Bastian takes a breath and straightens his sweater with as much dignity as a man with sex hair can muster. “Eliana, this is my brother, Sage. Sage, this is Eliana Hunter. She works— She’s my project manager.”
I try to smile and pat down my hair again, though it’s as much of a lost cause as Bastian’s. “Hi, Sage. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.” His grin hasn’t dimmed one watt. “Any girl who can make my brother lose his cool like this is alright in my book.”
At my side, Bastian looks like he’s contemplating fratricide.
“Oh!” I say brightly as something pops up in my memory. I turn to Sage. “Bastian told me about when you guys were kids and he got locked in the walk-in freezer. That must’ve been so scary.”
It’s an immediate record-scratch moment. Like watching ten cars pile up on the highway, twisted metal, screaming engines, smoke and fire as far as the eye can see. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong, but it’s beyond doubt that, whatever it was, it was bad.
Sage’s grin disappears, replaced by brow-wrinkled confusion. “What?”
Bastian, meanwhile, goes very, very still beside me.
“The walk-in freezer,” I continue, already sensing I’ve made a terrible mistake but unable to stop myself. “When you were playing tag at the restaurant and the door locked…?”
Sage shakes his head slowly. “I… I don’t remember that.”
“You must’ve been pretty young,” I say weakly, trying to backpedal. “Maybe you just?—”
“Eliana.” Bastian’s voice is frozen and dead. “Sage wasn’t there.”
The humor drains from the room like someone pulled a plug.
Sage looks between us. “What restaurant? What are you talking about?”
Bastian takes a long time to answer. “It was nothing,” he finally says. “Ancient history.”
“Doesn’t sound like nothing.” Sage wheels closer. “You got locked in a freezer? When?”
“I was seven or eight.”
“Where was I?”
“You weren’t born yet.”
Where is a sinkhole when you need one? Where are aliens to abduct me and carry me to a galaxy far, far away?
Sage nods slowly. “So it was you and Aleksei?”
Bastian’s entire body tenses. “Drop it, Sage.”
“Did he lock you in there?”
“I said drop it.”
“Did he?”
“Yes, goddammit.” Bastian’s hands curl into fists at his sides. “Yes, he locked me in there. He was trying to protect me from seeing something I shouldn’t see. Happy now?”
Sage’s face has gone pale. “What were you not supposed to see?”
“Nothing that concerns you.”
“Bas—”
“Enough, Sage!” he roars.
