Own Me Read online

  He winks at me, which is strange. Adam’s eyes always seem so…focused. Laser beam steady. Unless he’s rolling them at me. But winking?

  It’s kind of unexpected. And adorable. In a weird way. I mean, it’s Adam. Adam is stable, funny, smart—Adam doesn’t make my heart pound erratically.

  I think about how shitty my night is going, and then I remember Adam’s facing issues of his own. And it feels good to forget my shit for a minute and focus on finding a solution to Adam’s situation, especially since my own problems are so frustratingly unsolvable.

  “Thanks, I’ll pass,” I say, waving away the little dough squares stuffed with potato. I lick my lips, square my shoulders, and take a deep breath. “Hey, what time do you get out of here? Maybe we can get away, drive out to the beach, and talk about your crisis. Nothing makes me think like ocean air, you know?”

  “Sounds good. I’m done here in about an hour. Are you hanging around for that long?” he asks.

  “Sure,” I say with a shrug, grabbing another glass of champagne from a passing tray. “You don’t mind driving, right?”

  “I wouldn’t let you behind the wheel tipsy, Gen,” he says, his voice low with concern. “Take a knish. Carbs are the best thing to snack on when you’re drinking. Scientifically speaking.”

  I feel a flicker of—what? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just relief that I have someone like Adam watching out for me. I appreciate how he can be so concerned without being judgmental.

  “I’ll meet you in the parking lot in an hour, then,” I say, grabbing a knish from his tray and popping it in my mouth. “Mmm, these are amazing.”

  Adam smiles and bows at me, tray held up, before he goes off to press his knishes on my aunts and uncles. I mingle as best I can, but five too many aunties in a row ask me when it’s going to be my turn, and I finally can’t stand it for another second and bolt.

  There’s a little bench hidden by an arbor twined with blue morning glories just outside. The stir of the wind is calming after the barrage of questions from my family, and the night air feels refreshingly cool against my cheeks. I sit down, my sweater wrapped tight around my shoulders, and breathe deep. And then I hear a voice that’s at once so familiar but so jarring that it makes my skin prickle.

  “Hey, Gen.” It’s Deo, smiling at me with that wide, goofy smile I’ve adored since I was in diapers.

  “Hey yourself,” I say, managing not to stammer. “What are you doing out here?”

  He loosens the tie that’s knotted at his neck. “Um, I was talking to Enzo…” he begins, taking a seat next to me.

  I turn to him and put my hand over his, avoiding his eyes. “Listen, Deo, I think I know where you’re going. Believe me, Enzo means well, but he’s sticking his nose in where it definitely doesn’t belong. Whatever he told you—”

  “He didn’t need to tell me.” Deo’s voice is soft. He covers our hands with his, and my heart thrums at the warm scratch of his calloused palm on my skin. I can hear him swallow in the quiet of the night. “Gen, I know… I’ve known for so long.”

  I snatch my hand back like his skin is acidic. “Please,” I beg, wanting to just dissolve.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t want to upset you, but I feel like I need to say this. I should have said it a long time ago. I hate how weird things have been between us lately. Will you hear me out?”

  I barely manage to nod, but I can’t say no to Deo, no matter how scared I am to hear what he has to say.

  “Remember when we were kids, climbing every tree, surfing every wave, all of us in a pack?”

  “Of course,” I say and brave a smile. “The six of us ran like a wild gang. I’m honestly shocked there weren’t more trips to the ER. Or jail.”

  Deo nods and laughs, his focus on the middle distance and the deluge of memories. “Those were awesome times.”

  “The best,” I agree, then wait, silent, because I know he didn’t ask me to listen just so he could stroll down memory lane with me.

  “It was all good. Really good. We were like puppies in a pile, all of us happy, and you guys were my family, no matter if I wasn’t blood related. But all of a sudden, like a switch flipped, we weren’t kids anymore.” He sounds sad, and I cringe, fairly sure I know where he’s going. I wish he’d stop… “Cohen and I started checking out girls, and one day you weren’t just Cohen’s baby sister tagging along everywhere we went.”

