Page 13 of Liam (Preston Brothers #4)

I don’t even know what that means, and before I can think too much about it, she’s plastering on a smile and facing my niece again.

“You want to show me your favorite?” she asks, offering them to Katie.

There’s a gentleness in her tone, a softness that has me wondering how she can fake it so well.

With a suppressed sigh, I sit down next to Katie and watch her go through all the clickers, one by one, the entire time wondering if Adelaide reserves this side of her for crying little girls.

Then I wonder if Adelaide was ever a crying little girl.

Probably not.

“This one,” Katie says, holding up an ice cream.

Adelaide removes it from the rest and hands it to her. “Then it’s yours.”

Katie claps her hands together, and I tell Adelaide, “You don’t have to give it to her.”

“I don’t mind,” she responds, shaking her head while refusing to look at me.

Ice cream fidget clicker now in possession, Katie holds it to my ear so I can hear the clicks . “That’s cool,” I murmur. “Do you have something to say?”

Katie looks from me to Adelaide. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Adelaide replies, then focuses on me. “And so are you , by the way.”

I bite back a scoff. It’s not that I don’t appreciate what she’s doing; I just wish it was literally anyone else but her doing it. I focus on my niece again. “What do you want to do now?”

“Fish.”

It’s eleventy-three degrees out—the main reason we left the skate park—and I’d planned on spending the rest of the afternoon in the comfort of the air-conditioned studio. “Really?”

Katie nods, hopping off the couch to hug Adelaide’s neck. “She too.” Adelaide’s eyes widen at the sudden affection, but almost immediately hugs her back.

“We can fish,” I tell Katie. “But Adelaide has to work.”

Katie only hugs her tighter, repeats louder, “She come too.”

Five minutes later, we’re all on the porch while I slather sunscreen all over Katie. “All done,” I state, throwing the sunscreen in my backpack, along with some bottles of water. I put her hat on her head, then ask, “Shoes?”

“No.”

After taking her hand, I lead her toward the dock while Adelaide follows silently behind. Hopefully, we’ll get to the lake and she’ll make an excuse to leave. If not, I’m sure I can give her one.

“Uncle Twinny?” Katie asks.

“Yes?”

“Where’s other Uncle Twinny?”

“He has some work to do.”

“Like Mama?”

“I guess, yeah.”

“Like she?” she asks, looking over her shoulder at Adelaide.

“ She has a name,” I tell Katie. “And it’s Adelaide.”

“She” speaks up for the first time since we left the studio. “But my friends call me Addie.”

It’s instant—the tightening in my chest at hearing those words.

The first day of kindergarten, our teacher had us stand in front of the class and reveal three random facts about ourselves.

If I had a gun held to my head, I couldn’t tell you a single word I said, but I remember every one of Adelaide’s.

“My brother’s name is Roman, and he’s the best. I like baseball.

My favorite color is the same as my favorite fruit—orange. ”

“And your name?” the teacher had asked.

“My name is Adelaide, but my friends call me Addie.”

She hasn’t been Addie to me for a while now. Not since I became Twincest to her.

“Addie,” Katie whispers, then looks up at me. “And you?”

“What about me?”

“You have work to do?”

“I do, but I enjoy spending time with you more.”

“Other Uncle Twinny like to work more?”

“Not at all,” I say, shaking my head. It’s an outright lie, but who’s going to tell her? Not me. “He just has work he has to do right now , and I can do mine later.”

“And Addie?” she asks.

I glance back at Adelaide, who’s walking with her head down. “I don’t know what she’s doing.”

When we get to the dock, I find Katie’s fishing rod from the pile in the old wooden storage box and begin setting it up for her. Adelaide stands around, seemingly unsure of what to do. Once I’m done, I hand the rod to Katie, who takes it from me, then points to the boat.

“You want to fish on the boat?”

Katie looks up, big blue eyes and a smile to match, and she nods enthusiastically. “Addie, too.”

I suppress my groan. It’s one thing to have Adelaide this close when we’re out in the open and I can hint at her to leave, but on the boat…

there’s no escaping. Add that to the fact that the boat is small, only twelve feet long, with two narrow bench seats, and…

maybe that can be Adelaide’s out. I’m about to say as much, but then I catch Katie looking up at me, her dark lashes fanning her cheeks every time she blinks, and I sigh. Out loud.

