A kiss that was not a kiss, like the brief punctuation to an argument.
I listened to his footsteps echo down the stairs, leaving me alone.
Twenty-seven
The party didn’t break up until midnight, when Toni went out with her friends. Avoiding me, as if she were two years old again, hiding behind the corner of the couch to poop, leaving me to clean up her crap.
“Go to bed. You must be exhausted,” I said to Reeti as I bagged the trash.
“At least let me put the food away.”
“You busted your ass cooking. It’s not fair to stick you with the dishes, too.”
“I can’t leave you alone in the kitchen like Cinderella.”
I smiled wryly. “I feel more like the evil stepsister.”
Reeti sniffed and dumped the few skewers of leftover tikka. “You shouldn’t worry about Toni.”
“I can’t help it.”
“You cannot save her from all her poor choices,” Reeti said as she scraped the veggie tray into Tupperware. “How will she learn, if not from her own mistakes?”
She sounded uncomfortably like Tim. I ducked my head defensively. “This isn’t like letting her go to school without a coat. Or fail a quiz because she didn’t study. This is her life.”
Reeti’s eyes met mine. “Exactly.Herlife,didi. Her dream.”
My throat constricted. I couldn’t argue with Reeti about my sister’s choices. Not with all the pressure Reeti felt to conform to her parents’ expectations. Not after the fight she’d had with Vir.
But this was different, I told myself. Toni was only eighteen.
The dishwasher was loaded, the counters wiped down. There was nothing to do but go to bed.
I lay staring at the ceiling, trying not to think about Tim sleeping in his king-sized bed one floor down. Or not sleeping. Waiting or not waiting? This was the first night we’d spent apart. It felt awkward. Wrong. Especially after he’d seen me kissing another man.
The memory rushed back—the shock of Sam’s hard, lean, angled body, the bitter sweetness of the beer he’d been drinking.
I flopped back against my pillow in a welter of guilt and confusion. Fretting over Tim or Sam or Tim-and-Sam didn’t help anything. I had to think about Toni.
“The more you focus on her needs the less you have to think about yourself,” Tim said in my head.
Eventually, I fell into a restless doze, the messy tide of emotion dragging me into a churn of dreams.
I was awakened by a crack of light from the open door.
Toni shuffled forward, bumping into the dresser. Her jewelry tree rattled and fell. Earrings tinkled and spilled to the floor.
I rolled over, groping for my phone. “It’s three in the morning.”
“I thought you’d be asleep,” Toni whispered.
“Not really.” I struggled to sit up. “I was worried about you.”
“I’m fine.” A giggle. “Fee called me a cab.”
I turned on the bedside lamp. “Did you have a nice time?”
Toni blinked in the sudden light. Her eyes were bloodshot, her cheeks flushed. I didn’t have to sniff her breath to know she’d been drinking. Appletinis. The smell of gin and Jolly Ranchers wafted across the room.