  My jaw drops, my head rings, and I feel shaky. “Um. What?”

  Deo turns to me, looks right at me, and says, “I’m not blind. I’m also not stupid. What we have, what we’ve always had… I consider you my family, Gen. I’d never do anything to mess with that. That’s why I was a little bit of a jerk to you when I was a teenager. I wasn’t exactly a saint, and I would have never been able to forgive myself if I acted out on a crush and wound up hurting you.”

  “But you thought about me as…”

  My stupid hope floats up, like a shimmering bubble.

  His words pop any craziness my mind might have concocted. “My idiot brain was on the verge of thinking about it, and I realized right away that it could never happen. You are damn incredible, Gen, and you’re going to find some lucky as hell guy who can appreciate you the way you deserve. You’re going to find your soul mate, the way I found Whit. And I want you to know, you will always have me in your life. We’re family, forever. I’ve never wanted anything other than your happiness. You have to know that.”

  I feel my throat close up, and a wild laugh threatens to spill out. I feel a little like I’m tumbling head over heels, trying to process the information he’s giving me. So he did notice me. It wasn’t just me pathetically following him around. It wasn’t unrequited. That makes me feel a little better.

  Even if his ultimate rejection still twists like a hot knife blade in my gut.

  I would have felt a lot better if he’d told me all this before he got married. Not so I could have interfered with his wedding—as shocked as I was that he’d married someone else, I realized from the first second I saw them together that he and Whit were completely, devotedly in love.

  No, I wish he’d told me when we were on equal footing, so we could have put our past attraction to rest while looking each other in the eye, as equals. As it is, I feel like no matter how I respond to him, I’m going to come off looking like the silly little girl who was pining away while the object of her affection left her in the dust.

  Because isn’t that what I am to the people I love the most? That sucks. It hurts.

  I open my mouth and close it. I shift on the bench. Deo is turned toward me, and it’s almost like he’s wincing in anticipation of what I’m going to say to him. I’m not sure what he’s nervous about. That I’ll throw myself at him? That I’ll beg him to reconsider his teenage feelings? That I’ll burst into tears right here, right now?

  I’m emotional, but I’m not unhinged.

  “Genevieve?”

  When I hear someone calling my name, tearing me out of this strange moment in time, I fly to my feet, feeling almost guilty.

  “Here! I’m right here, Adam!” I cry, waving him over like a castaway waving down a rescue plane.

  Nothing can cut through the awkward of this situation like bringing someone blissfully unrelated to our past into it.

  “Adam?” Deo asks. “Is he your…?” He trails off hopeful for my benefit and, I’m sure, his.

  I’m about to laugh and explain that no, Adam is just a great friend, not my boyfriend. He’s just a super guy who always has my back and is my steady shoulder to lean on. That he’s actually meeting me right now because he’s in this sticky situation where his visa is running out and he needs to figure out how to snare himself a wife so he can stay in the U.S.

  And then a very, very obvious plan smashes me like a sledgehammer; I have a eureka moment that slaughters two birds with one very impetuous stone.

  “I didn’t want to take the attention off of Cohen and Maren’s big day,” I say, the lie rolling off my tongu
e so smoothly, it’s like a pat of butter that wouldn’t melt in my mouth. I lower my voice. “Honestly, I’m so glad we, um, cleared everything up. About our little crush. Adam tends to be kind of jealous and now that we’re—”

  “Gen?” Adam says, finally coming up to me.

  I put an arm around his waist and lay my hand on his chest. I feel him stiffen under me and wonder if I’m about to make an even bigger mess of things by revealing myself as a desperate, pathetic liar. Just as the panic kicks in hard, Adam puts his arm around my shoulders and tugs me close to his strong, warm body.

  Wow. It’s strange how perfectly we fit together physically—like we’re two puzzle pieces, designed to snap together.

  “Adam, this is Deo, Cohen’s best friend,” I say, nodding to Deo.

  “Deo. I’ve heard so much about you,” Adam says, with this perfect mixture of manners and dryness that suggests he knows more about Deo than he’d like.

