“Morning,” my sister greeted us.
“Morning,” I replied.
Beside me, Deena painted a smile on her face. “Good morning.” She stuck her hand out. “I’m Deena. I don’t know if you remember me—” She stopped talking when Erica began to laugh.
It was a genuine laugh, almost like the ones my sister would let out before she got sick. My sister clasped Deena’s hand in both of hers. “I remember you,” she said, still smiling. “How could I forget when Cal talks about you every chance he gets?”
Deena straightened, shocked. She turned to frown at me, and I rolled my eyes at my sister. “That’s enough, Erica.”
“Just to clarify,” Erica said, turning toward Deena with a conspiratorial smile playing over her lips, “‘every chance he gets’ is only actually once or twice. Mostly after I pester him about it.”
“I’m flattered,” Deena deadpanned.
Anunfamiliar feeling squirmed through my gut. It took me a second to recognize it: I was embarrassed. But not in a bad way—not in the kind of way that made me angry and want to lash out. I was embarrassed in a warm kind of way. The way that ended with lots of laughter from people I loved who loved me right back.
My throat grew tight. “Throwing me under the bus before I’ve even had a cup of coffee,” I grumbled.
Erica’s smile grew, and she leaned toward Deena to say, “I could tell there was something between you the first time I saw you at his office. I did my best little-sister routine and annoyed Cal until he told me about you.”
I poured Deena a coffee and added cream and sugar the way she liked it before handing it over. She slid onto a barstool next to Erica and smiled at me in thanks. I took the opportunity to glare at my sister before turning back to pour myself one.
“What did he say?” Deena asked, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure this was such a good idea. My sister loved gossip, and Deena was a wild card. The two of them in the same room?
Disastrous.
Then my sister went and said the worst possible thing: the truth. “He told me he was going to marry you one day, but you didn’t know it yet.”
I froze, wishing I hadn’t said those exact words to my sister the evening after she’d come into the office with Lila and the drawing. But I had. It had been late at night, and my sister had found me in my home office going over a few last-minute details for a deal. She’d gotten bloodwork results back and wanted to discuss them with me. Well—she wanted to show me how good they were so I wouldn’t worry.
Then she’d sat down, and the gleam in her eyes had told me she had something else on her mind.
“Say what you need to say, Erica,” I’d told her.
She’d smiled at me a little like she was smiling right now, her eyes sparkling, a bit of her old self coming out to play. “That woman today,” she started, and I immediately knew she meant Deena.
“Who?” I’d asked, my eyes sliding to my computer screen.
Erica had laughed, her head shaking. “You like her, don’t you?”
She’d always been able to read me better than anyone. Erica was the only one who didn’t look at me differently after Gracie died. And when our parents had divorced and eventually passed, she didn’t drift away from me the way all my old friends and acquaintances had. She’d stayed close. She knew me, and she still loved me despite all my flaws. She was the best person I knew, and I was lucky to be her brother.
But it also meant she could read me like a book.
There’d been no sense in denying it, and besides, I hadn’t wanted to. So I’d met my sister’s gaze and dipped my chin. “I like her,” I’d confirmed. It had felt like a paltry, weak word to describe my feelings for Deena. It sounded wrong coming out of my mouth.
Erica had picked up on it right away. Her eyes had sharpened, and she’d stated, “You like her a lot.”
“I’m going to marry her one day,” I’d said simply. Those words had felt better than the first few as they’d rolled off my tongue. They’d felt like the truth.
Erica’s shock was gratifying. “Does she know?”
“Not yet,” I’d answered, then changed the subject to talk about her care plan. There’d been nothing else to say about Deena in that moment. Deena was mine, and my sister would find out eventually. The sooner she got used to the idea, the better.
Now, a month and change later, I was regretting my rash words.
I turned in time to see Deena’s eyes widen. Her fingers were curled around her mug, but she hadn’t taken a sip yet.
