It was funny to me then, hearing her sexcapades—few and far between her long, long hours in the office. The variety in the citywas a novel concept to me, in a small town with no options left for me.
Now, I’m desperate to remember what she said. To find out if she ever fucked him, and ignoring the part of me that says I shouldn’t care one way or the other.
I hear Rory’s voice, tipsy and happy, like she was that night.
God, no. Not my type. But I can window shop even if I’m not buying the bag, right?
For some reason, the present version of me takes a deeper breath, chest rising and falling with some sort of relief that makes no sense.
But Rory’s eyes are desperate, begging for this not to become fodder for conversation when her husband comes back outside, so I do what sisters do best. I push her every button.
“No wonder you wanted me to hire him so bad,” I say, mischief dripping from my voice. “Your eyes haven’t gotten their fill of his…meatin such a long time.”
Weston and Amelia are off in their own world again, but that’s okay. I love busting my sister’s tits just because I can. I don’t need an audience.
“Stop it, Lexi, you know he’s not my type. I don’t look at all anymore, you know I’m happily married.”
“I do,” I drawl, nodding my head. “But I also know you said this man was one of the hottest specimens you’d ever seen. Does Wyatt know how you feel about Italian sausage?”
Wyatt and our stepfather head out of the house, and my eyes flash to them in challenge, where they cross the yard to get to us, platters of food in hand, baby strapped to Wyatt. Rory’s eyes widen, pleading with me just as much as her mouth does.
“Don’t bring it up, Lex, don’t! Wyatt got all jealous in New York, I don’t want him to think there’s some history there that really isn’t.”
Strangely, her words have an unexpected effect on me too, calming me just a little, and I decide to have mercy and let it drop.
Mostly.
“So you guys visited the bodega man and just had to bring him home, huh?” I ask once Wyatt has sat down, baby now on his knee, where she watches the meal around her, grabbing with her little fists at anything that passes by.
Wyatt’s jaw tightens, and his eyes dart to his wife at his side.
“Wasn’t my choice,” he mumbles.
“His meat’s not bad, though,” says my stepfather, lips pressed to a bottle of beer, and Wyatt and I both glare at him while Rory cackles.
“Not you too,” I moan, and the graying man who was the love of our mother’s life just smiles at me.
At least I have Wyatt on my side. Only things we might’ve ever agreed on were that Rory belongs here, and Wilder doesn’t.
I’m staying confident that by the end of summer, the oversized New Yorker will be gone for good. Maybe Amelia’s optimism is rubbing off on me.
Rory looks back at me pointedly. “Did you even look at his résumé yet? Or are you just determined to hate him because he isn’t homegrown?”
“I’m not—” I scoff, the right words not coming to me.
“That’s what I thought.” Rory smirks at me. For the second time in under a week, she looks so much like our mom with that playful, knowing look that my breath hitches, my stomach tightening into a knot that surely requires a medical diagnosis.
Sound tunnels and fades, and I lose my balance before I remember I’m sitting.
But then her face warms, laughing at something Wyatt said to her when the earth was crumbling beneath my feet, and themoment is gone. She looks like my sister again. My stomach loosens, the noises return.
“Seriously, Lex, check out his résumé. Even you might be impressed,” Rory says easily.
I roll my eyes, hoping I look normal again. “For the millionth time, nice things don’t mean shit to me.”
“I know, I know,” she appeases me. “It’s the moments that make life worth living, not the things in it. I know your philosophy. I just think he’ll add a lot of goodmomentsto Heights Bites.”
“And nice things,” I tack on grumpily.
