"Not crazy, just disorganized," said the small mechanical voice coming from the box in Danny's hand. Everyone went silent for a moment, and then they all burst into laughter that filled the room. I watched in amazement, feeling envious of their closeness as I slowly moved toward the door.
"Oh no you don't, Mr. Wallace," Verity said noticing my attempted escape.
"But I'm the one who caused the problem," I protested as I looked around for a way to escape.
"That may very well be," Verity smiled. "But now you're going to be an important part of the solution."
Chapter Thirty-One
Grace
It had only been a month since our parents had died and two weeks since Adam had crashed into our lives. Although we’d bounced back as best we could, I could feel the aching loss and knew we needed to keep busy if we were going to make out plan work. For the next few days, we all joined together and tried to come up with a plan that would keep everything running long enough to get the turbines up and working. It was a long shot, and one that had the potential to backfire in a big way, but considering the potential benefits, it seemed like a smart gamble. I tried to steer clear of Adam as best I could because every time I was anywhere near him, I wanted to pull him away from the rest so I could feel his warm naked body pressed against mine, but more than that, there were things I wanted to know about Adam.
It was a busy week as we all put our energy into the plan that Adam might be able to use to sell the community on turbine technology, and before I knew it, Wednesday had arrived. I was scheduled to leave early the next morning so that I could be back in Chicago after lunch, but I didn't want to leave without talking to Adam, so late that evening, when everyone else had long since gone to bed, I snuck down the stairs and lightly tapped on his door.
"Who is it?" he asked through the closed door.
"Who do you think it is, silly?" I whispered as I cracked the door open and slipped inside.
Adam was naked from the waist up, covered by a quilt as he frowned at something on his phone. I padded over to the bed and sat down on the edge.
"You know, you really shouldn't run around in silky, pink lingerie," he said without looking up but letting me know he hadn't missed a thing. "Don't you Amish girls usually wear long, cotton nightgowns that keep everything covered?"
"Ha ha, very funny, Wallace," I said rolling my eyes at his lame attempt at stereotyping. I pulled my feet up underneath me and sat cross-legged on the opposite end of the bed.
"What?" he said, putting his phone on the nightstand and giving me his undivided attention. "What's that look about?"
"Who are you?" I blurted out.
"Adam Wallace, turbine salesman and Chicago resident," he said holding my gaze.
"I know that. I mean, who are you? Where do you come from? Who are your parents?" I peppered him with the questions that had been ping ponging around my brain since I'd discovered him on the living room couch. "You don't talk about anything connected to your life, and I'm curious about who you are and where you come from."
"Eh, not much to tell," he shrugged as he looked away. "I'm an only child. Went to boarding schools most of my life and got a degree in engineering from MIT. My best friend, Bugsy, is in charge of the turbine operation in Chicago, and I'm the one charged with the task of selling the technology we developed. Well, we adapted it, really, we didn't invent it."
"Where are your parents?" I asked.
"Chicago."
"What do they do?"
"My father owns an energy company that does a lot of business overseas and my mother is...well, she's a housewife, I guess," he said.
"You don't seem very effusive about them," I observed. It wasn't that he wasn't effusive; it was that he obviously didn't want to even talk about them. "Are you close to them?"
"Look, why are you giving me the third-degree about my parents?" he said sounding irritated. "We're not as close as you and your family. Is that what you want to hear?"
"I don't want to hear anything," I said, shifting my position so that I could wrap my arms around my knees as I watched Adam's face. He looked like he wanted to say something, but then he shook his head and mumbled something I couldn't understand. "What is it, Adam?"
"Nothing, it's nothing," he said picking at an invisible thread in the quilt. "It's just..."
"Just what?"
"My family isn't like yours, Grace," he said without looking up. "We're just...different."
"You mean your family isn't Amish?" I laughed.
"No, not like that. I mean, we're not Amish," he said as he looked up at me and smiled halfheartedly. "We're just really different from your family, that's all."