20
My dad wasthe first one to greet us at the door. He was a big guy, which should give him an aura of intimidation. But he was as soft and welcoming as a luxury hotel bed.
“Yara.” Dad wrapped me in his arms the second I stepped into the foyer. For a second, I’m eight years old again with my feet off the ground and my dad lifting any and every weight off my shoulders. “I’ve missed you.”
“I missed you, too.” I laughed once he stopped spinning me around, and I stepped back to see his beaming face.
He kissed my forehead and directed his gaze toward my plus one. “And is this the Louis kid? The one who used to give you all his extra candy after Halloween?”
I raised a brow, surprised he remembered that and even more surprised I’d forgotten. The memory slipped right out of the cracked door of my subconscious. David dumped a bag of Starbursts on my desk because he knew I’d have a collection of Almond Joys I couldn’t wait to pawn off to the highest bidder.
My brow furrowed at how clear the memory was now that it was back. How much of David had I forgotten? Whatmemories of him remained tucked in the far corners of my mind, stuck there until someone triggered them.
“We bartered.” David smiled at my dad and offered his hand. “And it’s Evans. I lived with the Louis family, but I’m an Evans, sir.”
I frowned. The Louis family. I’d assumed they were Evans. They looked like David, all stoic expressions and dark hair.But David had been a foster kid. I’d only learned that much an hour ago. Again, the shame of it all made my stomach sour. As a teen, I’d just assume we all had parents we pretended not to like, went home to beds where we got ample sleep, and came to school without the haunting of home life holding us back. I hated myself for it. For not asking. Not knowing.
“Got it.” Dad accepted David’s hand and offered him a hearty shake. “You’re a starter for the Angels, aren’t you? I’m more of a basketball guy, but Westbrooke’s football team is easier to cheer for.”
“You can still cheer on losers,” I joked. “They’re the ones who need it the most.”
Dad laughed while David’s brows furrowed.
“She never had much luck in little league, poor thing,” Dad explained as he wrapped an arm around my shoulder, pulling me into his side.
I rolled my eyes good-naturedly. “We never had a carrier.”
“Carrier?” David asked.
“Someone talented enough to carry the entire team. There’s always a handful of those when you’re that young.”
David nodded. “I was one of them.”
I laughed. “Brag much?”
My fake boyfriend actually looked a little embarrassed and dismayed. Dad swooped in with the save, noting, “A man who knows his worth. Got to respect the confidence.”
“Yara!” We were interrupted by a group of aunts and cousins. They introduced themselves, becoming instantlysmitten by David’s smile and nonchalant attitude about beingsotalented. They fawned over his story about last year’s championship, which most of them had a viewing party for because they were football fans. I’d missed the family memo.
“This is the guy?” My older brother, Adam, appeared behind me, leaning against the sitting room’s doorframe and watching everyone take the turn to ‘oh’ and ‘ah’ over David. “I thought you hated jocks?”
Adam was all long limbs and brain. The shade of his brown skin matched mine to a tee, which made him swear off makeup store trips with me. He had plans on publishing an eight-book series about dragons and time travel, but only after he finished his sidequest of opening an anime-themed restaurant two towns over with his friends.
“I do.” I pressed my back against the wall next to him.
“So what’s different about this one?” Adam and I weren’t the golden children who could revel in reaching goals like our sisters. We worked tirelessly to achieve successes that our parents would note (because they weren’t assholes), but wouldn’t quite shine as bright as Amiee, Logan, and Rose’s stars. Comparison came from our small-town community, not our four walls. Still, the “what about you?” and “your sisters must be a huge inspiration” seeped underneath our floorboards, rising high enough to graze our ankles.
Because we often brainstorm in corners on how to keep up in this sibling race, I planned to tell Adam my relationship was all for show. That a guy like David and a girl like me were like oil and water, and no kiss or amount of flirting could fix that. Adam could already sense it. I could tell by the unconvinced tilt of his head when he looked down at me, waiting for an answer.
I considered how to give him a hint about the subterfuge, but when I locked eyes with David for a second, my chest tightened. “Sometimes you just want somethingdifferent.”
I couldn’t blow our cover just yet, even with Adam, because a small (slowly growing) part of me enjoyed being the talking point of the evening. Enjoyed people thinking his gaze finding mine alluded to budding love and admiration. A deep, embarrassing part of me longed for everyone’s attention and approval. Something to show everyone, hey, I’m worth getting to know. I may not be as smart as Logan, as talented as Adam, as agreeable as Aimee, or as pretty as Rose. But I could be worth something to someone as successful as David.
“I feel like I have to be intimidating,” Adam confessed. “Dad’s in his palm and Mom’s bound to be the same. Where’s the instinct to defend their nest? I think if we were actually birds and there were wolves, they’d invite them over for dinner and cocktails.”
I laughed, watching Dad brag to my aunts about how good David was on the field, even though he’d only seen him between commercial breaks of basketball game reruns. “You don’t have to be intimidating.”
“I do.” Adam nudged his chin toward David. “Look at him. He’s too comfortable this early in the game.”
