To Hate Adam Connor

by Ella Maise

I believe in love. Wholeheartedly. Seriously, don’t shake your head like that. I do. I can picture those of you who already know me snickering. Well, don’t. There is no need for that, and frankly, it’s kinda rude, don’t you think?

And isn’t that how it goes? You get over the guy way before you get over the memories.”

“You know you’re my person, right?” she asked a minute later. A small smile played on my lips. “Grey’s Anatomy? Like Christina and Meredith?” “Yes.” “Yeah, you’re my person too, my green Olive.” And she always would be. “Good. Lucy?” I glanced at her again. “Olive?” “Don’t tell Jason I said this, but I think Adam is seriously hot.”

“Fuck you, okay?” His gaze hardened, and I leaned back. “You’re hot and all, I’ll give you that much, but I don’t like you enough to stalk you. Now, if you were Henry Cavill…that would change things.”

I nodded at her, raked my hand through my hair, and reluctantly took a step back as she leaned toward Jake and crooked her finger at him as if she was about to whisper something in his ear. Why did that simple move make me even angrier? I was about to turn around and leave when out of nowhere her little fist flew in the air and landed squarely on Jake’s nose. Cupping his nose, he groaned in pain. “You bitch!” Without any pause, Lucy kneed him in the balls. I winced. Ouch.

“Stop it,” I said to Lucy and got a light punch on my shoulder for all my troubles. Jesus. Did the woman listen to me? Of course not. I doubted she ever listened to anyone.

As I expected, the cops couldn’t do much about my little altercation with Jake Callum. Truth be told, I went there already knowing that, but, hell, I wasn’t expecting them to suggest that maybe I’d had too much to drink and wasn’t remembering everything that had happened. You’d know if you gave some sleazeball who thought he was the king of the world permission to put his tongue in your mouth after you hadn’t kissed someone for weeks, wouldn’t you? According to them, I wouldn’t. As if that wasn’t enough, they said sometimes “parties like that” could get out of hand.

There was something special about falling in love with fictional characters through words.

There I was trying my best not to act like he was affecting me, and he didn’t even notice that I was having a mental breakdown from his proximity. Hell, I was seconds away from letting my inner singer out to play and singing him “Pillowtalk” by Zayn.

“Why won’t you go back there and give it a try. See where it goes.” Since she wasn’t opening the damn doors, I turned my back to her and sat down in front of the door. “Lucy?” she prompted. I looked up at the sky. “Because if I fall in love with him I won’t survive that fall.”

“This is our famous Lucy.” I let her know. Her eyes found Lucy and a smile spread across her lips as she came forward to greet my firecracker. She was our Lucy, Aiden’s and mine.

“Of course you can’t, Adeline,” I agreed with her. “How would that make you look in the public eye? A woman who doesn’t care about her kid…” I shook my head. “You’ll have a much harder time getting auditions that way, I imagine, with the bad press and everything. You’ll fight for it, I know. Me, on the other hand…I don’t care what they think at all. All I care about right now is what that kid”—I gestured with my thumb over my shoulder—“thinks of me. And if I never hear him beg me not to send him away again, I think that will be enough to make me happy.”

Then I felt his cock. Holy shit! His cock was most definitely not a small gun. Actually, it was nowhere near four inches. He felt thick; a cock that was that thick couldn’t be short. It would be more than disappointing if that was the case; it would be a lie! Not that I had really thought it would be four inches anyway, but it would’ve made my life so much easier. Just when I tightened my legs around him—you know, so I could try and measure how long he actually was by rubbing myself all over him—he pushed my legs off and stopped kissing me. Have I told you lately how much of an asshole he was?

“What did you wrap around your heart to protect yourself, beautiful girl?” I asked, letting my fingertip trail down from her cheek to her chin. Her eyes cut to mine, and I knew I had her attention. “I see you unwrap it, whatever it is you have around your heart, so I know it’s there. You change when you are with your friends, with Aiden, but as soon as you can, you wrap it back up. I hope it’s not a steel cage, Lucy. I hope you’re being gentle with your heart, taking care of it for me.”

