Her mouth dropped open in mock horror. “How dare you hurl that accusation at me.”
My lips strained, tugging upward as the two of us headed outside. The small, shared garden space right off my front door was always meticulously kept. When I moved into this place a few months ago, one of the first things I had done was apply to be on the HOA board. Not long after I joined the board, I’d hired a new landscaper, someone who shared my obsession with perfection. Someone with an eye for detail, as if a Home and Garden magazine crew might show up at any moment to photograph our modest little complex.
Ruby and I climbed into her red SUV—relatively clean, but still too cluttered for my liking. Last year, I’d passive-aggressively gotten her a car wash subscription for her birthday. She’d snorted with laughter and said it felt more like a gift for me than for her. Between all the family gatherings and trips we took together, I was in Ruby’s car a lot. She always insisted on driving, so was it so wrong that I wanted her car to be just a touch cleaner?
“Haven’t had a chance to get to the car wash lately?” I asked, pointing to the streaks on the windshield.
Ruby barked out a laugh before throwing the car into reverse and pulling out of my short driveway.
“I’m never going there, just to spite you.”
She cranked the volume up and started singing along to a new pop song that I wasn’t familiar with. I settled into my seat and enjoyed the colors that painted the evening sky. It was rare to see such a colorful sunset this season; gray clouds typically blanketed Michigan’s skies on fall days.
The drive to my parents’ house was short, barely long enough to queue up two songs. The whole family lived within a ten-mile radius of each other. We were one of those obnoxiously close families, the kind that got together for weeklydinners, occasionally took group vacations, and actually enjoyed each other’s company.
We pulled up to the quaint craftsman I’d grown up in. It wasn’t enormous for a family of five, but the best memories of my life had happened behind the currently red door. That door must have been covered in hundreds of layers of paint by this point. My mom loved switching it up for the season, her moods, special occasions—whatever, really. For her, painting that door was like hanging a new photograph.
Ruby led the way up the front steps, and we walked through the door, which was never locked. The smell of onions and butter hit me immediately. Stepping inside felt like a warm hug compared to the slight chill in the air outside.
“We’re here!” Ruby called, stepping out of her shoes and leaving them amongst the scattered pile that had a permanent place by the front door.
A guy about as tall as me, with dark features and a beaming smile, strode into the entryway before scooping my sister into a hug and planting a kiss right on top of her head.
“Gross,” Ruby muttered, shoving him away. Her practiced look of disgust wasn’t fooling anyone. Her crush on my best friend had been evident to pretty much the entire family—everyone except West—since he’d moved in with us our senior year of high school.
“Hey, man,” I said, slapping him on the back. While not related by blood, West had been an addition to this family ever since we’d bonded over our shared hatred of playing soccer in middle school. One time, we’d even snuck home from practice to play video games in his parents’ basement. Then, when we were seventeen and his family had to move to Australia for his father’s job, my parents hadn’t even hesitated before offering to take him in.
Now he was one of us. And he would never consider missing a Mitchell weekly dinner.
Ruby stared at the back of his head, then met my eyes—just for a second—before quickly looking away. I wasn’t the macho, overprotective-big-brother type. Ruby and West were adults. Her obvious crush on him didn’t faze me. Not in the slightest.
What did bother me was the inevitability of it all. West had no idea how Ruby felt, and even if he did, he wouldn’t feel the same. He’d let her down gently. He was good at that. Too good, if you asked me. Women liked him. Always had.
Me? Not so much. West had tried his best to be my wingman throughout high school and college, but I’d tanked every opportunity he set up. Then, I’d gotten into a long-term relationship, which had led to marriage—and unfortunately, recently, divorce. Now West was determined to once again be my wingman, despite the fact that I seemed to possess a natural talent for being entirely forgettable to most women.
“How did I beat you here?” West asked.
“We would have been here fifteen minutes ago, ifsomeonehad answered their phone in a timely fashion.”
I shrugged. “I got caught up.”
“With the sleuths,” West confirmed. My entire family was well aware of my hobby. I didn’t care. I wasn’t ashamed of it. Besides, it would be hard to hide after we’d received national recognition for breaking a cold case last year. We’d started a blog and everything. Aside from working remotely in IT—something I didn’t particularly love, but which paid well and didn’t ask too much of me—and spending time with my family, internet sleuthing was basically the only activity I took part in. Despite my mother’s relentless attempts at getting me into pickleball.
“We’ve hit a bit of a dead end on the case we’re working now,” I said.
“They’re cold for a reason,” Ruby said. “I wish you wouldn’t spend so much time on them.”
I didn’t bother arguing with her. Almost everyone in my family had said that to me at one point or another. I didn’tunderstand why they couldn’t just accept it; if I joined an adult rec league and started swinging a bat at a ball a few times a week, would that somehow be a more legitimate hobby?
“Ugh, finally. I’m starving.” My youngest sister, Regan, waltzed into the room and snatched the large container from my hands before lifting the lid and sniffing the contents. She’d moved home last summer after graduating college. Apparently it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park to land a stable job that paid well enough to afford an apartment with a liberal arts degree.
“Mediterranean orzo salad,” I said.
Regan and Ruby shared a look as we all moved like one unit from the front entryway, through the swinging door, into the large eat-in kitchen.
My parents’ house was the opposite of an open concept. It was more of a how-many-rooms-can-we-stuff-into-1400-square-feet concept. Despite the modest size, we’d each had our own bedrooms growing up—likely what had allowed my parents to stay sane raising three kids.
The kitchen hadn’t been updated in a couple of decades. It still had the same worn, white appliances and yellow daisy backsplash my dad had installed when I was just a toddler. There was something comforting about the way my parents liked to keep everything the same. Every corner of this place held memories.