  It should make me embarrassed about how much I’ve spilled my guts where Deo is concerned—and it would, if Adam were speaking strictly as my friend. But since Deo thinks we’re…

  Deo holds out a hand and stares at Adam with a hint of suspicion. I glance from the side of my eye at Adam, and a quick jolt of surprise rocks me.

  I guess it never really hit me how tall he is. And broad shouldered. He’s told me he was in the military in Israel, and he still has a fit, lean soldier’s body. And, though all my girlfriends are constantly begging me to set them up with Adam, I don’t think I’ve ever really let it sink in how handsome he is. There’s no arguing with the fact that Adam is good-looking…like, really good-looking.

  I blink, feeling like I’m seeing him for the first time.

  “Deo,” I say, squeezing Adam’s hand as hard as I possibly can to warn him. There’s a flash of a second where I pull back. Then a spike of adrenaline bursts through me, and I blurt out, “I hope you won’t spill the beans before we have a chance to officially announce anything. But this is my…” I flinch, break into a sweat, and pray. Hard. “This is my fiancé, Adam.”

  Adam goes rigid, his back ramrod straight as he registers the shock of my announcement, and I think I might vomit.

  Then he relaxes and gives a story that unintentionally mimics the lie I told Deo, “We didn’t want to overshadow Cohen and Maren’s big night.”

  I’m freaked out by how in sync my lie and Adam’s are—it’s almost like we planned this.

  We didn’t. But it’s easy for me to forget that fact and imagine we did. It’s just further evidence that Adam has my back, just like he always does. No matter where my craziness leads us.

  Deo looks slightly shocked, and I realize my whole charade probably seems just a little too convenient to be realistic. So I tug on Adam’s collar and put my hands on either side of his face.

  “I can’t wait until we can let everyone know,” I say, and I lock eyes with him, hoping he reads my plea for forgiveness as I move in to kiss him.

  I mean it to be a quick, sweet kiss.

  I’ve kissed my guy friends before—on dares, on whims, because I wanted to. No big deal.

  But none of them had arms that snaked around my body with a breath-stealing possessiveness. And none of them rebounded from their shock quickly enough to deepen the kiss, to coax my mouth open, to slide a gentle, hot flick of tongue across mine so casually that I was tricked into believing this must have happened before.

  When he pulls back, two questions buzz in my brain, over the persistent hammering of my heart: Why the hell hadn’t this happened before? And when the hell can it happen again?

  “So, you two are engaged?” Deo asks slowly, like he’s making sure he has this information right.

  “Yes, we are,” Adam answers immediately, and, though I search his face, I can’t tell what he thinks about this.

  “But, remember, we haven’t announced it officially,” I squeak out, the consequences of my ruse not quite processing yet. I can’t think too much about that.

  “Wow. Gen, I can’t believe you’ve kept this under wraps,” Deo says, a shadow of doubt in his voice. He locks eyes with Adam. “You’re a very lucky man, Adam.”

  “I know it. I really do.” Adam looks down at me, and I still can’t get a good read on his thoughts. I suspect he’s doing this because it’s second nature for him to go along with whatever he thinks I want. “I can’t believe how lucky I am.”

  Before we have a chance to dig ourselves into a deeper hole, the doors of the restaurant burst open and my chattering, laughing, singing, crazy family pours out.

  “Can you…can we…do you want to get out of here?” I ask Adam, gesturing wildly to the aunties, who’ve already noticed me with someone talk, dark, and Jewish.

  I cannot deal with their questions right now.

  “Let’s go,” Adam says, keeping his arm around my waist as he leads me to his car. He opens the passenger door, and I slide in, wondering how many family members saw me with Adam and how much gossip there will be about me before the parking lot is empty.

  Adam pulls out and heads to the highway. We both stare ahead silently, uncomfortably, until I say, “Can you take the next exit?”

  He does, wordlessly, though a few times it looks like he wants to say something. I only say the words necessary to get me where I have to go, right now, for the kind of advice a person needs when she just fabricated an engagement to her best friend.

