“Don’t bother going back to your place. Just take the bed. Half the time she sleeps the whole night on the couch anyway.”
“I’m not taking the bed from her.”
“Then sleep on the couch with her. I can’t carry her. Tweaked a muscle in my back earlier this week.”
There’s a heavy sigh.“You need to stop attempting to do the worm when you get a sale.”
“You sound like the HR department.”
If I wasn’t in a half-asleep daze, I’d make a quip about my brother’s geriatric body. But I’m too cozy to wake up. Especially when my body starts swaying and I breathe in delicious air that smells like flying. Maybe Shawn asked George where he got his rich-man perfume and washed his blankets in it.
I sink back into sleep around the same time my body settles on a cushy mattress and a deep voice mumbles, “Good night.”
Chapter
19
The morning afterbook club always comes with a dash of a hangover.
Not a terrible one, because Shawn always makes sure to get plenty of take-out food for us to gorge on and soak up the shots fired during our wars. But there’s still a subtle ache in my head, a fuzziness in my mouth, and a queasy tilt to my stomach.
Nothing a towering glass of water, a couple ibuprofen, and Shawn’s frittata can’t fix.
I’m halfway through my shower when I remember it won’t just be me and my brother at breakfast.
George is here.
George saw the book club version of me.
Beth with no boundaries.
“Damn it,” I mutter into the steaming hot spray, remembering how I stood on the table hollering about evil mushrooms and then practically huffed the guy while he was trying to pick a movie.
I spend longer in the shower than I normally do, then take thetime to blow-dry my hair and braid a section of the red strands back from my face. Shawn keeps hair ties in the top drawer of the guest bathroom for me. He keeps a lot of stuff here for me. Or maybe he stocked the place for female visitors, and I’m just benefiting from his bang-buddy chivalry.
Either way, I always know he’s got a box of tampons on hand, which was useful that one time I forgot my menstrual cup.
I find my overnight bag on the chest at the foot of the bed and dig out the pair of jeans and tank top I brought. My turquoise waitress uniform is in the bag, too, and because I’m heading to work straight from here, it would make sense for me to put it on.
But I don’t want to think about my gig at the diner when I’m having breakfast with my brother in his luxury apartment. Not because I’m ashamed of my job.
Only, it reminds me of how different our lives are.
And how I don’t think he’ll want them to overlap once he finds out about my lie.
My legs go weak, and I sit down hard on the mattress, bouncing a bit. Tears push at the backs of my eyes when I think about my upcoming birthday.
When I imagine my brother’s face as he learns I’m just another person who lied to him to get to his money, I blink fast and stare around the room, searching for something to take my mind off the sad future.
A few books sit on the bedside table.
I pick them up. The top one is Shawn’s annotatedMexican Gothic. A quick flip shows me the normal bright yellow highlighter marks he uses paired with his notes in blue pen. The next book in the stack isThe Undertaking of Hart and Mercy, Shawn’s choice for next month. A colorful cover with a big heart tells me he’s continuing his love-conquers-all mission.
Will that be our last book club?
It’s May now, and my birthday is at the end of July, so maybe I’ll be able to claim one more before Shawn cuts me out of his life.
I shove both books I hold into my bag and study the one remaining. Another copy ofMexican Gothic, and at first I assume it’s mine. But none of my dollar-store tabs are sticking out the side.
