before speaking. “It wasn’t. Tiffany came up with it. I told her my concerns, which I’m sure are the same as yours, but she assured me that it would be fine. I guess she thinks that Adam will blindly defend her, so even if something is said, he’ll stop it before it spreads.”
“Wow, she’s an idiot.”
He shrugged and raised his brows in a it is what it is expression. “Just do what you can and let whatever happens happen. If Serenity says something, let Adam take the lead; don’t get involved. Basically, let Serenity look like the idiot on camera.”
Once again, I had to keep my mouth closed to make Tiffany look good. If she just stopped doing crummy things to good people, then no one would have to pretend otherwise. But no…that seemed to be an impossible request.
When I returned to the living room, I wasn’t surprised to find Adam exactly where we left him. I wasn’t too sure about this guy. Aside from the one funny comment he’d made, he seemed to be a bump on a log. Maybe he’d suffered from too many concussions. That would at least explain why he was with my sister.
“I’ll take the guest room; it’s really not a big deal where I sleep.” His voice was so deep it practically rumbled throughout the room.
I didn’t know what else to say other than, “Thank you.”
“You’ve got quite the arm…have you ever thought about playing baseball?”
I wasn’t sure if that was a jab or a joke, but based on his smirk, I assumed it was the latter. “Nah. I wasn’t any good until I moved into this place. The amount of times I’ve had to defend myself against intruders is enough to make anyone good at throwing things.”
His concern showed in his furrowed brow. “What do you mean?”
“Well, between you and Ty, I really should look into self-defense classes.”
“Yeah, it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea.” There was laughter in his words, yet his lips barely curled. I began to wonder if this man was even capable of smiling. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if he couldn’t. Maybe after being with my sister for so long, he’d forgotten how.
Adam King puzzled me, and while he was upstairs putting his bag away, I spent the time analyzing everything I knew about him, as well as the little tidbits I’d seen today. Even though his voice had the potential to be menacing, he was very soft-spoken. Granted, he hadn’t said much, and it wasn’t like this situation was anywhere near normal. If anything, he came across as somewhat of a shy person. And since I’d never had so much as a conversation with him, I had no idea if he was always like this, or if it was because of the situation.
“Have you already eaten?” he asked after returning to the living room.
“Yeah, have you?”
“I grabbed something on the way into town, just wanted to make sure you weren’t hungry.” So far, he appeared to be a good person—which still didn’t explain why he was with my sister. “So, what do you suggest we do to get comfortable with each other?”
“You could start by telling me about yourself. As much as I hate to say it, I don’t know anything about you other than you play professional football.” The moment those words came out of my mouth, I felt awful. “Don’t take that personally, though. It has nothing to do with you. As I’m sure you know, my sister and I don’t really speak.”
The fact that all communication between us while I lived her life went through Ty was proof enough of that. Here I was, pretending to be her, and she still couldn’t pick up a phone to at least text me. Although, no one would hear me complain about that. Being her was enough; I didn’t care to add talking to her to the list.
After the first ten or so minutes, things became rather relaxed between us. It made it much easier to talk and get to know each other. On one hand, it almost felt like a first date. He shared stories from his life, and I shared some from mine. We laughed and made fun of things that had happened to us in the past. It did exactly what it was supposed to…it made us comfortable around each other. Even if we never spoke again, at least tomorrow would go smoothly.
“I can’t get over how much you look like Tiff.” He laughed