If Walls Could Talk (Adamtina)

Chapter 14

Christina felt like she'd turned hollow. "Claire..." she breathed, her voice tinged with shock. "You know it's not up to me -"
"Yes, it is!" Claire cut in quickly, her voice somber. "And you know it."
No I don't. Because that would mean...
"I know h-how he feels about you..." Claire whispered. "Even after all this time." Her voice cracked with sadness. "It's - it's always been that way... I know it. I know him... I-I can see it."
"Please, Claire..." Christina begged, her stomach churning with nausea.
If what she's saying is true...
"I know that I'd never leave him," Claire pleaded softly, begging Christina for permission to marry her own fiancée.
I can't even believe this is happening. This is just too fucking wrong.
"You have," Claire continued, "You've left him... Which means you can't honestly say that you know you wouldn't do it again... y-you're obviously capable of it."
No!
"You can't say that, Claire," Christina blurted with a frightened annoyance. She was prepared to accept Claire's attacks, but this was her limit. Leaving Adam was a mistake she was never going to make twice. "You haven't any idea about how I would be with Adam than I do about you."
Claire exhaled loudly before she ran her stressed fingers through her hair.
"Well, it's over then..." Claire breathed before a hard sob burst from her chest and she began crying uncontrollably.
Christina felt like she could throw up as she just sat there and watched Claire weeping into her long fingers. She felt like she should put her arm around her and comfort her, but at the same time she knew that's the last thing she should do. If there'd been a trap door below her feet she would have jumped right through it.
"No..." Christina begged, her voice thick with her own sobs. "It's not over... he's marrying you, Claire, he - he loves you... I don't know what else you need..." Christina felt like she could collapse. The truth of what she was saying broke her own heart, but seeing Claire crying in front of her was making her feel worse than she'd ever felt in her life. Maybe it was better to break her own heart than someone else's.
Claire just shook her head as she tried to wipe away a torrent of tears from her eyes with both hands. "But if you still want him Christina and h-he knows, I - I just think..." she tried to finish but her sentence only ended in tears as her whole body shook with defeat.
"He doesn't want me, Claire..." Christina whispered, but for the first time she really wondered if that was true. Claire's reaction was far from what she'd have ever expected, and it was making her doubt everything.
"And if he does?" Claire asked suddenly and softly as she looked up at Christina, lines of mascara drawn down her cheeks. "You'll take him from me?"
Christina felt her entire body crumple.
You're making this so hard.
Christina opened her mouth and tried to answer but couldn't. For the first time she was questioning what she'd really do if Adam told her he loved her. Whether she could really do this to Claire after hearing her plead for her own fiancée's heart so pathetically. She had no fucking idea. Right now all she wanted to do was turn and run out the door and never come back.
"B-because the only way - the only way for me to t-truly have him, Christina, the way I need him is - is for you to tell him you don't want him."
Christina felt her face pleading with Claire, as if to say 'you're wrong', but Claire just nodded sadly.
"It's true, Christina ..." she whispered. "It took him so long to get over you... I don't know if he ever really did. He loved you so much..." Christina's heart was bursting with emotion as Claire continued. "If he thinks for even a moment that there's still a chance with you," She continued, "I..." she shrugged and shook her head as if she was totally powerless. "I don't think he'll ever really be mine."
Christina just sat there and let the depressing truth wash over her. She felt like she was surrounded by soldiers with machetes. She loved Adam with all her heart. But he was engaged to another woman who was sitting here begging her to set him free. To lie to his face and tell him that she didn't really want him, so he could go off and marry her without regret. Without question. To let them be happy together.
Christina felt like she couldn't see straight anymore, let alone make a decision. The absolute last thing she wanted was to let Adam go if there was even a chance he still loved her. But, then again, maybe what she wanted even more was to not cause him any more pain. To not cause anybody any more pain.
A bleak sigh escaped Christina's body before Claire suddenly lifted up her wrist and looked at her watch.
Fucking hell! What time is it?
Christina's eyes flicked to her clock. Adam wasn't due for another hour.
"I have to go..." Claire suddenly mumbled, her voice morose as she slowly rose up. "I'm already late getting back."
