Page 77 of A Game Plan for Love

“I have a date with my girlfriend,” I finish. I wink, and her face flames. “Am I allowed to tell people we’re boyfriend and girlfriend?”

“Do you want to?”

“I’ve wanted to text the girls from the moment Nora asked. My fingers are twitching.”

I want to scream it from a blimp so the entire country knows, but I’ll start small with the book club group chat and work my way up to national confessions.

Addie laughs, but nods.

“They’re going tofreak.”

I send off the text, and then take a moment to bask in her warm smile and how beautiful she looks right now.

“I have to do the dishes,” she says with a frown, “keep me company?”

She props the phone behind the sink, and a massive tower of cups, plates, and cookware appears.Oof.We’re going to be here a while.

“How was your day?”

She picks up the sponge at the corner with two pinched fingers, and her shoulders jerk and her face contorts. The sponge flies toward the steaming water and lands in the basin with a thud. Her lips curl as she wrings it out.

“It was alright,” she says, scrubbing a pan with aggression, “My dad texted me asking me to talk to my mom.”

“Oh?”

Her brows furrow in concentration as she cleans. “They’ve tried to reach out a few times since I moved to Seattle, but the texts are more frequent now.”

“Do you want to talk to them?”

She meets my gaze through the screen. “I don’t know.” She picks up a frying pan. “Why now? I lived in Omaha for four years, and they never reached out. It was a ten-minute drive to my apartment. But now they want to talk? And they’re so vague over text, like if they withhold the reason they want to talk, I’ll cave.”

“When was the last time you spoke to them in person?”

“Before Nora was born.”

I try to neutralize my shock, but Addie catches it.

How could any parent stop speaking to their child for a choice like Addie made? I don’t understand. She and Nora are incredible—by far the best thing that’s ever entered my life.

They’re full of joy and wonder, and they make me feel like I’m a part of it.

She clicks her tongue. “They’re my parents—I love them—but their love felt conditional, and I don’t know if I want to introduce that into Nora’s life.”

“I understand.”

I can’t blame her for wanting to keep Nora safe, even if I would give anything to speak to my birth parents, just to knowwhy? Why did they surrender me? Did they love me at all?

Those are questions that have stuck with me since childhood.

“I have a half-sister,” I admit, and Addie’s eyes widen in shock. “We’re not in contact anymore, but I spent a long time trying to save a sinking ship instead of getting onto a lifeboat.”

She scrubs a baking pan, and the grating sound fills the speaker. Addie doesn’t press for information, but gives me the space to share or change the topic.

“I took a DNA test in college, and we matched as siblings. She lived in South Bend, where I went to school, and I wassoexcited, and she seemed to be, too. We shared the same father, but she didn’t know who he was.”

I’ll never forget the shock of learning I had someone I was related to—a sister.

“It was good for a time, then she started asking for money. It got so bad, I started selling plasma to help her pay her rent.” I swallow the embarrassment. “My teammates had to tell me to cut her off. I did it, but it hurt.

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