“That is the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard.” I dropped my voice overbullshitlest I got scolded too.
“It’s not. He needs pushback. Thrives under it, actually.”
“Well, whatever. I don’t.”
“Yes, you do,” he said seriously. “You’re the toughest person I know, Eliza. A little bullying from your brother isn’t going to break you.”
I looked up at him, trying to figure out if he was teasing me or not. “It might.”
He held my gaze, leaning closer but not touching me. Or even breaking my personal bubble. “My money’s on you. Any day of the week.”
“You’re really saying you think I can—”
“Break him,” he said. “Probably make him cry. You’re Eliza fucking English. You don’t back down.”
I laughed, playing off his compliment like a joke. But internally, I drank it down like an elixir. Was that really what Jonah thought of me? Did he really think I could go up against my big brother and win?
Could I?
At this point, it didn’t matter. Just Jonah believing I was enough made me bubble with badass energy.
“What would I do without you?” I asked him.
“Shrivel up and die. Life would be so boring.”
That was true. But instead of telling him that, I just looked at him like he was my real-life hero. Maybe he was.
“Jonah,” Will called from across the room. “Have you seen this?”
Something on the TV pulled Jonah’s attention away. He walked over to stand with Will, but I was too giddy to comprehend what they were looking at. Sports? News? An alien invasion? Did it even matter?
Jonah was... Jonah. And he was and would always be my hero. I didn’t know what last night’s make-out session was. Or if it even needed to be defined. But I did know he was one of the best and brightest things in my life. And I had wanted a night like last night for as long as I’d known him.
“So, where were you and Jonah last night?” my mom asked, interrupting my gushy thoughts with a sly smirk.
“What?”
“You were obviously with Jonah. Only an idiot wouldn’t have put that together. And I’m not an idiot. Do you think your mother is an idiot?”
“You’re not an idiot, Mom. I don’t think that. I never said that.”
“So youwerewith Jonah last night?”
Oh, my gosh. How had she done that? That was like some weird mom voodoo or something. “Mom!”
She wagged a finger at me. “Confirmation. Man, I’m good.”
Her gloating was too much. “We went to a distillery out of town. It wasn’t like we eloped or anything. We just went to check out the vodka.”
“Mm-hmm,” she coaxed. “And then what?”
If I had had a normal morning, my jaw would have been dragging on the ground after my own mother prodded me for details about what I could only assume was my sex life. Thankfully my capacity for shock and awe had diminished significantly over the last couple hours.
“You are out of your mind,” I told her. “I think this might be an early sign of dementia.”
She shook her head while Lola came over to join us. “Ugh, sports,” she said, not noticing we were in the middle of a conversation—which was fine with me.
Turning my attention to Lola, I said, “You hate all sports?”
