Everyone stopped and stared at me, Orion with a strip of bacon hanging out of his mouth.
“What?” I asked, sitting down slowly.
It was Orion who spoke, pulling the piece of bacon from his mouth, “You…you just never talk about Asher. Just surprised, that’s all.”
“Yeah, well…it’s whatever.”
They all continued to stare at me, but Orion recovered first, eating the discarded strip of bacon.
“No, I mean—wemean—it’s good. To, uh, talk about him,” Orion said while chewing. “Healing.”
“Babe?”
I watched as he turned to Annalise, his eyes wide and a bit confused.
“Yeah?”
“Shut up,” she said.
Eloise smirked and the awkward tension my well-meaning brother created, evaporated as Annalise pressed another piece of bacon into his mouth and patted his cheek.
I smiled at them, even though my heart had started to ache just a little bit. I hadn’t meant to bring up Asher…it had kind of just slipped out. It felt like the natural response. He was on my brain—not that he was ever truly far from my thoughts. But between yesterday’s emotional attack courtesy of Lukas, and then the dream, Asher had prime real estate—front row seats to everything.
“Come on, let’s get something to eat,” Eloise said, patting my shoulder.
I followed her towards the buffet, my stomach grumbling with each step closer to the smell of food. I was starving. As I spooned fluffy scrambled eggs onto my plate, Eloise nonchalantly asked me about what happened earlier. “So who was at the door this morning?”
I nearly dropped the spoon. My head shot up, my eyes meeting her knowing gaze.
“I’m guessing it was Lukas.”
“Your guess would be right,” I said, moving onto the bacon.
“And do you want to explain why he was at our door at seven in the morning?”
“Doyouwant to explain why you had an alarm set for 7:00 a.m. on vacation? One that you repeatedly ignored by the way.”
“Yeah, thanks for the bruises, bitch,” she teased.
“Next time, turn your damn alarm off, bitch,” I teased back.
“Don’t think I don’t know you’re just trying to change the subject,” Eloise said. “I want to know why Lukas was knocking on the door this morning. Who gave him the room number?”
“That I do not know.”
“Really living up to the ‘I’m not a stalker’,” Eloise deadpanned.
“I already told you?—”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. Not a stalker. Just a devoted cheerleader to his little sister. Him showing up though…”
“It’s kind of horrifying. I looked like shit this morning.”
Eloise looked up at me, “I was going to say impressive…or at least persistent.”
“I thought you were going with stalker-y.”
“Ha. He wanted to apologize, right? So, it’s kind of sweet?”
