“You could do it,” I told her firmly, smoothing my hand down over her collarbone.
“Fitness blogs are for fricking Greek goddesses, like people who live, breathe, and eat fitness. What the heck am I going to do when I go hog-wild and devour a whole plate of potato chips when I’m supposed to be at a spin class, huh?”
I moved around the light, wrapping my arm around her.
I swear I could feel her passion radiating through the thin fabric of her pajamas, her body pressed like a barely-contained nuclear reactor against me. I knew she wanted to write, to make a difference in any small way she could.
“You love fitness,” I said, kissing her forehead, still slightly sweaty with our lovemaking.Lovemaking. I’ve never called it that since. “And yeah, fine, you’re human. You make mistakes. But then so does everybody else. It’s part of … shit, it’s part ofbeing human.”
“Wow,” Grace said, stroking her hand up my bare chest, grabbing my chin and turning my gaze so that our eyes were sinking into each other. “When you describe it like that, it sort of makes sense.”
“It’s only because I know you can do it,” I told her. “I believe in you.”
“Just Imagine,” she giggles. “The soccer star and the fitness guru. I think we’d make quite the pair, huh?”
Now I blink, feeling like I’m rising from a deep pool of water. Which I am, if a bloke is permitted to get poetic about it.
I’m rising from the past and coming up for air and it feels fucking painful.
Lately, I’ve been delving willfully into the past, losing myself in dreams of Grace.
Sometimes, hell, it’s like it’s easier to live there.
Then I look across the field to see Nick striding toward the office hut, smiling and talking animatedly with the woman at his side. A smile takes the lower half of my face prisoner when I spot my sister.
Gemma has jet-black hair, like me, but she’s far taller and the kids at secondary school sometimes called her the Duchess, since she has an aristocratic way of looking at people. She doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s just with her Roman nose and her high cheekbones, she looks sort of haughty.
But an answering smile lights up her face when she spots me.
I raise a hand, waving.
***
“So, how’s little Harry Junior doing?” I joke, leaning back in my office chair with a bantering grin.
Gemma flips me the bird, Mom’s smile on her face. “I just knew giving him Harry as a middle name was going to come back to haunt me, bro. But you don’t have to be such a dick about it.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, sis,” I grin. “I do. Seriously, though, how is Sebastian?”
She reaches for her blue mug, wrapping her hands around it and cupping it close to her face. She takes small sips as steam rises up, clouding her hipster-style chunky brown-framed glasses for a moment. “Yeah, he’s doing great. I told him he could come with me next time to see his uncle. But he’s in this summer camp at the moment for maths geniuses, so I left him with Mom.”
I nod. “That kid’s going to conquer the world, Gem, I just know it.”
Her expression falters for a moment. She buries her twisted lips in another big sip of coffee.
“Sis, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“Oh, no, it’s nothing.”
“Nothing?” I laugh grimly. “Is that why you looked like you just saw a goddamn ghost? Come on, don’t lie to me.”
Her mug makes aclinknoise as she rests it in the saucer. “It’s not a big deal. It’s nothing new. I just wish he had a paternal figure sometimes, you know, a role model.”
“I’m sorry, sis,” I mutter. “I should spend more time with him. It’s just with getting this camp ready, these past few months have been off-the-charts busy.”
“Don’t be silly,” she mutters. “You Skype as often as you can. You pay our rent, our bills, you make sure he never wants for anything.”
I shrug. “Yeah, I guess so, but it’s not all about money.”