Christina just stood up after her, totally numb as Claire picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. There's no way Christina was going to serve up a fresh can of worms and tell Claire Adam was coming over. If he was still coming, that is. Christina suspected the first thing Claire would do when she left her house was call him. Christina didn't even want to think about how that conversation might go. She just had no idea what to say or do so she followed her to the front door in silence and opened it for her, stepping to the side so she could exit. When Claire's body brushed past hers an icy tension passed through them.
"I'm really so, so sorry..." Christina whispered again as Claire turned around to face her.
Claire just pursed her lips together and looked at Christina for a long moment before looking away.
"I can't blame you for loving him," Claire mumbled to the floor before looking back at Christina again. And a bizarre moment of understanding passed between them. "But if you truly do... love him..." Claire whispered, her voice cracking, "then maybe you'll just let him be happy." And her eyes held Christina's for a long moment, as if to reinforce her words, before she turned and hurried down Christina's path and out of her gate.
A sudden sob erupted from Christina's chest as she closed the door and leaned her forehead against it, trying to block the burning swarm of thoughts.
If only she knew what making Adam happy truly meant.
***
As Adam walked up Christina's pathway towards her front door, he realized he hadn't felt this nervous for long time. Not even when he dropped to one knee and asked Claire to marry him a year ago. There wasn't even a ring anywhere in sight today, and yet he felt nothing but apprehension and light-headedness, his stomach buzzing with butterflies.
When he reached Christina's door he stopped and just stood there for a moment, exhaling deeply and trying to restore some calm to his almost-shaking body. He still couldn't quite believe he was about to see her. Even just hearing her voice through her security intercom had flooded him with a feeling he just couldn't describe. It kind of reminded him of how he'd felt one Thursday evening several years ago, when he and Christina were halfway through filming Moves Like Jagger and, behind the scenes on a break, he'd leaned right over her and suddenly kissed her.
Adam felt a mixture of nauseating nervousness and schoolboy excitement as he stood there and ran his fingers through his hair, pulling a few random pieces up at the top. Something unbelievable had happened to him in the last 48 hours. He'd gone from completely freaking out over the bombshell Christina had dropped on the beach, to needing to know why and how long she'd felt that way, to realizing with sudden and stunning clarity that he felt the same way too. And now it was like not a day had gone by. He'd realized he still felt the same way he had when Christina had returned his kiss that first time and they'd spent the next three hours losing their tongues inside each other's mouths.
So many feelings had crowded Adam's heart since his conversation with his mom yesterday. Christina's crazy schedule meant she'd taken a lot longer than he'd anticipated to reply to his message; so long, in fact, that he'd begun to suspect she wasn't going to reply at all. He'd sat over roast beef with Claire last night waiting for his phone to silently vibrate in his pocket, his appetite sinking with every minute that passed by without movement. But then, later on, as Claire was brushing her teeth in the bathroom and he was stretched on the sofa, the series of texts came, and Adam felt his body simultaneously relax and tense as they made their plans to meet. And then guilt had attacked his heart like an enraged animal as he quickly deleted the messages before Claire could see them.
Claire. In just a few bizarre days, Adam had come to tragically feel he was living with someone he didn't even recognize as he blindly acted out his role of fiancée. Or maybe it was himself he didn't recognize. The brutal reality of how quickly his feelings had changed made him physically sick but, at the same time, he knew that his love for Claire was still there, albeit strangled by something even stronger that had usurped it. There were still moments when he'd catch her beautiful profile in the right light, or when she'd kiss the back of his shoulder in bed, that he remembered the man he had become and who he was marrying. He still had a lot of real feelings for her.
But they had just become moments now. Moments surrounded from all sides by an all-present love for Christina that coated his insides and claimed his heart. A deeper love.
He missed her.
And now it was time to tell her.
All the self-calming he had attempted at Christina's door was obliterated with the decision to press the doorbell as he quickly pulled his phone out of his pocket to make sure it was turned to silent. He frowned when he saw two missed calls from Claire, both in the past hour, but he just suppressed the sharp stab they brought him and chose to listen to her messages afterwards. Right now, hearing Claire's voice would probably send the nervous bile that was building up in the back of his throat spilling right over onto Christina's doorstep.
Sliding his phone back in his pocket, Adam stared ahead at the door that was still so familiar to him. This was once his home too, and now here he was reaching out and ringing her doorbell again. Their doorbell. Adam felt his heart thumping like a bass drum in his chest.