At home, the wall next to the staircase displays pictures of all us kids, every year, in order.

They stop once we turn eighteen. Being the oldest, my sister’s photos are at the top.

Mine are third from the bottom. The point is, if you look at the third picture of Lucy, you could easily mistake it for Katie now.

Same brown hair, same blue eyes, same light smattering of freckles that cross her nose from one cheek to the other.

Lucy once showed me a picture of our mom at the same age, and I swear, you can barely tell all three of them apart. I guess it’s kind of fitting that they named Katie after her.

For some reason, I’ve been thinking about my mom a lot lately. I wonder what she’d think of me. Is the life I’m living what she had planned? I highly doubt it.

“Uncle Twinny?” Katie coos, pulling me from my thoughts. She’s still batting her eyelashes, knowing damn well it’s a surefire way to get anyone to fold.

Internally, I groan. Externally, I say, “Your mama teaches you those eyes, doesn’t she?”

She shrugs, reaching into the box and pulling out her life vest.

Within minutes, all three of us are on the boat, a good hundred yards from where we started.

Katie’s still barefoot, fishing line in the water as she yaps about anything and everything.

Adelaide sits beside her, listening intently to every word and asking questions when appropriate.

She’s in a plain white tank today, gym shorts, and her braid’s off to one side—a pale yellow ribbon weaved through the strands.

I grab the sunscreen from my backpack and hold it out between us. “Here.”

She looks at the sunscreen, then up at me.

“Your shoulders,” is all I say. They’re already turning red from being directly under the sun, so is the tip of her nose, and she should’ve really prepared better—not that she had much of a chance.

As soon as she’s taken the sunscreen from me, I remove my hat, place it on her head, and turn swiftly, not waiting for a response.

“Liam,” she deadpans.

My shoulders tighten, but I don’t face her. “What?”

“Thank you.”

For over an hour, we float out in the lake while Katie and Adelaide talk, and I listen.

There are a total of zero bites, but Katie doesn’t seem to care.

At one point, she asks Addie to braid her hair “like you, Addie,” and so Adelaide gives in to her request, removing the hair tie and ribbon from her own hair to do so.

One would think, going by Adelaide’s responses, that Katie is telling her the most fascinating details of the most interesting topics, but no.

Katie’s talking about cheese . And I don’t know if Adelaide’s being like this with her out of the kindness of her heart—if she even has one of those—or if she’s just playing along like I am.

But, being out here for as long as we have, with nothing but fresh air, Katie’s voice, and the lake water surrounding us, I’ve realized something.

I don’t know Adelaide Baker at all.

“Daddy!” Katie squeals out of nowhere, and I glance at the shore, toward my sister’s house, to see Cameron waving and walking toward us. He’s still in his work suit, with the tie loose, sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

Katie drops her fishing rod into the boat, then throws her arms in the air, jumping up and down in her spot. “Daddy’s home!” She turns to me, her cheeks even chubbier from the force of her smile. “I swim to Daddy.”

I chuckle. “Let me get you back to the dock, then I’ll take you home.”

“No, please,” she whines, hands in prayer under her chin. “I swim to Daddy! Look!” She pats her life vest. “I swim.”

There’s no dock by my sister’s house, so I can’t get the boat close enough, and there’s no way I’m going to let her swim to shore alone, so it’s obvious I’m not getting out of this situation dry.

With a heavy sigh, I rid the phone from my pocket and remove my shirt, then dive into the lake.

When I come back up, Katie’s already attempting to get off the boat, while Adelaide holds her back.

I lift Katie out, hold her close, then look up at Adelaide.

“I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t, like, steal the boat. ”

Adelaide doesn’t steal the boat.

She does, however, steal my breath.

Just for a moment.

Look.

I’m not blind, nor am I immune to the effects of physical attraction to those of the opposite sex, regardless of who they might be.

The girl’s sitting with her legs out, crossed at the ankles, her arms outstretched behind her. She’s facing the sky, angling her neck in a way that has me thinking things I shouldn’t. Her eyes are closed, shadowed by the brim of my cap, and it’s the only reason I feel it safe to even look at her.

She doesn’t even flinch when the boat comes to life, and now I have to steer it back to the dock, which means I can’t not face her direction, and it’s distracting.

And confusing.

And annoying.

