Page 11 of I Can't Even

Addison also happened to be Ande’s twin sister.

Sometimes, when I looked at baby Addison and Ande, my heart felt like it was ripped in half all over again.

It was hard to breathe when I thought about how much I missed her.

“Quaid has a new obsession.”

The rest of my brothers, who exited the back door upon that announcement, groaned.

“Jesus Christ.” Quinn let his head fall back on his shoulders. “Why?”

“Do you remember that one time he became obsessed with the Marines, and forced you two to join with him?” Mom asked. “Those were the best few days ever, realizing that y’all had just signed your lives away.”

“Mother,” Quincy groaned. “You told us we didn’t have any money to pay for college. Also, don’t remind me. I couldn’t believe we let him talk us into that.”

“But it started a chain reaction with the kids, which I think in the end was a good thing. There’s only one loser in this family who didn’t go into the military.” Dad laughed.

Everyone turned to Ande at once.

She was the only one of us not to have been in the military.

Quincy, Quinn, and I had gone Marines. Auden and Atlas, the first set of twins Mom had after us, had gone Air Force. Gable and Garrett had gone Navy. And Addison had gone to the Air Force.

Mom and Dad had fallen in love while both of them were in the Air Force. Though, it’d been somewhat forbidden because Dad was Mom’s superior officer.

“Or when Tobin moved to town and wanted nothing to do with the asshole next door.” Ande snickered.

I looked over at her with a droll look. “You know you’re not allowed to speak his name.”

All of us had a good laugh at that.

Tobin McGraw was my best friend.

He’d moved to Dallas, in the house next door, about fifteen years ago.

Truthfully, he was a pretty big homebody. He didn’t like going out and doing things that normal kids liked to do. When I first met him, it was because I’d climbed the trellis outside of his room and asked him to come out and play with me.

He’d given me a resounding ‘no’ and closed the curtains on me.

It was in that moment I decided Tobin would be my friend, whether he wanted to be or not.

And, like the extrovert that I was, and the introvert he was, I eventually wore him down and forced him to be my friend.

I’d also introduced him to Crissa, his wife, after Ande broke his young teenage heart.

Truthfully, had I known Crissa well when I’d done the introducing, I’d never have let her anywhere near Tobin.

Tobin and Crissa’s relationship, to me, seemed a bit toxic.

She was a jealous, petty bitch who stole Tobin away from me because of who he had once dated—Ande.

And though they both knew that they no longer had feelings for each other, and Crissa was made very much aware that nothing would ever be there again, she still went out of her way to make Tobin’s life a living hell if he so much as called me. Let alone mentioned Ande.

But with Tobin, once you were in, you were in. And he didn’t let his wife’s feelings play into his relationship with me.

We were still just as good of friends now as we were when we’d first became best friends.

Only, we never, ever mentioned his wife.

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