Was hiding in my brother’s bathroom being judged by a row of bright yellow rubber ducks while avoiding my temporary roommate the most courageous thing I’ve ever done? Probably not. I don’t think I would have been embarrassed about it, though, if she hadn’tstill been herewhen my alarm to get to work went off and I couldn’t avoid leaving my ducky sanctuary. There is nothing that humbles a man more than facing a woman after a bout of particularly cowardly cowardice.
“Poem,” I grunt, opting to pretend like we don’t both know I’m a Wizard of Oz lion skipping down a yellow brick road. “What are you doing here?”
And if my tone is a little gruff and uninviting, well, that’s just because I’mfeelinga little gruff and uninviting.
She wants to be mysister, for goodness’ sake. Uninviting is an understatement when it comes to me andthat.
“Looking for you,” she replies readily, pointing a toothpick full of pale green melon at me. “I told you I was going to be working on you today.”
I scowl. “You’re not my sister,” I remind her. “And I don’t want you to be.” Another understatement, my new specialty.
“Yes,” she nods in agreement. “You’re right, those are the problems we face.”
“They aren’tproblems,” I protest. They are, in fact, about half of my motivation for my current attempts at becoming a better,more trustworthy, more reliable person that my parents can be proud of. If she’s my sister, then I cannot make her my wife. And I’d really,reallylike to make this infuriating, beautiful, resilient, funny,brattylittle woman my wife one day.
Which means absolutely under no circumstances will I be letting her think of me as her brother. Plainly, I’d rather be run over by a Mack truck.
“The first step to making you love me,” she says, “is putting you in my presence as much as possible. Congratulations, you’ve just won a day off spent with Poem!”
Terror hits me, followed closely by relief. “I’m not off today,” I inform her, glancing at the clock on Wolfe’s stove. “I actually have to be down in the office in ten minutes. So. Really sad, much sorry, but I can’t hang out with you.” I turn to my irritatingly amused betrayer brother, satisfied to see that even though I lost our scuffle when I tried to stop him from opening the door for Poem, I did leave him noticeably disheveled. I think I see the beginning of a bruise blooming on his neck, doubling my satisfaction. Serves him right, the traitorous traitor. “Goodbye, and thanks for nothing,” I say.
He rolls his eyes. “Goodbye, and you’re welcome. Maybe next time you can go be a baby at Almond’s house instead.”
I sniff. “Maybe I will.”
With a nod farewell to Poem, I head to the door.
Poem also heads to the door, frantically grabbing a can of peach-flavored caffeine from the counter and waving goodbye to Wolfe.
I jerk to a stop.
She does not, because instead ofwatching where she’s going, her head is turned to smile at Wolfe while her body careens full speed after me, thenintome.
“Oof,” she huffs, and I grab her wrist to stop her from falling and stop her Alani from spilling sticky liquid all over me, her, and the carpet.
“What are you doing?” I grunt.
“Spending the day with you,” she replies, tugging her wrist from my grip. “I told you.”
“I have to work,” I repeat. “So you can’t spend the day with me.”
She gives me a patented Poem-thinks-Fox-is-more-than-a-little-slow-on-the-uptake look. “So I’ll spend my day off hanging with you while you work,” she says slowly, enunciating every syllable.
I frown. “I’m going to be sitting at my desk doing orders and payroll and other incredibly boring administrative tasks.”
“Yeah?”
“I won’t be able to talk, or listen to you talk, or entertain you in any way.”
“Ye-ah?”
I sigh. “Don’t you have anything better to do with a day off?”
She shrugs. “Not really. Usually I spend it cleaning my house, but my house isn’t super cleanable right now, and I’m definitely not cleaningyourhouse, so I’m free to do whatever. And thewhateverI want to do is hang out with you and con you into loving me so that I can once again fully enmesh myself into your family without any silly thorns in my side complaining about it.”
I stare. Scowl. Beg the universe to take me out of the cosmic joke that is my life.
When the universe doesn’t come to my rescue, I appeal to my brother instead. “Can’t you take her?” I ignore fully the twinge of jealousy my question brings. Do IwantWolfe and Poem to spend copious amounts of alone time together, realize they’re attracted to each other, compatible with each other, and have the same values as each other, thus creating the perfect recipefor falling in love? No. But I equally don’t want to be trapped in my tiny office with Poem staring at me for the next four to six hours thinking up schemes to convince me she’s my sister. A little jealousy is a small price to pay for my own sanity. Probably.
