10. Five Minute Rule
In all my travels, I’d never once been to a tea house. I expected it to be eccentric and hippy, with burning incense and panpipe music. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The Pink Rose Tea House was English themed, and understandably, Adam was out of his element from the get-go. If the lacy tablecloths, bone china cups and my company hadn’t already unnerved him, the menu certainly would have. He was strictly a coffee drinking New Yorker.
“You’ll have to help me out here, Charli,” he whispered, peeking over the top the menu. When the waitress appeared at our table I let him off the hook by ordering for him. Fidgeting with the edge of the tablecloth while we waited for our order to arrive compensated for the lack of conversation. It also reduced the risk of me doing the airhead hair twirl thing.
“Do you wish you hadn’t come here?” he asked, finally breaking the lull.
I shook my head, glancing only briefly at him. “No. I like tea.”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” he replied, huffing out a hard breath that almost sounded like a laugh.
“I’m glad I came to New York,” I relented. “I wish I hadn’t come looking for you, though. I wish I’d kept you up here instead.” I tapped the side of my head with my finger. “In my mind, the reunion was much better.”
Adam leaned back in his chair, staring at me for too long for it to be anything other than strategic. He had a few more seconds to consider my words while the waitress delivered our tea. We both straightened up as she set the table.
“Enjoy,” she said, smiling brightly before walking away.
There was no way Adam was going to enjoy it. Most men would struggle when it came to sipping tea out of a delicate china cup – except perhaps my neighbour Oliver. I’d once seen him wearing a shirt with a pink floral pattern very similar to the one on the teacups.
“I love you, Charlotte,” Adam declared, pushing his cup to the centre of the table. It was an unfair thing to say. “But things change.”
“Because of the horrible way I ended it?”
He shook his head. “I knew you were lying.”
“You lied to me too. You never told me about dim Whit.”
Playing the Whitney card was the only thing I could think of to even up the score sheet. My moral compass was askew, but I wasn’t the only liar at the table.
“I wanted to,” he insisted, softening his expression only slightly, “a hundred times. I just couldn’t figure out how.”
“I. Have. A. Girlfriend.” I ticked the words off on my fingers. “Not so tricky.”
“I wish I had been the one to tell you about her. I hate that you heard it from Ryan.”
“What makes you think I’ve been speaking to Ryan about it?”
He smirked at my attempt to play innocent. “He’s the only person who refers to her as dim Whit – besides you, apparently.”
“You should have told me about her, Adam. From the beginning.” I drummed my finger on the table with each word. My annoyance was false, designed purely to mask the chagrin of being caught grilling Ryan for information. “It wouldn’t have changed how I felt.”
“What does it matter, Charli? What’s done is done.”
Hearing him sound so defeated wasn’t something I was used to, and for the first time I wondered if the damage we’d done to each other was permanent.
“Why are we here then, pretending to drink tea?”
He almost smiled. “Because I’m having trouble staying away from you.”
“That’s because you love me.”
“Yes,” he conceded. “But I’d rather do it from a distance.”
“Why?”
Hearing the answer would feel like emotional suicide but I needed to know. I promised myself that I’d consider it closure. If I had answers, perhaps I’d no longer think about him.
Adam exhaled a long, unsteady breath. “I don’t know how it would work out long term. I couldn’t endure another ending, Charli. I’m not brave enough.”
I sat mindlessly stirring my tea as I mulled over his words. As much as I hated to admit it, his answer was perfectly understandable. It just wasn’t what I wanted to hear.
“I get it, Adam. I do.” I wished I’d sounded stronger but the lump in my throat made me sound as if I was about to burst into tears at any second. “But for the record, I would’ve risked it.”
He smiled. “You always were braver than me.”
“You and I were guaranteed a happy ending. I’ve known that from the very beginning. I’m sorry I made you forget that.”
I placed my teaspoon down on the saucer and reached for my bag from under the table, preparing to make a quick exit.
Adam didn’t protest.
“Thanks for the tea,” I said, smiling as normally as I could.
He nodded stiffly. “Any time.”
Ever polite, Adam stood up as I did. I put on my coat, thanked him again for the tea that neither of us drank, and slipped out the door into the freezing December afternoon.
