Chapter 39
Thirty-Nine
FYFE
I was only twelve when Lewis first invited me to his parents’ house for a family dinner. I’d walked into the beautiful coastal home and looked past the impressive architecture, the privilege, the view … because I was overwhelmed by the energy in the room. Lewis’s aunts and uncles and cousins were like an overfilled fruit bowl. So much color and vibrancy spilling out everywhere.
I’d never known the warmth of camaraderie, teasing banter, the hilarity of multiple conversations going on at once as food was traded up and down two tables. That first dinner was one of the happiest days of my young life, but when I’d returned home to an empty cottage, it had also been the worst.
It was at that moment I’d realized how much was missing from my life, and I’d never resented my mother more.
However, I’d rarely turned down the opportunity to sit in on an Adair family dinner. Eilidh’s parents had been attempting to organize a large dinner Millie and I could attend since I’d started seeing their daughter. My girlfriend had been putting it off because she didn’t want the scrutiny when we were so new. After I’d finally gotten up the courage to tell her I loved her, I hadn’t realized how much insecurity she’d been hoarding. I think I only realized when she immediately started planning all these family events. An official Sunday dinner with the Adairs was the first on the agenda.
Considering how protective the Adair men were, I’d expected threats and warnings. Instead, Eilidh’s uncles, much like her father, Thane, gave me big man hugs and relieved grins while thumping me on the back in welcome.
Lewis must have seen my bemusement because he’d leaned in to explain, “They know you. They trust you with her. I do too. And being with you means she’s more likely to stick around. You’re officially an Adair now. But you always were, mate.”
Honestly, I was grateful I didn’t start bawling in front of the entire family.
The best part, though, was watching Millie light up under so much attention. I was concerned this many people might be too much for her, but her unintelligible baby words and giggles floated toward me as the Adairs lavished their affection upon her. The only people not in attendance who usually were, were Callie’s mum and dad and brother. They were in Italy for ten days’ vacation.
The eldest of Lewis and Eilidh’s younger cousins were Lachlan and Robyn’s daughter, Vivien, and Arrochar and Mac’s daughter, Skye. Eilidh had told me the girls were going into their final year of high school after the summer, which seemed mind-boggling because they were toddlers when I’d first met them. Vivien and Skye couldn’t be more different, but I’d noticed how close they were at all of these dinners, and I knew from Eils that the cousins were best friends.
All the Adair kids were teens now. Arran and Eredine’s twin girls were the youngest along with Robyn and Lachlan’s boy, Brechin. They were fourteen, but Keely and Kia (the twins) were turning fifteen this year. Lennox (Nox) Brodan and Monroe’s son was sixteen.
Watching them from a father’s standpoint felt very different. I could see how quickly the years would pass. I had to make sure I didn’t miss a second of Millie’s childhood because clearly it would be over before I knew it.
The melancholic thought was stripped away as Kia and Keely asked if they could take Harley and Millie out in their strollers. We agreed, but Eilidh advised they bring Mills back if she was fussing.
As Robyn, Regan, and Thane insisted on cooking, everyone else kept them company, catching up on one another’s lives. We didn’t discuss anything too serious since most of the teens were still here, even though they didn’t appear to be listening to a word we said. They’d congregated over on the couch and now and then looked up from their individual devices to say something to each other.
There was a close call when Lewis nearly slipped up as Regan went to pour Callie a glass of wine. He’d instantly covered the glass and opened his mouth only to slam it shut. I’d smothered a smirk as he shot Callie a wide eyed “fuck” expression.
“I’m driving tomorrow.” Callie shrugged nonchalantly. “To Inverness to pick up a piece of equipment for the bakery. I can’t drink.”
No one was the wiser except the four people in the room who knew Callie was pregnant again.
The twins returned with Millie and Harley and the wee yin seemed perfectly content. Dinner was almost ready, so I set her up in a chair at the end of the table next to Harley’s high chair and me and Lewis fed our daughters their dinner before we ate.
We were just chatting among ourselves as Mac and Lachlan rose to help serve the food when Vivien wandered over to the table with Skye at her side. Her attention zeroed in on her parents in the kitchen. Vivien was precocious and extremely confident and always had been. Her boyfriend was a year older, went to college in Inverness, and they’d been dating for nine months. Lachlan hated him. Surprise, surprise. Skye was quieter, a little shyer and more reserved, though much to Mac’s chagrin, she also had a boyfriend. A boy in their year at Ardnoch High School who lived in Golspie.
“So … Skye and I had to do a family tree project for some stupid thing in English class,” Vivien announced.
Lachlan looked up from plating food. “And?”
