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fine.”
                  I shook my head. “No, I’ll call Adam. I don’t think he’s doing anything.” I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed Adam’s number. It rang for what felt like an eternity before he finally answered.
                  “Yeah?” I could hear music in the background.
                  “Where are you?” I asked, frowning to myself.
                  “Brad’s. Why?”
                  “I need you to come pick me up from Bella Vista.”
                  “I thought Sylvia was doing that on her way to the store?”
                  “We already went to the store. I had to come back. It’s a long story.”
                  The music in the background became muffled, and I could picture Adam holding the phone away from his ear, covering the mouthpiece with his hand. He came back a few seconds later, sounding annoyed.
                  “Can’t Mason drop you off? I just got here and I told Brad I’d help him get ready for the barbeque tonight.”             
                  “What barbeque?”
                  “The one he decided to throw last minute. Want to come?”
                  I couldn’t imagine anything I’d like to do less. Brad was one of the guys Adam worked with and they’d become fast friends sometime before Nolan went to California. He was Nolan’s replacement as far as I was concerned, and not a very good one. For all Nolan’s cockiness and over assurance of himself, at least he had a good part to him, a side that seemed almost sensitive at times. Not Brad. He was twenty-five, had a son with a girl he was no longer with and never had anything nice to say about and lived in a rental property near the beach.
                  “No,” I said, and got a sigh in response from Adam. He was always telling me I needed to give Brad and the other guys a chance, that they were his friends now. Everyone he’d known in high school had gone off to college, so it wasn’t like he had much of a selection.
                  “Why?” He asked. “It’ll be fun. My mom can watch Harper for a few hours. You might actually enjoy yourself.”
                  I highly doubted that. “I’m tired and stressed out, Adam. I don’t feel like spending time at a barbeque with people I don’t like. You go and have a good time, okay? And don’t worry about picking me up. I’ll just ask Mason to do it.”
                  “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he said, and I could tell from the sound of his voice that he was clenching his jaw. I hung up the phone and squeezed my eyes shut.
                  “Trouble in paradise?” Mason asked, sounding sympathetic.
                  “I wish I knew,” I replied.

Chapter 5
                  Sunday came and went the way every Sunday had all summer. Adam hadn’t gotten home from the barbeque until late the night before, smelling like charcoal and beer, and slept in long after I’d gotten up and started Harper’s day.
                  I wasn’t angry about it. Some part of me still felt guilt over all this, like it was completely my fault that our lives had changed and we weren’t really teenagers anymore. If going to barbeques thrown by people that were hardly likeable and drinking too much were how Adam wanted to spend his Saturday nights, then so be it. Too much of me knew that I was lucky he was even still around, that he supported Harper and me both financially and sometimes emotionally. As untraditional a life as Harper might end up having, at least she’d always have her dad around. The same couldn’t even be said for me.
                  Adam woke up around noon, showered and left again around three. He promised he’d be home for dinner but then called back around five