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Eighteen Months Later
I blinked awake to find myself staring out a vaguely familiar window. It looked like the one in our bedroom, but it wasn’t the right view.
Because… this is not your apartment, I realized with a weak snort.
It was the building I lived in, but it wasn’t our unit. It was Holland and Iain’s.
We’d all crashed here after a night of partying that was honestly enough partying to last me several lifetimes. And I didn’t even drink that much. I was just exhausted from the sheer madness of the celebration.
After missing the mark last year, the New York Empires had just won their third World Series in four seasons, and though we were always happy when our clients did well, it couldn’t have been a more personal win for Adam and me.
We had watched from the very front row behind home plate last night—me and Adam, Holland and Iain, and Iain’s friend Evie Maddox, plus her baby Kai. We were cheering on the Empires, but in particular, Iain’s client Drew Maddox, and our clients Sean Knox and Cole Ridnour.
Our family at Thorn Sports.
Drew had won Game 1 and 6, and Knox had pitched a gem of a Game 7. The bad news was that the 1-0 lead he left the game with in the eighth inning was promptly lost when his relief gave up three quick runs.
The good news, of course, was that the next inning, it was Cole who came up to bat with the bases loaded and two outs.
The crowd had roared for their new fan favorite—the underdog who was a no-name minor-leaguer included in last season’s trade that brought Sean Knox to the Empires. No one had expected much of him, and admittedly, he’d struggled his first several weeks.
But then the two-game hitting streak became three, then four, then five. By the end of his first season with the Empires, he’d earned himself a starting spot batting ninth.
By this season, however, he’d found himself batting fifth, which was what brought him to plate in the absolute nick of time.
“God,” I laughed to myself, testing out my scratchy voice as I rolled onto my back in the guest bed.
I had screamed my throat and lungs raw when Cole swung on the first pitch he got last night, lining a go-ahead, bases-clearing triple to cap off the eighth inning comeback that would win the Empires the game.
And thus the World Series.
“Guys,” I whispered when I sat up, trying to hold in my laughter as I realized that despite being in their own home and having a glorious master bedroom, Iain and Holland had passed out on the little loveseat in the corner, having stayed up so late talking to Adam and me in the guest room, like it was one giant sleepover.
Which it pretty much was.
“Okay, never mind,” I whispered, mostly to entertain myself as I rolled out of bed, on a mission to find my boyfriend.
His phone wasn’t on the nightstand and his shoes weren’t anywhere in sight, so he was clearly up and about. I just had to figure out where.
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes as I walked down the hall and past the guest bedroom, where Knox was passed out with his girlfriend, with the TV still on and playing reruns of last night’s World Series coverage on ESPN.
Adam had turned every TV in the house to the coverage once we got in last night, and six hours later, it continued to play softly on all the screens. It was on in the empty kitchen as I got downstairs, craning my neck to look out at the living room, where Cole was passed out alone, which meant Brad was up and off somewhere too, since last I’d checked, he’d passed out there.
That’s probably where Adam is, I thought just as my bleary eyes squinted at Cole’s head of thick, black hair. “Interesting,” I snorted when I realized that someone had gelled his hair into a fauxhawk. Probably Holland.
It was about a year ago in this very apartment that Adam finally told Holland the truth. It was the four of us sitting in the living room, and there was obviously no shortage of shock or tears, but more than anything, there was love, understanding and relief like no other. It was the night of answers that Holland had wanted her whole life, and it set off a chain of events that included Brad’s divorce from Jeannie and Holland’s int
roduction to Heidi and Cole.
“Wait, so he’s my half-brother too? Oh, he’s not. Wait, is he? How does this work?” a still-tearful Holland had asked, making us all crack up that emotional night she found out about Cole. We tried to tell her she did not technically have another brother, but she wouldn’t listen. “No, he is, he’s my brother. I have two brothers and no one can tell me otherwise, thanks,” she had declared.
And as it turned out, she was right.
They weren’t related by blood, but something about Holland and Cole together made Cole and Adam seem that much more like brothers, since the two younger ones liked to occasionally team up against Adam just to piss him off.
Of course, I knew he was never actually pissed off. He was elated. The joy I’d seen in him in the past year or so was so clear every day we woke up, and I knew it was because he had all of us now. Me, Holland, Iain. Brad, Heidi, Cole.
It had taken time. It hadn’t been a completely seamless transition back into brotherhood. But over time, things started falling into place.
