11. Addie
ADDIE
“Are you into my sister?”
I twisted the napkin in my fingers, waiting for Adam to show up for our weekly dinner with his question to Blake still in my head. It had been two months since that day at the stadium, when Blake’s response echoed back to me inside the concourse.
For the most part, I’d put it out of my head.
But every Sunday, like clockwork, it tolled again.
With a shaky breath, I set my napkin down before I tore it to shreds, and I picked up my water, taking a sip. My phone lit up with a notification from Dad.
I read the message: “How’s it hanging, kid?”
Then I clicked the button on the side to turn the screen off and flipped the phone face down on the table.
“You’ve got this, kid.”
I closed my eyes, releasing an exasperated when my phone buzzed again and checking it quickly.
Even though he knew where I was every Sunday, Finn worried if I didn’t respond right away. He didn’t text to check on me during Sunday dinner often, but I didn’t want to miss it if the message was from him.
Laughing softly at the meme he’d sent me, I typed out a quick response, letting him know Adam had just arrived.
He hadn’t, but he was supposed to be here any second, and I needed a minute to gather my thoughts. Finn replied quickly, asking if Blake was joining us.
My fingers trembled as I typed back, “No.”
When a heart came back in response, I put my phone away and searched through the glass doors for Adam. I’d grabbed our usual table at Grayson’s Bar, a chill bistro away from the bars on campus.
As it had been every Sunday since January, I spent the minutes before Adam arrived in a state of anxiety.
Blake hadn’t shown up once, but I still wondered if he would each time.
Hoped, maybe. Even though I’d put those dreams behind me. Because two months was the longest we’d ever gone without seeing each other, and I missed him.
Even if I had no right to do that, either.
It had been my decision.
Two months of his absence had been entirely self-inflicted.
But by creating distance myself, I expected the hurt. Instead of having my hope shatter each time he paid me a lick of attention without wanting more.
I’d spent eighteen years of my life loving Blake Hawthorne and hoping he’d see me.
“Of course, Addie is pretty. But you guys are…family.”
After a few steadying breaths, I forced the thoughts aside.
I was happy with Finn. He saw me. Cherished me. Protected me.
It was time to grow up.
A bell chimed, and I lifted my head as Adam walked through the door alone.
He frowned and came straight to the table, not even bothering to say hello before pointing at where I sat. “That’s my seat.”
I looked up at him, blinking innocently at his claim. “Your seat?”
The furrow between his eyebrows deepened. “Yes, Addie. My seat.” He pointed to the chair where I currently sat. “You’re in my seat.”
I feigned shock, gaping at him. “This seat?” I whipped my gaze between the wood of the stool between my legs and my brother’s nonplussed face. “That can’t be right.”
“What?” he grated out his words, and while I had a momentary hint of remorse, I pushed through it. “What do you mean that can’t be right? I always sit in the seat facing the door.”
I acted thoroughly confused. “You do?”
“Yes, Addie! You know I don’t like to sit with my back to the door.”
Shaking my head, I picked up my menu. “That doesn’t sound familiar.”
“Wha—Addie, stop this right now. I don’t like it.”
Reaching into my bag, I slid a familiar pamphlet across the table. Adam, not recognizing it at first, picked it up as if it were of interest. He scanned the contents.
Then he crumpled it into a ball and pinged it at my chest.
He came around the table, lifted my stool—with me in it—and moved me to the other side, putting my back to the door as he brought the empty stool back around and took his seat.
While getting comfortable, he smiled, entirely too pleased with himself. “See. I didn't need a pamphlet to tell me you needed to move your ass. I simply solved the problem. And I didn’t lose my temper, which indicates emotional regulation and disproves your theory.”
I beamed at him. “I missed you, Adam.”
“Missed you, too, Addie.”
He smiled at me before he scanned his menu, as if he wasn’t going to order the same thing he always did. When he set the menu down and closed it a minute later, I stifled my grin.
“BLT?”
“Of course.”
A quick laugh escaped me, and Adam huffed, snatching my menu and folding it on top of his. “Oh, shut up. You always get the same thing, too.”
As we waited for our usual server, Sloan, to head over, I smoothed out the pamphlet on diagnosing Autism in young adults I’d grabbed from the Psychology building after my last class on Friday. I shrugged. “Maybe we both need to look into this.”
I planned to anyway after reading about how art therapy was useful for things like social anxiety, communication, and…emotional regulation. Especially in adults who’d been undiagnosed as children.
