I groaned and buried my face in my arms on the desk.
Maybe I needed to get a life.
7
BLAKE
FRESHMAN YEAR OF COLLEGE, SEPTEMBER 2017, AGE 18
Moving out of my father’s house and putting thirty minutes of distance between us had been like pressing a restart button on my life. It helped that I started playing college football and saw more possibilities for the future laid out in front of me.
But the biggest factor in my new, happier lease on life?
I got to live with the Barrow twins full time in the apartment Mr. and Mrs. B set up for us. No longer the outsider crashing on the couch, I officially becametheirs.
Their roommate, technically.
But still,theirs.
A coveted position that—more often than not—also meant being their mediator.
“Adam Nathaniel Barrow!”
Addie’s voice cracked through the apartment like lightning in the midst of a storm.
Her feet thundered toward the living room, where I sat between her bedroom and mine.
I flipped a page in the textbook on my lap, waiting for her to come in before she tore up the stairs to where Adam slept.
It was the same every time.
She’d search for him in his bedroom loft, find it empty, and then come back down to demand proof of his whereabouts from me.
“Adam!”
Footsteps pounded up the stairs.
Then back down.
With her golden light brown hair flying wildly around her face, she stormed into the living room with a huff. Her eyes narrowed on me, and she shook the pink item in her hand furiously. “Where is he, Blake?”
“And good morning to you, too, Addie.” I flipped through the textbook again, asking innocently, “Where is who?”
The twin in question hid outside of Addie’s line of sight. From behind the kitchen bar to my left, he faced the living room and where I sat pretending to be oblivious.
But since Addie had just come down the stairs, she needed to turn around to see him.
She still hadn’t realized that.
Adam, however, had realized it. After the first dozen times we played out the almost-choreographed routine of their arguments, he spotted a pattern.
Now, he stood frozen at the sink, slowly withdrawing the spoon from his mouth and backing toward the front door of the apartment.
Addie growled in my direction, but she didn’t respond to my feigned ignorance. She knew I wouldn’t give up his location. As I’d told her repeatedly when we first moved in, “Snitches get?—”
“If you finish that sentence, so help me!”
She swung to her left and stomped into my bedroom, as if I’d squirreled him away in there to keep her from getting her hands on him.
