Page 55 of Winter Glam in Amsterdam

"Have you told Adam?"

"Yeah, I gave him the gist of what happened," she whispers, pulling her knees to her chest. "He just nodded, then left to make a call. I don't think he likes me very much at the moment."

"He loves you," I assure her and lean forward to give her a gentle head pat. "But I'm sorry to say you might not be wrong. Right now, you're not exactly on top of his favorites list, which honestly, you should have expected."

She rolls her eyes. "Please. You all did dumb shit in college and you never received a blow-up like this. What was that wholeAmsterdam thing about anyways? I figured if it got out I lied to you, he’d angry, but I’ve never seen himthatmad.” She looks crestfallen and I can’t help but feel for her. We all did stupid shit at nineteen. Well, most of us. She couldn’t exactly read Adam’s mind about what this trip meant to him.

“Did you know he and Jackson made up?" I ask her, and her head shoots around in surprise. "I'll take that as a no.”

“When? How?" she blurts out with wide eyes, and I lean back in my chair, crossing my arms in front of my chest as I tell her about what's been going on.

"So to Adam, this whole thing was a way to get closer as a family again," I end my monologue which, to her credit, she did not interrupt once. "You know, between the two of us…" I lower my voice. "There's a lot you don't know about what went on because you were too young and they wanted to protect you from it. And while you're still the baby of the family, I think Adam and Jackson are struggling with the fact that you're not… well, a baby anymore."

I take a deep breath. "You know the two? They're hyper-aware of their shortcomings. I think doubt and a stream of ‘what if’ goes through their head constantly. And they're scared of losing you."

"Losing me?" Her eyes grow wide. "Why?"

"Oh, come on, Zoey." Now it's my turn to roll my eyes. "Take two minutes and look back on your behavior over the past monthssince you went to university. Jackson laid it out for you perfectly yesterday."

I remain silent, watching her eyes dart around the room as she tries to recall.

“Because I opt out of your gaming nights? Wow, big deal.”

"Zoey." I sigh, annoyed and lift my hand, extending my index finger. "First, you've neveroncejoined us in our game nights on Saturdays," I point out, lifting my middle finger as well.

"Whenever either of us messages you, it usually takes you weeks to answer, if we get one at all." And finally, I lift my ring finger. "You've skipped ourfamilyvacation in order to go ski with your friends.

"Try to look at it from our perspective. For the past months, you've basically told us that you can't be bothered to keep in contact, even if we reach out again and again, and always repeating the same ’nothing is wrong’ whenever I tried to ask you about it.” I take a deep breath. “So let me ask you again: Is everything okay? Did one of us do something?”

“No, it’s not like that.” She shakes her head with a deep sigh. “You wouldn’t get it.”

“You’ll never know unless you tell me.” I shrug. “Anyways. After everything that both Jackson and Adam sacrificed in order to give us a relatively normal childhood, can you really blame themfor being emotional right now? Of course this feels like a slap in the face."

She turns pale with each word, then visibly gulps. "I really thought Jackson just said that in the heat of the moment. Fuck," she admits weakly, and I catch myself at the last second before I scold her for cursing. Force of habit and all that.

"It's not like that," she finally whispers hastily, wiping a tear from her cheek. "That's not it at all."

"I believe you that it wasn't your intention." I get up from the uncomfortable chair to sit next to her on the bed instead. "But, Zoey, you're an adult now, and with that comes some adult decisions and consequences. One of them being that your brothers are going to be mad at you if you screw up. Because you don't have that 'she's just a baby' status anymore." I shoot her a sad smile and pat her head in what I hope is a comforting gesture.

"And while I think that’s ultimately exactly what you wanted by the time you left for college, it means you can’t take us for granted anymore."

I get up with a sigh and start pacing in front of her, feeling bad about having acted similarly. Retrospective is a bitch.

"Don't worry. Reed and I basically got the same talk on the jet, but from Adam and in less emotional circumstances. So we're not singling you out for acting flakey, okay?"

"Okay," she whispers, and wipes her tears off her face. "Can you tell me more about Amsterdam? What was it like? Did they really make up?"

"Well, you'll be surprised, but I didn't hear one argument the whole time we were there," I say, trying to act overly shocked and sighing in relief. And that brings a little smile to her face.

"So, Summer, huh?" she asks with a wide grin once I'm done telling her about Amsterdam.

"Huh?”

“You've talked an awful lot about her," she points out, trying to cross her arms in front of her chest but stopped by her cast.

A flurry of emotions start bubbling in my stomach, the mix of regret and longing making me nauseous. "Did I?"

"Yeah." She nods. "Are you seriously going to be the third one to get hitched? I would have bet on Reed."

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