“This is definitely my favorite day ever though,” Holland said, her eyes sparkling. “I literally don’t think I could be happier right now.”
“Same,” Adam and I said. But then Holland wrinkled her nose.
“Oh no. Are you guys one of those couples that speaks in unison?” she teased. “Even Iain and I don’t do that.”
“Well, get used to it. We’re going to start wearing matching outfits too,” Adam said. “I already ordered us matching onesies.”
I looked up at him. “You didn’t really, did you?”
He laughed. “No, but I might. And I’m going to make you wear it with me around the house. Just as payback,” he said, referring to the joke about footie pajamas I’d made to Kenzie Engelman what felt like forever ago.
We stayed out there till the sun started to set, and though we laughed the whole way, I couldn’t help feeling pangs of guilt for knowing things that Holland didn’t know yet—namely that Adam was her half-brother. That somehow, her dad had agreed it was best not to tell her.
But in some ways, I got it. It was clear that Brad felt he owed his wife something. He’d thrown a curveball into the life she’d planned for them by bringing Adam into it, and he was constantly trying to make it up to her while just keeping the peace with everyone else.
It broke my heart. It was clear Brad needed to leave Jeannie. It would help him be close to his kids again. But if it hadn’t happened yet, I wasn’t sure that it would. All I could hope was that what Adam said this morning applied to his dad. Hopefully, even if Brad didn’t feel whole, he felt complete. And if he didn’t, maybe someday, that could still happen for him.
“I just realized this was why you cheered for all Cali teams growing up,” I gasped out of nowhere hours later.
Holland and Iain had just left, and we were in the middle of cleaning up. Adam turned on the Lakers game and boom. It all made sense.
He laughed as he carried the plates in beside me. “Yeah. That actually wasn’t an act of rebellion against my family. It was just me being born and raised in Los Angeles. For the first nine years at least.”
My mouth hung wide open, and delight coursed through me as I was hit with several realizations. One, that all those good childhood memories of Adam’s had come from his mother and Cole, and two, that he and I had actually grown up thirty minutes apart.
“I mean I was three by the time you left, but still. We were at one point Cali kids together,” I said so brightly he just snorted and pecked me on the lips.
“Yeah. We were practically neighbors,” he said, and though he was teasing me, I was still thrilled.
“And the French toast! That didn’t start out as a Maxwell family tradition at all. It was all Ridnour.”
“Actually, it was the church we went to,” Adam smiled as I passed him the plates to load the dishwasher. “They had this community breakfast, which I obviously didn’t know at the time was for people in need. I just knew I loved that shit. Both Cole and me. When I moved to Jersey, my mom told my dad if he ever needed to bribe me into behaving, to make me blueberry French toast. It was basically a taste of home.”
I smiled and nodded as Adam spoke, casually loading the dishwasher, completely unaware of the way I was watching him. Staring in awe of him. I couldn’t believe all the pain and burden he’d lived with all these years. I would’ve never imagined it given the way he smiled every day. The way he just went about living and doing his best to be a good brother to Holland and Cole, and a good son to Brad and his mom.
“Will I ever meet her?” I asked again, completely unapologetic, because after all the stories he’d just told me about their beach picnics, the time she got another job just to buy them Dodgers gear for Christmas, I couldn’t handle it anymore. I needed to know more about this woman. “Why do you keep laughing when I ask that?” I demanded in a huff that I honestly wasn’t even faking.
Adam grinned as he closed the dishwasher and looked at me. “You’ve known her for years, AJ.”
I stared at him.
And suddenly I knew.
“Heidi,” I breathed.
There was a twinkle in his eye as he nodded.
“Adam!”
I have no idea why I shoved him. I just felt like I had to. It didn’t move him anyway. All he did was catch my wrists, wrap my arms around his neck and kiss me as he said things that made me feel like my feet were no longer touching the ground.
“I needed you to know her,” he murmured. “I liked knowing you did. It just felt good. And right.”
I wish I didn’t cry, because it only made him laugh again, but I couldn’t help it. I was so overwhelmed with emotion that Adam had to lift me up and carry me to the couch, where he held me as I tried to process the fact that he’d let me all the way into his life so much earlier than I’d ever known.
“Would now be a bad t
ime to tell you the ninja was named Gizzy?” he asked.