  Adam pulls into Marigold’s driveway and cuts the engine. I don’t make a move to get out of the car right away.

  “So…that was Deo,” Adam says finally, turning sideways in his seat to look at me.

  “Mm hmm,” I murmur, trying to ignore the elephant squashed in the car with us.

  “He seemed all right for a goy,” Adam says, reaching over to put one hand on my shoulder.

  Both of us look at his hand on me, then at each other.

  “We don’t have to—”

  “I’m not saying it’s the best—”

  We start talking at the same time, laugh awkwardly, and each tell the other to go ahead. It’s Adam who finally, stubbornly, insists I speak first.

  “Okay,” I say, taking a deep breath. “Back there… I know I probably took you off guard.”

  “That’s pretty much the understatement of the century.” He pulls his mouth to the side. “And I know I joked about…that earlier today, but you know I would never ask you to…” He trails off like he can’t even manage to say it out loud.

  “Right,” I agree, and we both sit in silence for a moment. “Except, hear me out—”

  “Gen,” he says, my name a warning.

  “Adam,” I press, ignoring his doom and gloom tone. “Just listen.” I wait until he clamps his mouth shut. “You need a way to stay here, to finish your work, which you’re so passionate about. I need to get the hell out of my parents’ house and show everyone in my life I’m not still holding a candle for Deo, or I’m going to go crazy.”

  “Speaking of crazy…” He slides his hand up my neck and to my face, cupping it with a gentleness that floors me. “I’m flattered you’d even offer. But I can’t let you do this for me.”

  “Okay,” I say, taking his hand and holding it in mine. It’s not like it’s weird to hold hands with friends…I’ve done it a million times before with other people. But Adam doesn’t tend to be very touchy on a normal basis. Despite that fact, holding his hand feels natural. Comforting. Good. “If you won’t let me do it for you, will you do it for me? Better yet, can we do this for each other?”

  “Gen.” His voice is edged in frustration. I know that giant brain of his is working overtime, thinking too hard, trying to make logical sense out of a highly illogical situation. “This isn’t an even trade, not by any stretch of the imagination.”

  “Your research for my dignity?” I say, my eyebrows raised. “Look, I’m not interested in a forever marriage. Not right now, anyway. I’m sure you’re not either. I know it sounds extreme, but forget the ‘til death do us part�
�� aspect, since that won’t apply for us. The act of getting married fixes so many things. We already know we like each other. We already care about each other. I’d do anything for you, so it makes sense to do this thing that doesn’t just help you. It helps me, too.”

  “So it would be like a sham marriage?” he asks slowly, his fingers twining with mine, holding tight to my hand.

  “It’s a legal contract that buys us what we both want for now, and we can dissolve it later, when we’re ready to move on. Think of it as two friends who respect each other and want each other’s happiness doing something mutually beneficial. And slightly unorthodox.”

  He pauses. Squints. Nods slowly, like he’s come to some conclusion.

  “Gen, are you…are you really sure about this?” Adam asks, his thumb rubbing along my palm.

  The truth is, I’m not. Not at all.

  The second truth is, I’m being pulled in by the excitement in Adam’s eyes right now. He’s looking at me like I’m the one and only person he wants to bring in on a big, crazy adventure. I love the thrill of taking a risk with someone I care about, someone I respect and who respects me. And, while getting married conveniently allows me to step away from my role as Rodriguez Family Loser, it solves the way more serious problem of keeping my best friend in the country, doing important research he loves.

  If I’m not sure, Adam goes back to Israel and I lose the one person I’ve been able to lean on for the last two years.

  I take a deep breath. I close my eyes. When I open them I’m ready to take the plunge.

  “I’m sure. Let’s do this, Adam.”

  Chapter Three

  Genevieve

  Ten minutes later, Adam has pulled away from Marigold’s house. We made plans to sleep on our decision and if—when, as far as I’m concerned—we still feel the same way in the morning, we’ll meet up so we can plan.

  A wedding.

  Because I’m marrying my best friend.