“Good-bye!” she sings as she lets the door fall shut.
“Please tell me she’s not joining a cult.” Gen’s grin lights up the space around us as she leans forward against the counter, resting her head on her hands.
“She met a guy. He owns anexperimentalgallery. That’s all you want to know.” I nod, actually grateful Sloane didn’t elaborate. “And Sloane would never join a cult. She would start one.”
My phone goes off in my pocket and I only need to glance to know it’s Connie again. I click the ringer off, setting it on the counter with an agitated sigh.
“Is that…?” Gen asks with this careful curiosity, like she’s still unsure how much I want to share about my life before I was adopted.
“Connie. Yeah.” I sink into one of my counter stools, letting my head drop into my hands before dragging them down my face, already exasperated. I haven’t even heard her voice, and there’s a steady stream of cortisol trickling into my bloodstream. “She’s been calling since August.”
“What does she want?”
“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t answered.”
She nods, taking me in with sympathetic perceptiveness. “I could answer. Next time, I mean. If it’s…triggering, or something.”
A smile ghosts over my lips, my chest feeling heavy with something beyond lust or like, but I shake my head. “No, thank you—it’s okay. I don’t really want to know what she has to say. Is that wrong?” I ask her in earnest.
“I assume,” she starts, reaching across the counter to wrap her delicate hands around mine, “that you have your reasons. It’s not wrong to protect your heart, even if it’s from someone society says you should love or respect unconditionally.”
“It just feels like too much has happened. It wasn’t just one thing—it was a thousand little blows that did it.” Her gaze is steady, no sense or urgency in it—just patience and understanding—so I keep going. “I think it started for me when Sloane and I got split up. That was…” I grind my molars, my throat bobbing. “That was hard.”
Gen’s eyes glisten as she presses her lips together. “How long?”
“Six months,” I tell her, the memory of that like a punch in the gut. “We were seven.”
“I’m so sorry, Grant.” She squeezes my hands, running her thumb across the top of mine, and I just shrug, breathing through the mental image of Sloane in the doorway of Social Services while this tiny pastor’s wife ushered me away. “And your uncle couldn’t have taken you in?”
“He was crossroad trucking, I think is what they told us. Or it was just inconvenient for him.”
“Shit. That’s…” she searches for a word to describe just one of the many consequences of Connie inaction in our lives. “Terrifying, for a kid.”
“I mean, it never happened again. But it felt like the end of the world, you know? Felt like I’d never get back to her again. We didn’t have phones or anything,” I add with a small laugh. “The first few days, I really believed that my mom was going to fix it. But she didn’t. The family I was with ended the placement because the wife got pregnant, and Sloane’s foster family had been askin’ for me anyway. Guess Sloane pestered them enough to make it happen.”
Her smirk matches my own, the thought of my sister hassling those people bringing some levity back into the moment. “Of course, she did.”
I push out of my chair, rounding the counter to join herin the kitchen. “Sloane’s my family. Evie and Beau are my family.”You feel like my family,I think but don’t dare say.“I just…don’t want to open that door again. Those feelings aren’t somethin’ I want to relive.”
I crowd the space behind her and she leans back against me, the sweet, vanilla scent of her curls igniting a warmth that travels down my spine. I’m starting to crave it—crave her. I haven’t spent a day apart from her this past week, and the thought of coming home to her is already embedded in my mind on a loop.
“I get it,” she says, her voice a low hum against my chest. “The future is so much more exciting anyway.” She peeks up at me, her plush lips curved in a timid grin.
We haven’t talked about what we’re doing. All I know is that between class and rehearsals, Gen’s been making time for Sloane. And, conveniently, hanging out with Sloane transforms into spending time with me. Sometimes Sloane hangs around, like last night when we all watchedThe Substance; ortriedto watch. Their combined commentary was even more entertaining than the movie. Most days though, Sloane slinks out and leaves us alone. A silent co-conspirator, the way we were as kids. And I’m grateful. Because something about this feels tenuous and impossible and I don’t want to fuck it up by defining anything.
“Should we try making your cake again?” I ask her, my chin resting on her head, letting the normalcy of her in my arms flood my memory bank.Thisis the sort of thing I always want to remember: her twisting and looking up at me, the desperation in her hazel eyes adorable and distracting, they way I want to grip her hips and spin her around, pin her against the counter, taste?—
“Please.” The single worded plea is more of a moan, and I distract myself by stepping back, inspecting thekitchen. Peering into the sink, I spot a single mixing bowl and a whisk. Next to the sink: a box of cake mix with two cracked eggs barely shoved inside, the egg whites running down the side. “We did buy three more just in case,” she adds in a hopeful tone.
“Not necessary. Jean’s not getting box cake on my watch,” I smirk, moving to grab the butter and sugar and pulling the standing mixer out from the cabinet.
“I thought it would beeasier,” she whines, watching as I microwave the butter. “Why are you doing that?”
“We’re gonna combine that with the sugar. Usually I’d let it sit out and soften, but you can heat it up for a few seconds instead.” The appliance beeps and I nod toward it. “Go ahead.”
Gen’s arms cross in protest as her eyes roll, the defiance I used to call frigid now heating me up from the inside out. I stand behind her, let my hands sink into the curve of her waist, and walk her toward where I’ve got everything set up.
“Pretty sure you’re the one who told Jean you’d make him a birthday cake.” Her pouty mouth twists into a reluctant smile as she gives in. I’d make this cake for her in a heartbeat, really, but I want to guide her through the steps, watch her master something new, catch the satisfying glint in her eye when she realizes she did a damn good job.
