Until Fountain Bridge (On Dublin Street 1.5)

Adam gave me a quizzical smile and then said, “Anytime you need me, you call, okay?”

I nodded.

“Okay, sweetheart. I’ll see you later. ”

“Bye. ”

He grinned at me again and his grin caused another wave of weird tingling to spread over me. As I watched him get into his car and drive away it occurred to me that my crush on Adam had just intensified. My brain was no longer the only thing attracted to Adam. My hormonally-charged teenage body was now too.

Chapter 2

Adam’s brow was puckered as he lifted his head from the diary but he gave me a small, amused smile. “I don’t know how I feel about sexually awakening a fourteen year old. It’s all a bit Lolita-like. ”

I laughed at his discomfort. “It’s not as if you felt the same way about me back then.

Anyway, now that I’m yours, would you really have preferred if some other guy gave me my sexual awakening?”

Now his brow knit together completely and he glanced back down at the pages. “Good point,” he muttered.

“Here. ” I handed him another diary, open to more than half-way through, and took the one with my fourteen year old thoughts out of his hands. “This is from the year after that. ”

Saturday, September 23rd I am this close to screaming at Adam to stop treating me like a sister. I’m not his sister! I wish he’d just get that already… I took a deep breath, holding the mascara wand away from my eyelashes. Staring at myself in my dressing table mirror, I exhaled slowly and mentally coached myself to calm down. As much as I tried, I could not stop the wild flutter of butterflies in my belly. I gave up and leaned back into the mirror to liberally apply mascara since it was the only makeup Mum would let me wear. I had long fair eye-lashes so no one could tell how long they were until I started wearing black mascara. They were long and now that they were black they made my pale blue eyes even bluer.

Hopefully the mascara also made me look a little older because, even though I was tall, I was still skinny with small boobs and had a smattering of freckles across the bridge of my nose that made me feel about five years old instead of fifteen.

I had a date tonight. My first date. With Sam Smith who was a sixth year, meaning he was two years older than me and he was cute and cool and I really, really liked him.

As much as I could like any boy who wasn’t Adam.

Not that Adam was a boy any more.

A knock sounded at my bedroom door as I ran a brush through my long hair for the hundredth time. “Come in!” I called, somewhat agitated since I thought it was probably my Mum, who seemed to be at once both more excited than me about the date, and also more concerned.

To my surprise, the head that popped around the door wasn’t Mum’s but Adam’s.

My heart did this little flippy thing in my chest that it did every time I saw him and I smiled brightly at him. “What are you doing here?”

He stepped inside and closed the door, his brows drawing together in consternation as I stood up to greet him. His eyes travelled the length of me and I saw a muscle tick in his jaw.

I was wearing a white sleeveless shift dress. It had a modest neckline and I was wearing a cardigan to cover my arms, and black tights to cover my bare legs, but I was guessing the short hemline still pissed him off. The reminder that he thought of me as a little sister he needed to protect pissed me off. I crossed my arms over my chest, and the movement brought his eyes back up to my face.

“Clark told Braden you had a date tonight. We both wanted to drop by for the momentous occasion. Who is he?”

I rolled my eyes at his overbearing tone. “Just a boy. ”

“And how old is this boy?” Adam asked softly as he took a few steps toward me.

“Where’s Braden?”

“Downstairs. Don’t dodge the question. How old?”

“Sam is seventeen. ”

“What?” he inhaled sharply. “And Elodie agreed to this?”

He didn’t mention Clark, since Clark was far more laid-back about these things than Mum.

“She’s excited for me actually. ”

“She’s chirping like a nervous chicken downstairs. ”

“That’s because Sam will be here any minute. ” I avoided his eyes, not liking that stubborn tilt to his chin.

“Where is he taking you?”

“Cinema, then dinner. ”

“You’ll be home before eleven?”

I grabbed my purse up off my bed and threw out an exaggerated sigh. “Yes-uh. ”

“And you won’t let him touch you. ”

It wasn’t a question.

I froze at his command and narrowed my eyes on him as he took the last remaining steps toward me until he was standing right in front of me, so close I had to tilt my head back to meet his gaze. “It’s a date, Adam,” I whispered. “Touching is supposed to be involved. ”