She squeezes my hand, her gaze holding mine.
I’m a willing participant.
Jesus H. She must think I’m the world’s biggest tool.
Or…not.
Okay, no, she doesn’t, because holy shit—she’s rising up onto her toes, leaning toward me, sweeping her tongue across her bottom lip.
A shiver of anticipation rolls through me.
Inches separate us, a single breath.
My eyes have just fallen closed when the sound of an unlocking dead bolt makes them fly open again. Piper pulls back, slipping her hand from mine as she whirls around.
The apartment door swings wide. Tati sticks her head into the hallway. “Oh, I thought I heard voices. Glad you made it home safe.” She looks from Piper to me, then back again. She smiles. “I’ll…leave you to it.”
And then she disappears behind the closing door.
Piper swivels to face me, eyes dinner-plate round. “Who the hell was that?”
“That was your sister,” I say, playing along, “who clearly spent an enjoyable evening with a very pleasant companion.”
She snorts. “Are you, like, seventy-five?”
“Practically.”
Now she laughs. “I should go in. Want to hang out tomorrow night?”
I grin. “I’ll check my day planner.”
Piper
Damn Tati for interrupting!
She’s not in the kitchen. She’s not in her room either. I assumeshe’s holed up in her bathroom, performing her twenty-six-step skin care routine, so I head for my room to try and unwind. My pulse is skipping in circles.
My sister’s voice startles me as I pass the living room. “Piper?”
She’s nestled into the couch’s corner, wrapped in the wonky ocean-blue afghan my mom knitted during a foray into yarn and needles that lasted only one summer. She has a glass of wine in one hand, a novel in the other. Her hair’s pulled into a messy knot, a rarity, and—most unexpected of all—her feet are propped up on the coffee table. The very coffee table she scolded me for leaving a water ring on last week.
“Come sit,” she says.
Her amiability is unsettling. She must be toying with me. Or she’s possessed. Still, I park on the couch, slipping my feet beneath a loose corner of the afghan, and ask, “Everything okay?”
“All good. Seems your evening progressed nicely.”
“I guess,” I say, wondering how much she saw in the hall. Henry and I didn’t make it as far as kissing, but almost. What Tati interrupted had to have looked intense.
“Henry seems nice.”
“He is. He sucks at putt-putt, though.”
She laughs, reminding me of the old Tati, the sister I knew before our parents’ accident. She laughed all the time back then, from deep in her belly. She made others laugh—me especially—with witty observations and sharp sarcasm.
“How did your evening…progress?” I ask.
“It was nice.” She looks smug, likeniceis a vast understatement. “Davis isn’t the washed-up frat bro you think he is.”