After a long moment, she finally breaks the silence. “You know… I used to watch you from afar.”

I raise my eyebrows, attempting to hide my surprise.

“Not you, specifically,” she reiterates. “I mean your family.”

Oh.

Her arms are glistening as much as her legs, and strands of her loose hair stick to her shoulders. She continues, motioning over the hill and toward the old trailer. “You know I used to live there, right?”

I didn’t know. Not until that night when I saw her wedging herself through the fence.

I don’t tell her that, though. I just stay quiet, slow the boat as we pass her old home so she can take her time saying whatever it is she needs to.

“Some days I’d go through the fence. Other times, I’d just watch from the other side.

” I don’t know why she’s choosing now to talk to me, especially about something so personal.

Maybe she’s like me in that way—needing to talk for the sake of talking.

“Then Roman—he scored this old ladder from his work, and he put it up against our house so I could sit on the roof, watch the sunset right over this lake…” She doesn’t look at me when she talks, and I wish she would.

Her eyes are lighter now, much lighter than I’d ever seen them.

“I always wondered what it would be like to be one of you. To have so many siblings around. To always have someone to be with, play with… share everything with. You all looked so happy, you know? I could hear all your laughter, even from there.”

I can say and think a lot of negative things, but one thing I’ll always appreciate is how lucky I am to be raised the way I was.

I don’t have friends, haven’t for a long time now, but I have my family, and they’re all I need.

Only with them do I feel safe enough to let my guard down and be myself.

So, if she heard our laughter like she says she did, then mine was probably in the mix.

Though, those may have been the only times she’s heard it.

“I watched your sister’s wedding from there…

” she continues. “And I saw the lanterns you all let float into the sky afterward. You’ve done it a few times since.

” She finally faces me, her cheeks a shade darker than they were only seconds ago.

Eyes right on mine, she asks, “I’ve always wondered what those were about… the lanterns.”

The lanterns are for my mom. Whenever we have a special occasion, we each get one, light them, and set them free, let them rise to the heavens where she waits for us.

I’m not positive that heaven is real, but I’d hate to think of an alternative.

Every time we do it, we all silently send her a message through those lanterns.

My older siblings take longer with the whole message thing. Me? I never really know what to say.

I square my shoulders, refusing to answer her. Besides, if anyone should be asking questions, it’s me. And so I ask her the one thing that’s plagued my mind since the last time we spoke. “Where the hell have you been, Adelaide?”

She rears back slightly, her eyebrows pulled. “What?”

Unwilling to back down, I sit taller and force myself to meet her eyes. “The other day, you said they couldn’t find your family, so… where have you been the past five years?”

It takes a moment for her to answer. “Roman didn’t tell you?”

“Maybe he told my brothers.” I shrug. “But… no one really tells me anything.” Not that I really give them the opportunity. At least, in person. Linc’s the only one I see regularly now, but that doesn’t excuse this little thing called technology. You know… phone calls, text messages, emails.

“I’ve been in Raleigh…” Addie answers. “In foster care.”

Whatever reaction comes over me has her shaking her head, waving her hand out between us. “No, it wasn’t, like, a horrible group home or anything. I moved into an actual home with my foster mom and dad, and they’re… they’re great. They still let me live with them.”

I nod slowly, taking a second to replay her words.

I guess I didn’t realize until right this moment that her parents were gone , gone.

That night, when the cops told me they’d arrested her brother and they needed to find her parents, I assumed they were on vacation or something.

I didn’t know, and maybe that’s the missing detail to help me make sense of it all. “Where are your parents?”

Adelaide turns away, crossing her arms. “I need to get back to work.”

I stop the boat completely.

“You’re kidding,” she almost scoffs, glaring right at me.

“You can’t light the match, then run away from the blaze.

Look…” I match her stance, cross my arms, too.

“For years, I’ve tried to put a timeline together, so I can figure out why you did what you did to me.

I’ve gone through every interaction we’ve ever had, trying to pinpoint the exact moment I did something to make you hate me so much.

Because, surely, it can’t be something so insignificant as finding you hiding out here when we were ten .

But the next day, I get to school and… everything changed. ”

She doesn’t react to my words. Doesn’t even blink. And it only frustrates me more.

“You made my life hell, Adelaide, and I’ve spent years trying to figure out why. I think I deserve an explanation, and I think you owe me as much.”