And then the door gently opened and she was standing there.
Adam felt his heart flood to the point of bursting as their eyes met, blue locking to hazel as electricity sparked between them. Christina's mouth dropped open a little as she looked back at him, Adam feeling his face soften as he drunk her in.
How can you still have this effect on me?
After a moment, Christina smiled softly and whispered, "Hi," stepping to the side in invitation for him to walk inside.
Adam just gave her a warm half-smile back and passed by her. As his body brushed against hers in the tight space he felt an overwhelming desire to just grab her by the waist and pull her soft mouth up to his so he could finally taste her again. To claim her tongue with his as he pushed her up against the wall; blocking her with his body so she could literally never leave him again and feel through his jeans how much he needed her. But instead he swallowed tightly and continued past, feeling all the hairs on his body standing on end as Christina closed the door and followed him down her hallway. Her body was so close on his heels he could smell her shampoo, and all he would have to do was stop mid-stride and turn around and she'd be in his arms. But he kept walking.
Memories crashed into Adam's mind as he entered the living room, glancing towards the kitchen... the cozy sofa that she hadn't replaced since they broke up... the hallway that lead to their old bedroom. It still felt like home.
I want to wake up here again.
The feeling made him throb with guilt as quickly as it came.
"Can I get you anything?" Christina asked softly as she curled her hand around Adam's bare forearm, which nearly sent a shockwave through him. Oh God... that feeling again... the connection. Imagine how it would feel if they really put skin on skin. He looked down at Christina's tiny hand before she quickly removed it. He just shook his head gently and replied, "I'm cool, thanks." Adam felt his insides turning cartwheels as Christina nodded and smiled back, their eyes already stripping each other naked, before she led him towards the sofa so they could sit down.
Fuck. This is it, dude, this is really happening. Don't fuck it up.
As Adam sat down opposite Christina, he felt his stomach flip as reality smacked him in the face again. He was finally able to tell Christina how he really felt about her. How little his feelings for her had changed over the years, even though he'd worked so hard to suppress them - to move on. He still couldn't quite believe that he could just sit here and tell her he still loved her like it was the most normal thing in the world, and that she was probably going to say it back.
How the fuck did that happen?
But then Claire's smiling face suddenly hijacked his thoughts and took his ability to speak with it.
Yeah, it might have made some fucking sense to actually plan what you were going to say in advance, you fuck up. Then you might not be sitting here like a mute idiot.
Adam fumbled for words to say, but Christina's sudden and heavy sigh flooded him with an instinctive sense of panic, like something was wrong.
"H-how was your morning?" He quickly asked, driven by a need to just get the conversation going.
A noticeable moment of darkness crossed Christina's face before she took a deep breath and offered a small, tight smile.
"It was... fine," She replied softly, shaking her head a little to settle her hair on her shoulders.
Which was when Adam noticed what looked different about her.
"Your hair... you changed it a bit," he said through a half-smile as his eyes slowly moved down the long hair that framed her beautiful face so well. He followed the loose curls all the way down to the tops of the curves of her breasts, suddenly imagining what it would feel like to slide his tongue over her nipples again... slowly and deliberately... and for hours if he could. Suddenly his dick sprung to life inside his jeans. He swallowed hard and looked back up at Christina.
God, I want to touch you. I want to touch your hair.
Christina just chuckled softly and mumbled, "Thank you,", but bent her head down like she was embarrassed about the hair comment. "Lucky tomorrow's my last day of last details for tour, then it's rehearsals and I'm back to my power wigs, ha!" Adam felt the smile touch his face. She was so cute. And she probably didn't even remember how much he'd always loved her hair. Fuck, like she could get any sexier. The things he could do to her as he wrapped that amazing hair around his hand and pulled hard.
Shut the fuck up, you pervert. And what would Claire think? Yeah, you remember her. Your fiancée.
Christina's smile dropped off of her face as she looked back at Adam, clearly noticing his sudden change in thought. They just looked at each other for a moment before Christina nervously whispered, "So you ... you said you wanted to talk?"
Adam felt his stomach drop as she looked back at him. He shifted in his seat.
Oh fuck, it's now. Where the hell do I begin?
Adam twisted his fingers tightly together as he collected his thoughts.