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(7) | .Riley. | Now

"Why are you only telling me this now?" I'm fuming but I try not to let it show.

Adam sat across the table from me, his hands laid out in front of him with his palms brushing mine. I look into his eyes but he doesn't look into mine. He doesn't look at me at all. 

"I told you, Riley. It's a work situation. I have no control over it." 

"But you've obviously known for a while. Why are you telling me now, this late in the evening on a Friday night?" 

His eyes darken and he shakes his head, his palms coiling and unravelling repeatedly. "I've told you now," he huffs, like that makes the fact he kept this trip a secret from me for the past month excusable. 

"Yeah. And next week you'll be leaving for a trip for two long fucking months." 

His eyes fall on mine but without an ounce of love. Just pure disgust. His gaze is hard but not raw. I've seen this look on his face a thousand times before. It's nothing new. He's studying me like I'm his newest court case. He's examining me like we're having a dispute. We are having a dispute.

"Where were you anyway?" His eyes don't leave my face even when he stands up to head into the kitchen to grab himself a drink. 

This time I don't have Arabella to hide behind or use as protection. I'm on my own, without a shield, and the longer I stay silent the louder Adam's pupils become. 

He stares me down, waiting for a response. I can't say I was with James because Adam never allowed me to meet up with people. I can hardly understand why he was so keen on getting me to introduce myself to James in the first place. Unless he knew something I didn't, it didn't make much sense. 

"Well?" he pushes. His voice doesn't get stuck in his throat the way mine normally does. It flares like fire, and mine drips like drizzle. 

"I went to go and see Sydney at the bar. Blue Flamingo." 

"You mean the bar she works at?" He's onto me.

"Yeah, she was off today," I mumble, looking down. 

His eyes narrow as he opens the fridge. "So where was Arabella?" 

"With us. I was the one keeping an eye on her, remember? She just wanted to see her mom for a bit."

He hums and turns back around to peer into the fridge before slamming it shut after taking his fresh can of Red Bull out. "What happened to the fridge?"

"James came to check it out earlier today," I say to him, this time a lot more confidently because I knew it was true and that Adam was the one who had sent him. "He said to defrost it." 

Adam's eyes linger on mine, like he couldn't tell whether or not I was telling the truth. I stare at him just as much. Avoiding eye-contact would make it look like I was lying. I wasn't. 

I wait for him to say something but it seems to take forever. I can't tell what he's thinking. I want him to hit me up with a simple okay, walk out of the room and leave me to myself. 

At the same time, I also want him to apologize for his behavior lately, walk over to me and give me a meaningful hug. I want him to smile his beautiful, genuine smile - the one I thought I fell in love with when I was a lump of heartbreak laying across the hospital bed over half a decade ago. 

But I wait. And after sixty seconds of waiting, he falters and breaks his stance. "I'm going to head to bed," he alerts me. It had become his usual routine. He got home, had a drink, went straight to bed. There was no time for talking. No time for me. No time for us. It felt like there was no us.