him. “Hmm?”

Wes cleared his throat and bit down on the inside of his cheek in an attempt to distract from the burning in his eyes and the throbbing in his temples. “I just... I really just want to know if you’re okay. Am I allowed to ask if you’re okay?”

He watched her shoulders rise swiftly to her ears and then fall slowly as she released a heavy breath. “Come now. We don’t

want to use up all our conversation starters before dinner.” Then she stepped through the door and closed it behind her.