Wrong Quarterback | ✓

23 | montagues and capulets

           There's a tale as old as time of how couples who finish each other's sentences are meant to last through the test of times. Well, Tammy and Harold Adams doesn't finish each other's sentences. They do, however, cut each other off midway through – never not leaving a sentence unfinished.

No. Tammy and Harold Adams doesn't finish each other's sentences, but they do seem to finish each other's thoughts.

The pair's odd way of communicating tends to leave everyone but themselves clueless as to what their conversations are about, which is the reason as to why everyone but the two of them lingers in their places in the Adams' kitchen now. Weighing on their feet as if wondering if there's anything they can do to help or if they should simply stay out of the way.

          Avery watches the two communicate from where she's perched on one of the kitchen stools, chin leant in her palms. There so in sync sometimes she wonders if their brains are wired into one, if the few spoken words between them are more of a formality than a need. From all the time she's spent around them through the years she's pretty sure they could simply exchange a glance and still be on the same page.

It's not that they never talk to each other – she knows from experience they have the habit of being sat at the dining table long into the night, speaking of big nothings and small somethings. For the smaller matters though – laundry, what to gift a great aunt, or preparing dinner – it seems one look is all it takes, almost as if having reached an agreement of conclusion before any words are spoken. One look. A shared thought. A few unfinished sentences. It's been this way as long as she can remember.

Maybe that's what happens when you find someone you get along with at fifteen. Maybe that's what happens when you marry that same person ten years following your initial meeting. Maybe that's what happens when you fill your house not only with kids, but unconditional love and compassion too. When you know someone down to their very core, maybe there's no room for all that other stuff. No room for competition or bitterness. No room for younger, exhilarating colleagues. No room for heartache.

          It's like they want us to read their minds, she remembers Caia having complained a few Christmases ago of her parents' chopped speech and she notices Luke raise his brows now as if waiting for an actual full sentence to leave either of their lips. Her mouth forms a faint amused smile as she spots the flicker of annoyance on her mother's face too – despite having spent almost eighteen years around the pair she too has a difficult time decoding the language seeming to be just theirs.

Stood before an empty salad bowl and cutting board, Sarah grows more impatient by the second as she tries to get an actual worded answer of what kind of salad they want her to prepare, not getting much more than "I was thinking–" "Yes, and the–" "Exactly, and maybe some–" out of her friends.

          Benjamin looks like he's tempted to drop the stack of plates in his hands to the floor as his mother reaches across him, opening up a different cupboard. "No Ben, the gray plates."

She shoots another look her husband's way, seeming to get an answer to whatever question just lingered between them because she nods once before turning on her heel to leave the kitchen all together.

          Avery doesn't miss the shared flicker of loving annoyance between the remaining people in the kitchen but she doesn't mind as much. She quite enjoys it. There's something nice about sinking into a seat to observe two people so seamlessly intertwined.

Tonight, however, she's ushered out of her seat just as the rest of their company for the evening comes through the door – doubling the amount of people already crammed into the kitchen– by Caia who's muttering about how there are far too many people in this house. Nic's father offers up his own take with the grown ups still remaining in the room just as Avery's yanked out onto the patio by Luke's sister and judging by the ringing sound of laughter echoing through the house he's fired off another one of his jokes.