“How do you know I’m not a celebrity?” I snatch a basketball from behind the bush—the same place Rush and I landed it this morning.
“You’re not a celebrity.” She makes a face as she swipes the ball right out of my hands and manages to impress the hell out of me at the same time.
“Whoa—you’re good.” A surge of adrenaline spikes through me with that one simple move. “I didn’t see that coming, sort of the way I didn’t see you coming when you crashed into my table this afternoon. Are you always so subtle?” I snatch the ball back and bounce it over to the side of the building. Beta Kappa Phi is way too big to be referenced as something as humble as a house. This is a McMansion at its finest—heck, it’s the real deal, but for sure it’s no humble home. Maybe that’s why I’ve decided to take a little sister under my wing. I wasn’t going to do it until Rush and Lawson double-teamed me. Rush thought it might even be good for me, get my mind off myrestless dickas he put it, and just hang out with one sweet girl, chill out, just be myself until my self-imposed moratorium on women is over and out.
Stephanie and that silly grin she used to wear whenever the girls came knocking at our door comes back to me. Breaks my heart all over. I miss her. I miss her every damn day. Whoever says death gets easier to deal with over time was one heck of a liar. It gets tougher. It hurts like living hell. It is hell.
“Where’s your head?” She snatches the ball and dribbles around me as she’s about to score the winning basket. A couple looks over, their bodies partially hidden in the shadows. It’s clear from the way their limbs are wrapped around one another, by the heavy-lidded look the dude just gave me, that they’re enjoying one another’s company on another level.
“Come on. Let’s go.” I snatch the ball out of Ava’s hands and run us out of there. “Not in front of my little sister, dude!” I shout back, and Ava and I break out into laughter before we hit the street.
“Boy you’re a riot.” She slows down as the noise from the frat house dims to nothing. “So, you escape killer parties, stop hookups cold in the middle of the night—what else do you do for fun?”
“Pick girls at random and make them my little sister.”
“That sounds incredibly kinky.” Her eyes light up as her gaze meets with mine. Something about the slow way she expelled those words makes my heart thump right into my ears. “Should I be expecting kink?”
A part of me demands to sayonly if you want it, but my jaw wires itself shut, and I shake my head instead. Forget monitoring Rush. It’s safe to say I’ll have to monitor myself around Ava.
“Okay, Grant.” Ava threads her arm through mine, and we start in on a walk down the oak-lined streets of The Row. The ground fog lifts and swirls at our feet, and I kick it and watch as it rises like smoke. “What’s a typical weekend like?”
“I work out. If there’s no game, I head home. My folks live close by in The Hills.”
“Ooh, a Hills boy, huh?” The Hills is synonymous with wealth, but ironically we’re not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. “My family isn’t too far either.” Ava’s expression darkens as if trying to submerge a bad memory. “I’m not that close with my parents anymore. I want to be. I think we will be again one day. But anyway, what are your folks like?” She looks up, her face glowing pale like a star, the way the night demands a beautiful girl like Ava shine. I study the papery nuances of her features, her pale pink lips that the moon kisses just to make me jealous. Damn, I want to kiss her. What the hell did I just get myself into?
“They’re great. My mom was an English teacher up until she retired a few years back.” I’m not sure retired is the right word, but I go with it. When Stephanie died, it paralyzed my entire family—jobs were lost, grades were sunk, money we didn’t even have seemed to float away. When Stephanie died, she took everything with her—the light, the dark, every shade in between, every hour of every day collapsed on itself like a dying star. “My dad tinkers with models in the garage.”
“What!” Ava jumps and swats me with that laughter of hers bubbling from her throat. If roses could sing, that’s exactly what they’d sound like. Damn, that was a weird thought. I blink back at her as she settles down.
“Battleships,” I add quickly. “Ships in a bottle. Stuff like that. Metal boxed kits that he transforms into works of art. I’ll bring you by the house one day so you can meet the parents.” The therapist told him to find something he can control, and he did just that. Wait, did I just saymeet the parents? My mouth does realize I’m not dating this chick, doesn’t it? I frown at my own blunder. Mom will never buy the fact we’re just friends. Hell, my boxers aren’t buying it either.
“I’d love to meetMomandDad.” She bumps her shoulder to mine when she says it. “Can I spend the night in your room?” She blinks up with a contrived level of innocence, and I laugh. “No, seriously.” She gives my arm a firm squeeze. “Will Mom be making her famous apple pie? I can help. I’m a charm in the kitchen. And wait until you see what I can do in the bedroom!” She snatches the ball out of my hands again and dribbles down the street.
A laugh gets locked in my throat. “How’d you know she makes a famous apple pie?”
“Because she’s your mom, and you’re like perfect.” She averts her eyes as if it were a fact, and something about that tiny, perhaps unbelievable compliment warms me to my egotistical bones. “You have the perfect family, a killer smile. I bet your ex is perfect, too.” She sticks her finger down her throat and gags. “And now here I am, rounding out the perfect party.” She dances on one leg as she says it, and something in me loosens. Ava is a party all right.
“You’re the perfect little sister, Ava. I knew I pegged you right.”
“What’s this?” She jolts the ball my way like she’s about to make a pass and catches it. “You want topegme?” She bites down on her lower lip, and swear to God, my balls throb on command. “I knew you were a perfectpervert.”
“You wish.” Now it’s me knocking my shoulder into hers. It feels nice like this, dare I say perfect. “So, are you okay with this big brother deal? I know you’ve got one. You in the mood for two?”
Ava’s eyes snag on to mine a moment too long, that day-glow color, the exact hue of the Caribbean Sea makes me want to linger. “I’m in.” Something in her softens, and her lips turn down at the corners. “B-b-besides, you mentioned you used to be a brother.” Her brows arch as grief dims the light in her, and something about the way she stumbled over her words endears me to her. “I want to be there for you, Grant. That’s what little sisters do, right? They, they”—she gulps as if she were struggling to get her words out— “they give their big brothers someone to look out for—and they look out for them.”
Ava nails me with those words. I’ve heard many consoling phrases since the day Stephanie passed away, but Ava and her heartfelt sentiment seared me to the bone.
I rough up her hair a moment. “Something tells me you’ll be easy to keep an eye on.”
“Oh yeah?” Ava dribbles the ball in a dizzying circle around me. “Just try to catch me!” She takes off with the ball, and I bolt right after her.
“Hey, slow down! I’m telling Mom!”
We laugh all the way to Whitney Briggs.
Yeah, Ava is going to be a handful. All I have to do is remember to keep it chaste. I’m still finding me, burying Stephanie—Ava doesn’t quite fit into that equation.
But everything in me screams she does.
