it into my phone after he sent it to me on Facebook. I stare at it for a few moments, toying with the idea, mulling it over in my head.
Well, he did say to call him.
‘Lucy! Are you OK?’
Twenty minutes later I glance up from staring at the scuffed floor of the police station to see the fire doors swinging open and Adam appearing through them. Like a knight in shining armour, I can’t help thinking, only instead he’s wearing a scruffy T-shirt, baseball cap and ripped jeans. He looks at me, his face etched with concern, and my heart swells. I have never been so pleased to see anyone in my entire life.
‘Yeah . . . fine.’ I jump up from my plastic chair to greet him, then hold back, feeling suddenly self-conscious. ‘Everything’s fine.’
‘You usually hang around in police stations for fun, do you?’ he says, his mouth twitching with amusement.
My cheeks flush. ‘Well, there was nothing on at the movies,’ I quip feebly.
He laughs, an easy, relaxed laugh and, tilting his head to one side, surveys me from beneath the peak of his cap. ‘Sure you’re OK?’ he asks quietly. Reaching for my hand, he squeezes it gently.
As his fingers brush mine, a little tingle rushes up my spine. ‘Sure.’ I nod, but as I’m saying the words, I feel my lips tremble unexpectedly. ‘Everything’s cool,’ I manage, and then, to my absolute embarrassment, burst into tears.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Adam escorts me back to my apartment, where I discover Robyn and the dogs fast asleep on the sofa, snoring loudly, an episode of Oprah playing faintly in the background. Tiptoeing past, so as not to wake Simon and Jenny – nothing, I’ve learned, will wake Robyn, who doesn’t so much fall asleep as fall into a coma – I grab half a bottle of wine from the fridge and a couple of glasses and go into my bedroom. It’s a warm, muggy evening, and pulling open the rickety old sash window, we clamber out on to the fire escape.
‘I’m so sorry about bursting into tears like that,’ I say, for about the zillionth time, as I perch on a metal step and pour two glasses of wine. ‘I’m so embarrassed.’
‘Hey, no problem.’ He shrugs, sitting one step up from me. Taking out his tobacco, he waves it at me as if to say, Do you mind? and I shake my head. ‘I tend to have that effect on women.’
Laughing, I shoot him a grateful smile and pass him a glass.
‘So, you had a lucky escape by the sounds of it,’ he continues, licking the cigarette paper. ‘Trying to rescue that cat and getting trapped in there . . .’
‘Um . . . yeah, I know.’ I nod, crossing my fingers behind my back. ‘Lucky the police found me!’
In my defence, it wasn’t me who came up with this story; it was Officer McCrory. On meeting Adam, he’d taken him to one side to ‘explain the situation’. It was only afterwards, when we were leaving, with strict instructions to Adam to ‘look after this young lady’, that he’d thrown me a wink over his shoulder and I’d realised he’d been up to something. And it wasn’t law enforcement.
‘Thanks for coming to get me –’ I smile shyly – ‘and for being so nice about everything.’
‘My pleasure.’ He grins. ‘I’m used to rescuing damsels in distress.’
‘You are?’ I peer at him in the darkness, the soft, twinkly glow from the fairy lights in my bedroom casting patterns across his face, and for a brief moment I get a wobble of insecurity. Damsels? What damsels? Who are the damsels?
‘Oh, yeah.’ He nods, his face serious. ‘It’s a little sideline I have going. When I’m not crashing gallery openings.’ He looks up at me, his mouth twisting with amusement, and I punch him playfully on the arm. ‘Hey, I’ve still got a bruise on the other arm from s€her arm óromwhere you punched me last time,’ he yelps.
‘Well, now you have a matching pair.’ I grin ruefully.
‘This is my reward for rushing out halfway through a movie?’
I look at him in astonishment. ‘You left a movie halfway through? For me?’
‘A late-night screening of Annie Hall at the Pioneer Theater.’ He nods, then seeing my face adds quickly, ‘Don’t worry, I’ve seen it a hundred times, so I know how it ends.’ He adopts a funny voice: ‘“Well, I guess that’s pretty much how I feel about relationships. You know, they’re totally irrational and