“What about you?” I ask before he has an extra second to come up with something else to pry out of my own personal life.
“What about me?” He crosses his arms, leaning more heavily onto the back of the bench.
“What about your family?” I clarify.
“You’ve met Lily,” he replies.
“What about parents? Or other siblings?” I ask, trying to decipher what he means by the short answer about me meeting Lily.
I adore Lily. She’s bubbly, and yet, I also sense if you tried to pop her bubbliness, you’d regret it from the wrath that would rain down upon you like fiery arrows from the sky.
“It’s just Lily and me,” he answers. “Our parents are both gone. Also, Lily is flying in tomorrow. I’m sure you two will enjoy spending some time devising ways to annoy me.”
“Oh.” I sigh, not sure how to respond to the fact that his parents are gone.
Gone as in dead? Or gone as in they left? Or just not in the picture?
How do you ask someone who hates you for clarification on a topic that seems like it might grow daggers for teeth if you provoked it?
“Um, yeah. Of course. We’ll make sure we team up to make your life miserable,” I add.
But all I can think about is it’s just him and Lily. Lily and Evan. No parents. No grandparents. No other family. At least, I assume no other family, and it sure doesn’t seem like he wants to elaborate.
“I’m sure you will,” he says.
I force a grin on my face. “She is your better half.”
And I watch as a genuine smile pulls at his lips as he says, “That’s accurate.”
Evan may hate a lot of things, including me, but it’s obvious he adores his sister. And there’s something about this grouchy storm cloud of a man who loves his sister that makes me see a little sunlight beneath his gloom. And it might even be endearing if it wasn’t Evan.
“Nervous about tomorrow?” he asks me.
“I fainted during my valedictory speech when I graduated high school,” I reveal as if it’s nothing. It definitely wasn’t nothing.
Rumor has it that my gown took an opportunity to embrace a Marilyn Monroe moment with the oscillating fan that was directed toward the stage, because it was hot as blazes that May, but without conscious thoughts and ability to use my arms to push my gown down for a glamorous snapshot, it flew up around my head, revealing my underwear that saidSassy Pantson the rear end as I fell to the ground.
And it wasn’t just a rumor. There is evidence on video.
“How many were in attendance?” Evan asks, not even remotely fazed by my confession.
“Maybe two hundred,” I answer.
“So, one thousand people tomorrow won’t be a big deal then?” he rattles off, and now there’s a smugness in his tone.
“Nope,” I say, forcing confidence into my answer.
But my lungs are already quivering thinking about tomorrow. We won’t even discuss how my knees are feeling…or my stomach…or head.
Chapter 14
Evan
“Evan!You’vegottotry this out!”
There is splashing, squealing, the blast of jets, and a lot of giddiness echoing from my hotel bathroom, as if I’m dealing with a six-year-old instead of atwenty-six-year-old.
I peek in around the doorframe. Lily has her hair up in a bun at the very tip-top of her head and is wearing her bright-yellow swimsuit she featured in the selfie she sent me the day before.