“Are you just a character, Lucy? A character that is written by others?” I asked. “Or are you a real person?”

“I’m a pretty straightforward guy, Lucy. I don’t play games. Not that I can’t or don’t enjoy certain ones, but this kind of game”—I gestured between us—“I don’t want to play. We have one shot at this life, so I’m not gonna spend my time playing games with anybody. I’m not about that. What you see is what you get with me, and the more I look at you, the more I’m around you, the more I like what I see. It’s not just your face, your smile, or your beautiful eyes that tell me all kinds of stories every time I look into them long enough. I like how you are with my son, how you actually enjoy spending time with him, how you enjoy the banter between us. I like how you are trying your hardest to protect your heart from me at the same time you’re trying not to show how hard it is to do so. I’m telling you that I’m going to give you what you want from me, what you wanted from me from that first day you watched me over that damn wall. I’m going to sleep with you, Lucy Meyer, and I’m going to kiss you, my unexpected stalker. I’m going to kiss you without having to trick you,” I announced. Her confused eyes slid back to me. “I’m only telling you because I know you need to prepare yourself for it.”

While I get that this may be front-page news for some people, I’m asking you to respect our privacy going forward. Please don’t make this out to be something it isn’t. This isn’t Adam Connor fighting with Adeline Young. This is a father fighting for what’s best for his son.”

The feeling of security that someone was there to hold you up when gravity was too much to handle on your own, that you had someone you could trust enough to let go.

“Do you like dancing?” I asked, ignoring common sense. “No.” “Oh,” I said, surprised. “Okay.” “Ask me anyway,” he countered. I hesitated. “Will you dance with me?” “Yes.”

He took my hand in his warm, big one and pulled me inside. As soon as he closed the door and turned to me, I walked up to him, put my hand on his heart, and rested my head next to it. His body froze for a moment, but then he circled one of his arms around my waist and pulled my body closer to his.

“Lucy,” he warned, his voice gravelly. “Tell me what’s wrong.” We stared into each other’s eyes for so long. “I’m pregnant,” I admitted in a broken voice. Adam let go of me.

“I’m going to un-break your heart, Lucy,” he promised in a low voice.

“I’ll hold you up, Lucy. You can trust me. I see who you are. I see who you are, and I want you to choose me. I want you to open your eyes and look at me so you can see that I have what it takes, that I can take care of your heart for you.”

Did she know her hand was shaking as it lay on my cheek? That she was falling for me even as I kissed her like she was already mine? Did she know how much she was ruining me?

Breaking News: Adeline Young’s Alleged Sex Tape Yes, you read that right.

“I’m just a boy…standing in front of a girl, asking her to love him.” A wary smile surfaced on her lips. “Quoting ‘Notting Hill’, huh? That is a big gun, you’re right. You think that will get to me? That it will make my heart beat faster to hear you say that to me?”

it was Lucy who took my hand in hers and made me feel like I had conquered the world.

“I fucking love you,” I said in a growl, going for her. “I fucking love you, Lucy.”

She held on to me just as tight as I was holding her to myself. Her body shook against mine, and I heard her breath hitch. If I could have, if it had been possible, I would’ve held her closer, pulled her tighter. “I love you,” I whispered into her neck before brushing a kiss on her skin. “I love you. I love you.” I closed my eyes and ignored all the shouts and the flashes. I kissed her lips countless times as I tasted her tears. I kissed her neck, her throat, her nose. Everywhere. Every inch. I thanked her again and again for being there for my son for the second time. I held her in my arms for long minutes. I ignored the entire world around us. It was at that moment, that specific moment where everyone around us disappeared and it was just the three of us, where she trusted me enough to hold her up, trusted me enough to let me whisper my love to her, that made me sure I would do everything in my power—even if it meant fighting with her—to make her understand that I was the one who would make her happy for the rest of our lives, that I was the one who had already broken her curse.