“I hate everything you just said,” I retort. “Back up.”
She does, blessedly, but my nerves don’t calm, because before she turns to disappear down the hallway and into hertemporary room, she bids me goodnight with a terrifying, cryptic, “Tomorrow, Fox.”
When I finally make it to my own room, I don’t sleep a wink. I lie, and I watch the numbers on my alarm clock fade and morph until tomorrow isnow.The whole time, I wonder how we went from her declaring her attraction to me to her declaring her intentions to become my sister.
Wheredid I go wrong?
And how the heck am I going to fix it?
Chapter Sixteen
?
In which Fox is a big ole scaredy cat.
Poem
So maybe I’ve completely lost my mind.
“You’re doingwhat?” Almond squawks in my earbud, confirming that I haven’t “maybe” anything’d. I have fully and completely lost my mind.
“I’m winning over your brother so that I can, once and for all, fully join my favorite found family and stop having to deal with his stupidity every day all day.” Does that make an ounce of sense? No, it sure does not. Did I say it with enough confidence that itcouldseem like itmightmakesomesensesomehow?
No, I sure did not.
“Poem, why are you antagonizing him? Again? When youlive with him?”
A fair point, I concede. “But, you know, that just means I have even more time to convince him that the irritation I bring to his life is endearing. Just you watch, Al. Before the week is over, I’ll have him saying things like, ‘You know, Poem isn’t so bad after all,’ or maybe even, ‘Wow! That Poem gal sure is swell!’” Nevermind my extreme attraction to the man. We can cross that bridge when we tumble face-first into it.
“Swell?” She snorts. “Is Fox turning into an eighty-year-old man sometime this week?”
I grin. “Well, I do tend to give men gray hairs.”
“When do you intend to start this plan of yours?” she asks.
I roll on my borrowed bed, careful not to dislodge myself from the heated blanket, and find the clock. “Right now, I guess,” I answer. “If he’s still home.”
“You don’t know if he’s home?”
“I’m still in bed,” I answer. “And apparently your brother rises with the sun. For all I know, he could have taken over a small country by this time of the day. The man’s a lunatic.”
“Poem, it’snoon,” she says, aghast. “You’re still in bed atnoon?”
Ugh. “Not you too,” I groan. “Please, don’t tell me you’re one ofthem.”
“Ifthemmeans people who wake up before the clock hits PM, then yeah, sorry girl, but I am most definitely one ofthem.”
“What could there possibly be to see in the world before PM?” I ask. “What use are the morning hours to me, who works late into the night? What point would there be in me existing during them?” I tsk. “No, no, it is much better for me to stick to the hours of coziness and comfort. The hours where I can drink a peach Alani and not get scolded by a grouchy loser about it being ‘too early for energy drinks’ while he downs half a pot of coffee.”
“That felt like a lot to unpack right there,” she replies. “Lets start with the fact that you seem to be saying that you are never awake in the morning and I’ve just… not noticed? How is that possibly true?”
I shrug as I find the button to turn off the heated blanket, prepping to acclimate myself to the regular, still-chilled air of Fox’s apartment. “You work in the mornings?” I suggest. “And are busy pretty much all the way through until your lunch break, when we do our first connect of the day.” I sniff, all sorrow. “In other words, I start my day with you, unable to find the will to get out of bed without you by my side, but you? You are perfectly content to live half of your life without me. I am unneeded!Unloved!” I gasp. “I must try harder to be lovable to you, too! Not just your brother! It’s a whole family sort of problem!”
“My heart does not beat until we speak,” she assures me. “I just didn’t know how much of my days were spent by rote, walking around like the dead. How scary my clients must find me!”
I sigh. “You could never be scary, Al. You’re too cute for it. A certified cutie-patootie, even.”
She groans. “Stop complimenting me to get out of the conversation we were having.”