“And … my brain hurt from trying to work out how we’re related. Skye and I are shocked, I tell you. Shocked. Perhaps even traumatized.”
Eilidh choked on her swallow of wine and I tried not to laugh.
Robyn narrowed her eyes on her daughter as she rounded the island with a plate of sides in each hand. “Why are you traumatized?”
“Eh, trying to explain to our teacher and the class how we’re related, for a start.” Vivien threw her hands up. “It is the first time in my life that I have ever acted less than cool.”
“You know”—Arran waved a fork at her, already digging into the food before everyone else—“calling yourself cool cancels out the cool.”
Brodan chuckled, nodding in agreement.
Vivien ignored both her uncles. “We had to tell our teacher we’d come back and explain it to her once you all explained it to us.”
“And you chose now?” Mac’s lips curled with suppressed laughter.
“Well, you’re all here, Pops.”
“You’ve been calling that man your grandfather since you could talk and you haven’t figured out you and Skye are more than cousins?” Lewis teased.
Everyone burst into laughter.
Vivien sighed heavily with the weariness of being cooler than everyone else in the room. “Aye, but how do you explain that? You try!”
“If Dad is Vivien’s grandfather,” Skye spoke up, “then how is Mum her aunt Arro?”
“Because I’m both,” Arro offered. “And I’m slightly worried that it’s taken you almost eighteen years to ask this. No offense, sweeties.”
I smothered a snort.
“Like, I’ve been calling you Aunt Robyn”—Skye directed her attention to Robyn—“but you’re actually like my sister?”
“Half sister.” Robyn frowned. “We’ve talked about this. Surely?” She placed more plates in front of folks and stood back, hands on her hips. “We cannot have gone eighteen years without addressing this.”
“Well, it is a bit incestuous,” Brodan joked.
Monroe shoved him and he gave a bark of laughter.
“It is?” Vivien and Skye asked in unison.
“Ha ha! You’re incestuous!” Brechin shouted comically from the living room, not even looking up from his Nintendo.
“If I am, you are too!” Vivien rolled her eyes drolly and gestured over her shoulder. “Worry less about my intelligence and more about the tool behind me.”
“I think it’s just so intertwined, no one ever talked about it,” Eredine said. “The relationship between you all, I mean.”
“Explain it from the start,” I inserted. “Maybe if we break it down, we can come up with a coherent explanation for your teacher.”
“Okay.” Vivien pointed to her mother. “Mum married Dad. Dad’s sister is Aunt Arro. Mum’s dad is Mac, and Mac married Aunt Arro. So … Mum is Skye’s half sister through her dad, but she’s also Skye’s aunt through Lachlan’s sibling relationship to Aunt Arro.”
“Correct.” Robyn nodded.
“Aunt Arro is technically my aunt but also my grandmother because she’s married to my mum’s dad.”
“Also correct.”
Vivien made a face. “And you don’t think that’s confusing?”
“I have a vague memory of asking that exact question as a child.” Eilidh’s lips trembled with laughter.
“You forgot the part where Lachlan is Skye’s uncle via Arro but also her brother-in-law,” Arran added helpfully.
Arro shot her brother a killing look. He grinned unrepentantly.
“So what are me and Skye?” Vivien asked.
“Cousins via your dad and Aunt Arro,” Robyn provided. “And technically, Skye is your aunt via me and your pops.”
A smug grin curled the corners of Skye’s mouth. “Interesting.”
Everyone burst into laughter.
Especially when Vivien, who’d always considered herself the more authoritative of the two, contemplated that and said, “I think we should never speak of this weirdness again and go back to being just cousins.”
“That might be for the best,” Mac agreed with a grin.
“I don’t know what you’re laughing at. I blame you, Pops.”
“What did I do?”
“Married my sister,” Lachlan offered helpfully. “Robyn and I married first. You two”—he gestured between Arro and Mac—“are to blame for making it weird by marrying next.”
“I was in love with Arro before you even met Robyn. You married my daughter.”
They bickered good-naturedly and Brodan turned to his nieces. “See what you’ve done? We’ve gone a decade without this argument recurring.”
“Hey, we’re the offspring of their weirdness. If anyone has trauma from it, it’s us.”
“Oh, so much trauma,” Lewis teased. “With your privileged lives and loving family. How will you ever cope?”
Vivien very maturely stuck out her tongue at her cousin and settled at the small table with the rest of the teens to eat.
“Have I mentioned lately how much I love your family?” I said to Eilidh as we all dug into eat.
“Your family too.” She nudged me before taking a bite of her roast dinner.
Aye, my family too now.
I couldn’t wait to make it official. But Eilidh had only just moved in, and her new career was only on its training wheels. Patience. The time would come soon enough.