The Crush (18)

“I hate everyone in this family except for Tim and Poppy because they’d never betray me like this.”

She laughed.

“Speaking of Poppy … where is she?” I asked.

“She’s at the library working on one of her school projects. I think. I can’t ever keep that girl’s schedule straight, so I don’t even try.”

I picked at the third cookie. “How’s Tim feeling?”

Mom smiled. “He’s good. His oncologist joked with us at his checkup last week that he must’ve gone through four of his nine lives so far, but he just keeps on like he’s got no limit.”

My stepdad was in remission from his second bout of cancer, and every single new checkup where he was given the all clear felt like a gift. “Good. You’d be impossible without him, so he better not find the end of that limit.”

She clucked her tongue. “Don’t tell him that, his ego will double in size.”

I laughed, popping around the island to kiss her on the cheek. “I’m gonna go put my stuff away.”

Her eyes were warm, and it gave me the same happy feeling as the melty chocolate chip cookies. “It’s good to have you home, Adaline.”

It was good to be home.

As I carried my suitcase up the wooden steps and down the hallway to my old room, I was reminded again why I’d promised myself not to be too far away and not go too long between visits.

When Tim got sick the first time, I was in high school, and it cut all of us right down to the marrow, a blade hitting the bone for how much it impacted our entire family.

Greer, Cameron, and I, all tucked right into the same age bracket, had promised that we’d never go farther than half a day’s drive away. Maybe because we hadn’t strayed too far out of the nest when it happened, it affected us in a different way. My two oldest brothers had already started college and moved out of the house.

If my mom or Tim or Poppy needed me, I would always be able to show up with relative ease.

Just as I entered the room, my phone dinged with a text from Kendall that had me grinning. A picture of the birthday girl smiling widely at the craft table with her friends.

Kendall: Cupcakes and other desserts are en route! THANK YOU.

If it hadn’t been for starting my business when I had, the one I’d built from the ground up in my small apartment, with only my guest room to hold all my supplies and only myself to work the events on the weekends, I probably would’ve moved back to Oregon.

While there was no point in playing out some alternate timeline of events, it made me wonder how my life would look now if I had.

When Tim had cancer the second time, I almost moved back home. Almost quit my job working for Molly when he was going through chemo. Instead, she allowed me endless time to come see my family, extending me so much more grace than any other boss would have.

So I didn’t move.

If I’d done that, I never would have told Emmett how I felt right before he got drafted.

I never would have dated Nick.

And maybe I’d be in a different job, with a very different relationship history. Emmett may still have ended up playing with Parker in Ft. Lauderdale, and I’d have some fond memories of a crush I used to have on him, but nothing more.

But I couldn’t undo anything from the past. No more than Emmett could. Or Nick.

We were all a product of our choices, formed from our pasts, our histories, our families.

And I liked all the parts of mine, no matter how I got to where I was.

Especially when those parts in the past helped me know what I didn’t want for my future.

A picture of my whole family hung on the wall next to the door in my old bedroom. I stopped, making sure it was hanging straight, and even though it was faded from the sun, our outfits dated, and we’d had others taken since, it was the imperfect one that I liked the best. Because it was us.

Most people needed a cheat sheet to keep the Wilder family straight, but it was the wonderful craziness that I’d grown up in and why I loved being surrounded by that kind of energy now.

It was that exact energy that Greer brought in with her when she breezed through my open bedroom door and sat primly on the edge of the bed.

“Emmett Ward,” she said.

I rolled my eyes, unzipping the suitcase so I could set my cosmetics in the hallway bathroom. “Hello to you too. My drive over was fine, thanks.”

She ignored me. “Passed him and Parker on my drive in. They were running from the barn back to the main house.”

“Running is a commonly accepted form of cardio for the general population.” I shoved my pajamas into the top drawer of my dresser. “Why is that so special?”

“His shirt was off.”

I slammed the dresser drawer shut. “Your point?”

“My point is that it is offensive how good looking he is, and if your single ass does not find a way to benefit from this weekend, I will disown you,” she said, enunciating each word a bit more forcefully than was necessary.

I whipped around, settling against the dresser while I studied my sister. Heat crawled up my neck.

“He and I …” I paused, fighting the instinct to say that we were nothing, and I felt nothing for him. Greer could call my bullshit from a mile away, so there was no point in lying. “Nothing can come from it. He lives and works in Florida. I live and work in Washington. I am not moving across the country from my family. And I will not go through another Nick situation, even if Emmett asks for anything of the sort. Which he’s not.”