Page 1 of Dear Adam
Chapter one
Aly
TaylorSwift’sMidnightsalbum blares from my speakers as I drive past the iconic, pastel houses of Rainbow Row. The window boxes are packed with flowers of every variety, and Spanish moss drips from the trees lining the street. I follow the natural curve of the road and glance left toward the harbor, never getting tired of the way the sun glistens off the water or the way the whole city is basked in a golden hue during this hour before sunset.
I roll up to my parent’s house and type in the code. The wrought iron gates silently swing open as if on a breeze, revealing the long, ornately landscape-lined driveway and the breathtaking, historical colonial mansion beyond it. The crunch of cobblestones beneath my tires is an all too familiar sound as I shift into park beside Adam’s truck.
Immediately, the idyllic scene is interrupted by my engine backfiring, the loud pop still echoing as my dad comes running out the front door, brandishing a golf club.
“Hi, Dad,” I attempt weakly.
Dad looks around frantically before realizing it’s only me. “Alyson Jane, I swear if you don’t get a new vehicle—”
“Dad, what are you doing with your golf club?” my twin brother, Adam, asks, coming out the same door, saving me from whatever threat our father was about to make. Adam’s eyes dart between me, Dad, and the golf club, and he stifles a laugh behind his balled fist.
“I thought I heard shots, but it was just your sister's piece of junk,” Dad answers through pursed lips, staring at me disapprovingly. He pushes his hand through his hair, and there’s no mistaking the disappointment in his glare.
“Dad, it's a 1966 Ford Bronco. People pay a lot of money for these,” I say defensively.
“People pay a lot of money for them when they arerestored,Alyson. Not when you buy them from an auction as is.Thatis anything but restored.”
Truthfully, when my flower shop was only a start-up and I was running it out of my apartment kitchen, this Bronco was the only thing I could afford. I found it on an online auction, saw the next to nothing starting bid, made sure the description said it ran, and typed in my bid with crossed fingers. Apparently, no one else wanted a rusty yellow Bronco with a single purple door, but Betsy and I have been through a lot together, and I’m not sure I’d trade her for anything else.
I hop out of the driver’s seat, and the hinges squeak as I slam the door shut. As if on cue, a little pile of rust dust catches in the breeze and floats to the ground. I barely hold back a cringe.
Adam gives me a quick hug, then pulls back to search my face. Staring at my twin is like looking in the mirror and seeing the male version of myself: the same sandy-brown hair, deep blue eyes the color of the Charleston harbor, and a golden tan that never seems to fade.
Nervously, he bites his lower lip, then whispers, “Mom and Dad invited Hudson.”
“What? Why didn’t you warn me?” My heart sinks, and I search around frantically for any sign of him.
“I tried, but you didn’t answer my call!”
I pull my phone from my crossbody and see that there is indeed a missed call from Adam.
“You must’ve called while I was working on my sink,” I groan.
“You know you could hire people for that,” Adam says.
I scoff. Icould…if I could afford to.
My old, rusty, leaky faucet must’ve been original to my cottage, and I’d only recently got around to replacing it. Lucky for me, there’s a YouTube video for everything. Thanks to the bushy-mustache man behind MrFixIt64, I successfully installed a new faucet, accompanied by too much muttering, some head scratching, several wedgie adjustments, and a few curse words thrown in for good measure.
As if on cue, the gates swing open a second time, and a sleek black Jaguar pulls up next to my Bronco. Hudson casually gets out and points the fob in its direction, the car giving a littlebeep beepas he locks it. I struggle not to roll my eyes, but am unable to stifle a groan. We were in a gated driveway for heaven's sake.
It shouldn’t surprise me that my dad invited Hudson. To my parents, Hudson is the solution to all of their woes in regards to their children.
Honestly, I’ve never seen parents so disappointed about their kids being self-sufficient. Adam lives in a loft in the city, and while my house may be a fixer-upper I bought at a foreclosure auction, we both have steady jobs and are happy and healthy. But we’re both twenty-seven and single, which annoys our parents to no end.
At least Adam has a leg up on me, because he chose to work for the family business while I did not.
Adam hates working for our family’s boat and yacht service company, but he’s incredible at his job and lands deals with the biggest of clients. Recently, he sold a yacht to Taylor Swift, and I definitely didnotask Adam to include a line in the purchase agreement entitling me to BFF rights with her.
I had to shoot my shot, you know?
But apparently, Adam’s sales numbers are down this month, and I know my dad invited Hudson over to help get him back on track.
And then there’s me.
