Ava scoffed while extending her hand to Dean. “Little sister? Nice, Adds. I’m only two years younger than you. ‘Little sister’ makes me sound like a child.”
Dean chuckled at my sister and shook her hand. “Nice to meet you, Ava.”
Archer stepped in and shook hands with my sister before we made our way outside to the table we had set up. Archer looked at the setup. “Wow, this looks great. Thanks for inviting us over, Addison.”
I smiled. “No problem. We love hosting people out here. Glad y'all could make it.” Dean quickly made his way around the table to pull out my chair, and Archer pulled out a chair for my sister, like the gentlemen they were. After we were all seated, I poured us all a glass of a fantastic red blend that mydad had curated.
As we were sipping our wine, my mom made her way out from her office and stopped over at the table to say hello. Both brothers quickly stood up to shake her hand. “Hello, I’m Laurel. These two’s mother. I’m glad you both could come over and see the place.”
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. James. Your property is beautiful, and the wine is fantastic.” Dean smiled at my mom.
“Please, call me Laurel, and thank you. I’ll be sure to tell my husband. Dr. Adler, I want to thank you for taking such good care of Cash last night. I know that it meant a lot to Addison, and it did to our whole family as well.” My mom put her hand on his arm.
Dean smiled warmly at her. “Just doing my job. Walker caught it early, and Addison was the one who knew what to do immediately until I got there.”
“If you and Archer don’t have plans for Thanksgiving tomorrow, I insist that you join us. We’ll have more than enough food, and I would love it if you both came,” my mom said, catching us all off guard, but then again, that was what Laurel Adler always did—she included everyone.
Dean glanced in my direction as if asking for my permission, so I nodded in response. He brought his dark gaze back to my mother. “That’s very generous of you. We would love to join you. Please let us know what we can bring.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s all taken care of, just bring yourselves. It’s kind of a whole-day thing, so be at the house around eleven a.m.” She smiled at Dean and then looked down at me,winking. I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes at her meddling.
She gave both Adler brothers a hug before leaning down and kissing me and Ava on the cheek. “I’ll see you all tomorrow. Have fun.” She spun on her heel and headed out the door.
As Archer and Dean settled back into their seats, I looked over at Ava, who had the biggest smirk on her face, clearly enjoying every minute of this.
After the shock of the Thanksgiving invitation wore off, the conversation flowed easily. We were all laughing at the stories that Dean shared about the clinic and farm calls when Ava then decided to tell a tale…about me.
“Our parents used to keep horses in that barn back by the house when we were growing up. So, one night when Adds was, like, fifteen, she wanted to take one of the horses out to the hills to see some comet that was supposed to fly over that night. I told her that it was a bad idea—you never knew what was roaming around out there at night. She didn’t care, said it would be fine. Our parents told her no, our brothers told her no. But once Adds wants to do something, she does it.”
I took a big sip of my wine because I knew this story and where it was going. “Do we have to tell this story?” I groaned, interrupting Ava.
“Yes. Yes, we do.” She smirked. “Anyway, as I was saying, she was stubborn and waited until everyone was asleep before sneaking out of the house to the barn. I don’t entirely know what happened out there, since I was asleep, but all I know is that the whole house woke up to our horse Gunner gallopingby the house, whinnying his head off as he made his way back to the barn. We all ran outside to see what the hell was going on, and sure enough, here comes little miss stubborn-ass making her way from the hills covered from head to toe in mud. It was the best walk of shame.”
Archer’s head fell back in laughter, as did Dean’s.
“Our parents chewed her ass out, and she was grounded from riding for weeks,” Ava said, laughing.
I rolled my eyes. “What? I wanted to see the comet. Unfortunately, a snake scared the shit out of Gunner, and I wasn’t prepared for him to rear up, knock me off of him, and then take off back to the barn, ratting me out.”
Ava pointed her finger at me. “See! I told you! You never know what’s roaming out there at night. Should have just listened to your wise sister.” She sipped her wine, her brows raised at me.
“Can we not relive my stupid childhood decisions, please? If there wasn’t that snake, I totally would have gotten away with it.” I took another sip of wine, almost choking on it as Dean surprised me by placing his hand on my thigh under the table. I glanced over at him and the corners of his lips lifted slightly.
Archer chuckled. “All right, let’s relive some of this guy’s instead.” He motioned toward his brother.
“Seems stubbornness is something these two have in common, and they never quite want to listen to the younger sibling, who is obviously always right,” Archer began smugly. Dean rolled his eyes.
“Obviously.” Ava raised her glass toward Archer in cheers.
“I think Dean was maybe twelve or thirteen when he broke into our middle school. It was the beginning of the school year, and his science teacher, Mr. Hobbs, had a large snake in his classroom. The next day, he told the class that they would feed mice to the snake as part of an experiment or lesson. It was part of some bullshit they were learning. Anyway, Dean freaked out because even at a young age, Dean was all about the animals, even prey animals. He couldn’t imagine watching them get killed live, right in front of him. He came home that day and told me about his plan to sneak into the school and free the mice. I told him how bad of an idea it was, and that they would just get more if he were able to steal them.” Archer paused, taking a sip of wine.
“So, the dumbass didn’t listen—shocker—and he broke into the school.”
Dean interrupted. “I didn’t technically break in. I found a window that was unlocked and climbed through it. That is a safety hazard on the school. Not my fault.”
Archer laughed. “Okay, so Dean climbed through a window. He got to the classroom and looked for the live mice to free. He looked everywhere and couldn’t find them. For the hell of it, he opened the mini fridge near Mr. Hobb’s desk, and sure enough, there they were, thealready deadmice in a bag in the fridge.”
Ava and I both broke out in laughter.
