I cast her a narrowed look. “And you didn’t bring me anything?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and hiked her chin in the air. For a woman, my sister was pretty tall. I still towered over her, but the height difference never fazed her. I didn’t have a single doubt she could still kick my ass, and from the storm clouds covering her expression, she just might.
“I only buy coffee for brothers who don’t stress me out to the point I develop an ulcer.”
My chest fell on a deep sigh, and I scrubbed my hand over my face. “Look, I’m really sorry. I acted like a selfish prick last night. I shouldn’t have worried you like that. I just needed some time to get my head on straight.”
The anger wiped away, in its place was that big sisterly concern she excelled at. “And did you get your head on straight?”
I gave that some thought. It had taken hours to find sleep after Lennix left, and I hadn’t stopped swirling her words around in my head until I finally passed out from exhaustion. “Yeah,” I admitted. “I think I finally did.”
Gypsy’s shoulders sagged with relief. “Thank god. I thought I was going to have to beat some sense into your thick, stubborn skull after that bomb I dropped yesterday.”
Not willing to wait for the pot to finish brewing, I pulled the carafe out, mid-stream, and put my mug directly under it. “Yeah, well, someone else beat you to it.”
“Let me guess: Lennix?”
My head shot up and around so fast the dull throb in my temples turned into a pickaxe, making me wince. “What? Why would you... that’s not...”
She rolled her eyes and turned her back on me, walking over to the couch and sitting on one end before patting the cushion next to her in a silent order to join. My mug was full, so I switched it and the carafe back out and went to join her in my living room. She twisted to face me, bringing one knee up on the cushion as I sat at the other end. “I’m not blind or stupid, Ray. I raised you, so I know you better than anyone else, and I know you’ve been in love with that girl for a while now.”
I choked on the sip I’d just taken. “I don’t...” I cut my objection off midway through. There wasn’t really a point indenying it anymore. Not to other people and not to myself. “How did you know?”
She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “I just knew. I’ve caught you looking at her more often than a friend should, and I saw you follow after her at Zach and Rae’s wedding. That’s when it started, isn’t it?”
“Sort of. That was the night she told me she had feelings for me,” I confessed. Saying those words out loud was freeing.
My sister nodded, letting out a knowing, “Ah. It all makes sense now.”
My brow furrowed. “What does?”
“Why you were in such a bad mood for so long after that night. You thought you were doing the right thing and shot her down, didn’t you?”
“Jesus, sis. Are you a fucking clairvoyant or something?”
“Just observant,” she said with a smug grin. “And I pay close attention to the people I love. So tell me what happened. Start from the beginning, because I’m incredibly nosey, and I want to know everything.”
I found myself opening my mouth and letting it all pour out, starting with the wedding and ending with the fight we had the night before. I told her everything—well, minus the moreintimatestuff, because there were some things a sister didn’t need to know about her brother. I even told her about the run-in Danny and I had in Vegas and everything he said to me that fucked with my head so badly. And the more I talked, the lighter I felt. By the time I finished, I felt like I’d purged myself of the remaining darkness that had lingered inside after Lennix’s visit. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so... free. So unburdened.
“Damn, I always knew that girl was smart,” my sister said with a heaping dose of pride, which only made my own pride in my Chaos’s strength grow. “But that’s some next-level self-awareness she’s got going on.” She hit me with a look so serious, I had no choice but to pay attention. “That’s a once in a lifetime woman, baby brother. You lose her, you’re never going to get anything even half as good.”
I brought my mug to my lips and drank, barely suppressing a grimace. Gypsy was right. I made shit coffee. “Believe me, I know,” I said as I leaned forward to put the mug on the old steamer trunk I used as a coffee table.
“She’s right, you know. I’ve always worried you held yourself back from real, lasting love because you worried you were like him.” She leaned toward me, reaching out to place her hand on mine. “You aren’t. I was already grown by the time they took off, so I have more experience, and I can say with absolute certainty that he was wrong, dead wrong. You might look the most like him, at least before the booze and drugs wreaked havoc. You had similar laughs before the pack a day that he smoked made him sound like he’d sucked on the tailpipe of a beat-up truck. And you might have some of the same mannerisms and those dimples, but that’s where the similarities to him end, Ray. Even at his best, he didn’t have a heart like yours. He didn’t have your loyalty, and heneverhad your kindness.”
“I’m . . . I’m starting to see that.”
My sister’s smile was so brilliant it was nearly blinding. Her hand squeezed mine as her eyes grew glassy with unshed tears. “I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. So what are you going to do?”
That was the million-dollar questions, wasn’t it?
“Zach isn’t going to like it,” I said on a wary sigh.
She waved my concern away. “Zach will get over it. And if need be, I’ll help Rory in kicking his ass until he sees reason.”
I let out a chuckle, the noise sounding a little rusty from disuse over the past couple of days. “You’d do that for me, huh?”
“You’re my kid,” she answered vehemently. “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you or the rest of your brothers and sisters. Don’t ever doubt that, Ray. Not for a single second.”
