She darted toward our hallway.
“I’ll finish getting dressed.”
“Hey,” I whispered as I pulled her back by her arm. “I was making a joke. I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.” I tapped her chin so she’d turn to meet my gaze. “Okay?”
She nodded, tension still pulling at her features.
Taylor had been used to our mother coming and going over the years, but it was me she was afraid of losing.
We looked like sisters, but then we didn’t. Our mother’s dark eyes and long lashes were the same, but Taylor’s hair was almost black, while mine was more of a chestnut brown. She was rail-thin, even with the “puffy stomach” she’d been complaining about all week, whereas I’d been mid-sized for most of my life.
We were almost the same height, but any shirt she borrowed of mine hung off her frame without my padding to fill it in.
I laughed to myself every time I thought of how Silas had compared me to Jessica Rabbit. It was ridiculous, yet one of the nicest compliments I’d ever received.
And something elsenotto think about today.
I guessed the differences between Taylor and me came from the fathers we’d never known, and although my sister would always suggest getting a DNA kit after we’d see an ad for one, I shut it down immediately.
There was no point, only danger, because Taylor’s father could take her away from me if he wanted to, especially if he hadn’t known about her.
Mom had said she’d told both our fathers about us and they just weren’t interested. If that was true, our parents all seemed to have that in common.
Still, that was a can of worms I wasn’t going to open for the sake of curiosity while my sister was still under eighteen.
I watched Taylor get her backpack together and reach for her jacket on the hook after she’d finished getting dressed, a slight twinge of guilt in my gut when I caught her grimace. I’d gone to school with cramps, and if I could function, she had to as well.
My baby sister meant everything to me, which was why I exhausted myself to be everything for her, and was a big reason I felt like I was thirty-three going on one hundred. What I had left of my youth was dwindling, but I was still happy to give it all to her.
“Who is your interview with?” Taylor asked as we strolled up the street to her bus stop. Next year, she’d be a freshman and at a school farther away.
I exhaled slowly, trying to stay in the moment rather than indulge in my usual panic about the future.
“New client,” I told her as we turned the corner. I hadn’t realized how early we were as we strode to a mostly empty stop.
“One of those tech ones?” she asked as she adjusted the strap on her arm.
“No, actually. The new manager for the Brooklyn Bats.”
My sister turned around, a loud gasp escaping her as she brought her hands to her mouth.
“You’re interviewing Silas Jones!” Her mouth was as wide as her eyes. “Patti is going to flip out when I tell her.”
“You can’t say anything yet,” I leaned in to whisper. “This is for a new campaign. When the article is out, you can brag all over the place.”
She glared at me before letting out a whimper of disappointment.
It was comical how my sister knew Silas’s last name before I did.
“Okay,” she relented with an audible sigh. “Wow, you’re lucky. He issohot.”
“Hot,” I repeated, studying my sister and soaking in the first time she’d called a guy hot. It happened to be the guy I’d had veryhotand dirty sex with multiple times on a night that was supposed to stay in the past, but I was too busy fixating on her finding someone hot to connect those queasy dots in my head.
“I had no idea you followed the Bats.”
“Some of my softball friends do. You don’t know Silas Jones? He has the best butt in baseball.”
I burst out laughing before I could help it.
