Miss You, Love You

Chapter 1

I had found myself thinking a lot about Adam the past few weeks. I hadn't seen him come out of the Cactus and I hadn't even bothered to get his phone number so I had no way to contact him about the necklace. To honour my oath of spontaniety I had gotten a calico kitten, which I had named Ernest. He was a lot like me in some ways. He was quiet, reserved, and only came out of the office for food. Almost ever night when I was studying I would look at the forgotten necklace and wonder who 'M' was. I had hung it above my desk on a nail so it wouldn't get lost in the precarious stacks of books and paper. I still carried the note around in my pocket, which I decided was borderline creepy, but still kept it there anyway.

  It was my day for a grocery run since I had nothing going on. Looking in my closet for something decent to wear I only found the red lifeguard t-shirt and a black zip up sweater. I quickly threw it on and scrawled down on a piece of paper what I thought I might need. It never failed that I was going to forget something whether I wrote it down or not. Grabbing my wallet and keys I locked the apartment and ran to get a cab. 

  Walking into the grocery store I subconsciously recognized an overplayed pop song that I'd heard on the radio. Whenever I came to the small, homely grocery store I headed straight to the used book bin in the produce section. It was really silly but I couldn't really shop without knowing if I was coming home with a book or not. I smiled to myself and picked out a few yellowed Penguin classics and threw them in the bottom of my cart. As soon as I turned into the spice aisle I saw that familiar tousled head inspecting the meat rubs. I didn't know whether to just keep going or talk to him. We really had only met once and never exchanged names in person. My mouth and body reacted before my mind did and before I knew it I was tapping him on the shoulder. Adam turned around in surprise but his face softened when he saw that it was only me. 

"Hi." I awkwardly fiddled with my hoodie strings. "It's Auralee. From a few weeks ago, remember?" 

"Yeah. How are you?" He gave me a once over like he was still remembering who I was. "Funny question, but did we ever... You know." He quirked his eyebrow and looked at me. 

"What?" I was taken aback with the question.

"Did we ever sleep together?" He lowered his voice and leaned in closer. I could smell the mint gum on his breath.

"Did we...? What! Oh, God no!" I blushed and nervously tucked a wavy lock of hair behind my ear. He studied my face again and then looked down at the t-shirt, remembering. 

"Oh! You helped me outside the bar!" It was his turn to feel awkward as he stuck out his hand. "Adam. We didn't really get a chance to meet the other night. I kinda fell asleep on you." He flashed me an enticing smile and leaned on the shelf. I was starting to wonder how much he actually got around if he even had to ask me that question. I shook his warm hand, which was huge compared to mine and immediately stuck it in my hoodie pocket. There was something about this man that made me freeze up inside and I had no idea what it was.

"You left a necklace at my house. Do you want to meet up sometime so I can give it back to you?" His lime green Nike running shoes squeaked on the waxed floor in the silence. I then realized that he looked like he had just come from the gym. His hair had a bedhead look to it that I couldn't decide was natural or intentional. He had a bit more stubble than the last time that I had seen him and I decided that I liked a guy that could pull off a nice 5 o'clock shadow. I pushed the swirling thoughts of Adam to the back of my brain and gave him a sweet smile.

"What did it look like?" He scowled at the mention of the necklace.

"I don't really remember..." I seriously didn't want him to know that I had been studying it. 

"How about we meet up for coffee? Here's my number." He whipped out a pen from his sweater pocket like he was prepared to dole out his number at all times. I stared at him not knowing if I should offer my hand or find a scrap of a receipt from my wallet. He rolled his eyes playfully and grabbed my hand.

"You are a strange girl, Auralee." He muttered as he wrote down his number on my wrist. "Do you want to join me?" He only had a razor, and a stick of deodorant in the basket he was carrying. I decided against looking to see what brand the deoderant was because I could feel my cheeks heating up. It was like he could tell what I was thinking about him and I wasn't sure if I liked that.

"I was almost done but sure." I started to push the cart down the aisle but he grabbed one of the bargain books out of the bottom of the cart. "Adam! Hey!" He gave me a sheepish grin and handed it back to me after reading the back cover.

"Sorry. I find your reading material interesting. Most girls don't even know who Steinbeck is much less read him." He pushed up the sleeves of his dark heather grey sweater to his elbows and I saw a dark pink line of a healing scar snaking down on his inner forearm that recently had stitches taken out of it. I couldn't take it anymore. I had to know why he always looked like he was on the tail end of a fight. I grabbed his arm and looked at his scar.

"Adam. What do you even do that you get so many injuries? First your ribs and now this?"

"It sounds like your worried about me." He smirked and his hazel eyed sparkled. I stopped in the middle of the aisle and put my hands on my hips.

"I can't go out for coffee with you if you're in a gang." It was meant to be playful, but I wasn't really kidding.

"I'm a boxer. Don't you read the newspaper?" He laughed at my expression and grabbed my cart and started back along the aisle without me. 

"Your a what?" I had to jog to catch up with his long strides.

"Please tell me you know what boxing is. You read Hemingway." He gave me a joking look.

"Yes I know what a boxer is! And give me back my cart." I tried to shove him out of the way with my hip but he was taller than I was so that was nearly impossible. I was barely as tall as his shoulder and I caught the scent of his cologne as he draped his arm around me. 

"Oh come on. You know this is more fun." I swear this man radiated weak knees for whomever was in his vicinity. An older lady looked at us and winked at me. 

"We're not... Oh, Lord." I threw my hands up and ducked out from under his arm. 

"Now look what you did. Now she thinks we're going out." I tried to shove him and failed. He laughed at me and grabbed his vibrating phone from his track pants and glanced at it. His expression changed and he grabbed his one razor and stick of deodorant. 

"I've got to run. See you on Thursday or something? Call me?" He shot over his shoulder as he jogged out of the aisle. I stood by the cake mixes barely registering what had happened.