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.AndI 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.
