Kissing the Shy Guy - Stephanie Street Page 0,64

digital television subscription before handing it to me.

“You pick.”

I scrolled through the guide while he started on his own slice of pizza. He didn’t even squawk when I stopped on a home improvement show with these two brothers that looked like twins who flipped houses.

“Are they twins?” Adam asked after we’d been watching for a while.

“Yeah. One is a realtor, and the other one does all the construction stuff.” I watched this show and another one with a husband/wife duo from Waco, Texas, all the time.

Three episodes later, we’d eaten our pizza and finished off a package of store-bought cookies Adam had produced from a cupboard in the kitchenette. Later, he took a blanket from the back of the sofa and spread it over us, shimmying his arm around my waist, pulling me into his side. He’d propped his feet on the coffee table, and I stretched out my legs on the sofa, content to snuggle into him with my head on his chest.

That was how Laura found us.

“Don’t you look cozy,” she cooed, plopping down on the other end of the sofa.

Adam told her succinctly and unmistakably what she could go do. He didn’t cuss much, but when he did, he made it count.

Laura narrowed her eyes. “Mom wants to talk to you.”

“About what?” he asked without making a move to get up.

“I don’t know. She just said to tell you to come upstairs.”

Adam’s sigh lifted me as his chest moved out then back in. “Fine.” He bent his lips to my ear. “Will you be okay down here for a sec?”

I sat up, disentangling myself from his arms. “Of course.”

He dropped a quick kiss on my lips. “I’ll be right back.” He stood, and instead of walking around the sofa, he planted one foot on the seat and leaped over the back.

“Better not let Mom see you doing that!” Laura yelled at his back.

“Be nice while I’m gone!” he called back.

I was very aware of Laura as we both watched him disappear up the stairs.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” she said after a long silence.

“Why wouldn’t I be here?” I’d never liked Laura, but she was Adam’s sister, and so I should make an effort. Right?

She picked at her fingernails. “I just thought he would have told you by now, that’s all.”

I knew she was trying to make trouble, and I shouldn’t believe a word she said to me. But then I remembered how Adam had been behaving earlier. Obviously, Laura knew something I didn’t, and she assumed that I’d be upset enough to not want to be around once I found out. Crap. I knew I’d end up regretting it, but I needed to know. Didn’t I?

“Told me what?”

Laura blinked, all innocence. “About Carly Ryan.”

Carly Ryan? “The country singer?” What did the biggest country star in America have to do with Adam?

Laura nodded. “She’s Asher’s mom.”

Whoa. What? “Really?” Even I could admit that was freaking crazy.

Laura nodded again. “She invited Breakout to go on tour with her this summer.”

I experienced a stab of emotion I didn’t know how to label at that because wow! What an opportunity for the band. Still, Adam hadn’t told me. We were new, I got it. But this was big. And it would mean he was leaving soon.

I didn’t want Laura to know how unsettled she’d made me with her revelation, so I smiled. “That’s really cool. I didn’t know, but I’m excited for them.” And that was the honest truth. I knew what it meant to have a dream and have the reality of it staring me in the eye. Wasn’t that the whole point of the DIVA scholarship?

“Too bad Adam might not get to go.” And there it was, the part she’d been leading up to. I was tempted to disappoint her by not asking, but I had to know, didn’t I?

“Oh, really. Why not?” I hoped all my acting classes would pay off, and Laura wouldn’t see how much I wanted to know what she had to tell me.

Laura shrugged like she didn’t have a care in the world, like what she was about to say wouldn’t have my world crashing down because I knew it would.

“They’re doing a trial run next weekend at Carly’s show in New York.” Next weekend! “And if Adam can’t make it,” she let the sentence hang.

If Adam couldn’t make it—what? They’d kick him out of the band? They wouldn’t do that! Surely, they wouldn’t do that.

Laura hadn’t finished carving my heart out