I took my time getting home, stopping along the way to window-shop and check out the over-the-top Christmas decorations. It was after six by the time I finally moseyed though the front door of my apartment building.
Marvin had already left for the day and the night doorman, whose name I didn’t know, stood in his place. A quick hello was the only conversation I’d ever been able to drag out of him. Today, I was perfectly happy with that. I was done talking.
I stepped out of the elevator into my tiny foyer to find Adam sitting on the sofa that could no longer be referred to as never-been-sat-in.
“I was beginning to worry that you weren’t coming back,” he said.
“I live here. Why are you here?”
He stepped in front of me as I opened the door, blocking the doorway.
“Because I’m having trouble staying away from you.” He spoke slowly, as if it was a hard question to answer.
I leaned forward, whispering my words as if we weren’t alone. “It’s because you love me.”
I brushed past him, leaving him to close the door.
He followed me to the kitchen. “What if you’re wrong about the happy ending, Charlotte?”
I dumped my bag on the counter. “It’s still worth the risk. I’m playing by the five minute rule.”
“Which is?”
I rushed the words, expecting him to make a bolt for the door at any second. “Give every opportunity five minutes. If that’s all it’s good for, so be it. But I’m not going to miss out on something amazing because I was too scared to take a chance.”
He smiled but it was tinged with sadness. “I can’t begin to tell you how much I’ve missed hanging out in La La land.”
I couldn’t pinpoint the moment his arm slipped around my waist, nor did I try to fight it. I was too focused on making sense of his turnaround. I put my hands on his chest to keep him at bay while I steadied myself. I’d become so used to emptiness that the rush of warmth was overwhelming.
“You’re welcome back any time.”
Whether he’d planned it or not, his hold on me was the only thing keeping me upright.
“You revoked my membership, remember?”
“A girl can change her mind.”
Brushing my hair off my shoulder with his free hand, he smiled, brighter than before. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“I’ve never changed my mind about you, Adam. That’s why I’m here. Why are you here?”
I still wasn’t entirely sure which direction we were headed. Two hours earlier he was cutting me loose. I was done chasing the impossible.
“Because I love you.”
I avoided his eyes, but felt his warm gaze. My focus was solely on his mouth. I could feel his kiss before it happened. And when he crushed his lips against mine and I could finally be sure that his touch was real, I was cast back to a time that just a few hours earlier, I thought was gone forever. Nothing had changed. Not his touch, nor his taste. Even his annoying knack for breaking our embrace just before my heart thumped out of my chest remained the same.
“What happens now, Charlotte?” he breathed, resting his forehead on mine. “Tell me what you want.”
Oh, where to begin? If I’d had more time to think, I could probably have come up with something maudlin and sweet. “I just want to feel you in my bones again.”
Despite my lack of refinement, the power of my words was huge. And when he lifted me off my feet and carried me out of the kitchen, I wondered why I’d waited so long to say it.
A few steps into the next room, he lowered me to the ground, distracted by something other than my bones.
“Charli,” he said ominously. “There’s no furniture.”
I giggled. “I have a bed.”
He turned back to me. “That’s it?”
“I have a frying pan, too.” He looked appalled. He probably would have been even more outraged if he knew I’d stolen it from his restaurant. “And a laundry basket,” I added, proudly.
“Some things never change.”
He leaned forward, kissing a long line down my neck as he unbuttoned my coat.
“Some things have changed but I’ll save them for another day,” I murmured.
I couldn’t claim to be the same girl he knew a year ago. My life had altered hugely. I wanted to tell him everything, and I wanted to know everything – just not at that very minute.
“Do you still believe in magic, Charlotte?” he asked, pushing my coat off my shoulders. It fell to the floor in a heavy heap.
“Of course.” In a million lifetimes, that would never change. “Do you?”
“Absolutely.” He murmured the word against my mouth. “I look for magic every day.”
On the brink of giving in, I pulled myself together enough to ask one last question. “Do you ever find it?”
“Today I did,” he told me, sliding his warm hand up the back of my shirt. “And she’s still beautiful.”