“Did you see the instructions I left last night?” Nat asks, setting a plastic bag on the counter.
“No, I just woke up.” I move behind the counter. “What instructions did you leave?”
“Here.” He shows me a Post It note on top of a white mug that says ‘FUELED LIKE A PLANE’. Nat sets the mug aside, takes out a clean pot and pours some water into it. “I cut some limes and ginger for you.” He turns on the stove and sets the pot on top. “I was telling you to boil some water and let it steep. It should help with the headache and your light sensitivity.”
“I feel perfectly fine.”
Nat gives me a ‘yeah right’ look and I realize that I’m squinting even now.
Straightening my shoulders, I step forward. “You don’t have to do all this, Nat.”
“It’s just tea, Riles.” He flicks the dial and adjusts the stove’s flame.
“I’m not talking about the tea. I’m talking about taking me home last night and taking care of me while I was sick. That was already too much. And now you’re cleaning my apartment and bringing me breakfast.Iknow you’re just being a ‘brother’or whatever.” I mumble that last part. “Butpeoplemight get the wrong idea.”
It’s me.
I’m people.
And my brain is collecting all the data and spewing back to me that Nat might be interested in me as a woman, not as a sister.
None of his behavior lines up with what I know of a sibling.
Chris would never in a million years clean my apartment or be this attentive. Forget tenderly holding my hair back while I puked, he would have been gagging and complaining about the smell and how gross I was.
And this morning, if he came by, it would only be to throw my windows open to let in all the sunshine and snap a picture of my bed head to use as collateral in the future.
Nat goes still. Despite his frozen stature, I notice his throat bobbing as he swallows hard. Finally, he turns, his green eyes holding me in place. He looks nervous and determined all at once and my heart starts thumping up a storm.
“Riles, I have something to tell you.”
I hold my breath.
“You and I have known each other for a long time.”
“We have,” I say hesitantly.
“You’re Chris’s little sister.”
My eyebrows furrow. Why is he telling me things I already know? “I am.”
“So when we met again, I just… I tried to respect that. Chris is my best friend and growing up, I was much older than you and I didn’t—I mean, you weren’t… it was different. Because I was older.”
“Yes, I mean. Yeah, you’re still older,” I point out.
Nat winces and scratches his temple. “But the thing is… I mean, right now we’re both…”
“Older?” I fill in.
“Adults. We’re both adults.”
“I’ve been an adult for a while, yes.”
Nat shuffles his feet. He looks extremely flustered and while I had a feeling about what he wanted to say earlier, now I’m not sure so where this conversation is going.
“I’ve given this a lot of thought because I don’t want to make you uncomfortable and I don’t want Chris to get upset and if this doesn’t work out, I don’t want to lose the two of you…”
Lose the two of us?