Adam snorted, aware of my mother’s suspicion about him but surprised by my self-inclusion. “You’re just too smart for your own good,” he teased. “Brat behavior. Nothing more. At least, that’s Bl—”
My eyebrows rose at the suggestion from Blake, but Adam was spared from my follow-up questions when Sloan appeared. With pretty blue eyes and blonde hair the color of straw, I had expected Adam to notice the way she flirted with him at least once in the past eight weeks.
But he rattled off his usual order as if she’d never taken it and handed over the menus. She took them with a smile before turning to me. “Your usual, Addie?”
“Yes, please.”
With a nod, she left us there to grab our drinks. She had our routine down pat and didn’t seem put off by my oblivious twin brother’s lack of engagement.
“Why don’t you ever flirt back with her?”
Adam stared at me quizzically, but followed my gaze to Sloan when I looked at her.
“Sloan? She’s just doing her job, Addie.” He shrugged, brushing off the question without a second thought. “Besides, I think she’s seeing someone, and she’s more Blake’s type, anyway. You know he’s always had a thing for blue-eyed blondes.”
I snorted, and then chewed on my straw as I swallowed the uncomfortable reminder that I hadn’t been one of them. Keeping my tone level and polite, I asked, “And how is Blake?”
Adam scrutinized me as if I didn’t ask that every week. “Fine. Same as last week.”
“Fine is a hair type, Adam. Not an adequate response when asked how someone’s doing.”
He shrugged, lacing his fingers together and setting his hands on the table in front of him. “You want more details? You’ll have to ask him.”
I scoffed, surprised my twin had showed up ready to play hardball, but unable to take the bait. Brushing a few nonexistent crumbs off the table, I shook my head. “Nope. That’s fine. Fine is a perfectly fine answer. You don’t want to share? That’s just fine with me.”
Adam released a heavy breath. “Is this how it’s going to be between you forever?”
He reached out and stopped the pointless sweep of my hand over the pristine table.
I snapped my gaze to his, expecting judgment over my decision. His blue-green eyes, the ones identical to mine, stared back at me, filled with nothing but concern.
“What happened between you two, Addie? He sure as hell doesn’t get it.
And he’s been acting like it doesn’t bother him, but…
every time you come by to grab stuff and leave again, it does.
I know you guys think I don’t pick up on emotional cues, but he stares at your room when he thinks I’m not watching.
Like he’s waiting for you to walk out of it. ”
My chest tightened, and I muttered under my breath to avoid how that image pierced me.
“Sounds like he needs a hobby.” When the joke landed flatly between us, I bit the inside of my cheek, fighting past the way Adam’s words twisted me up inside.
“Nothing happened, Adam. It was time for me to clean up my own messes. Time for me to meet people who wanted me around for more than pranks and tutoring. Time to grow up.” I shrugged. “It’s…better this way.”
“Better for who?”
“For me,” I snapped. “Better for me. Can that be reason enough to leave it at that?”
His mouth twitched like he wanted to frown, but he schooled his expression before he exposed how deeply this rift unsettled him. But no matter how stoic he acted, I knew. Adam thrived on routine and consistency.
And in one afternoon, the acoustics in the stadium changed everything.
It made life as it had been impossible. With Blake’s answer to my brother’s question—one I never should have overheard but did—I had to force myself to accept that Blake would never see me as more than family.
A realization I’d been avoiding for most of my life.
I couldn’t deal with that.
Not as I tried to pretend everything was fine.
I’d never let go of my ridiculous fantasy if he was always around. I needed space from the painful reminder of what I’d wanted but couldn’t have. Or I’d spend the rest of college, and maybe my whole life, pining.
I wanted—needed—to move on, and I’d stolen Adam’s security in doing it.
Adam sank back in his chair, his shoulders slumping. “Yeah, Addie. That’s enough. We just—I miss you. That’s all.”
“Hey.” I grabbed his hand, squeezing it as guilt rose inside me. “I miss you, too. I just…”
I hated that my self-imposed distance hurt everyone.
Myself included, and the worst part was that I couldn’t even tell Adam why because it would only make things worse and more awkward between all of us.
If I explained, Adam would tell Blake. Then every time I saw him, I’d have to face that I’d made my feelings known, and he still didn’t want me.
This way, my one saving grace was that he didn’t know. This way, I could see a way forward that didn’t look the same as it did right now. At least one day.
“It won’t be like this forever, Adam.”
“Promise?” He perked up. “Maybe for Blake’s birthday?”
“I’m not sure I’ll be ready to go back to how things were in a month, Adam.”
“What about ours?”