“Yes,” she told her with conviction, sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to gather her thoughts. Instinctively, she reached for her pill bottle, expecting a headache to bloom at the mere mention of no caffeine, only to remember she’d left her pills in the room with the bats last night.
“Maybe he’ll loan you some coffee,” Eustace said with waggling brows.
“Who?” Cordelia rose and went to the window.
“The groundskeeper is pruning the hydrangeas,” Eustace said with a purr.
Cordelia looked out over the haphazard arrangement of garden beds and found Gordon in a familiar black T-shirt taking some shears to a plot of spiky hydrangea stalks. His long hair was loose again this morning, curling against his shoulder blades.
She gave her sister a withering look. “Have you been watching him all morning?”
Eustace nodded. “I haven’t had a view this nice since Roberto moved out.”
“What about Emily?” Cordelia asked, hoping it wasn’t as touchy a subject as it used to be.
“Emily never did yard work,” her sister replied.
Emily was the closest her sister had ever come to marriage—an outdated convention Eustace didn’t put much stock in. She was good for Eustace, grounding her wilder tendencies, giving her focus and direction. Emily was the reason she’d started her own grow room. Cordelia liked Emily’s domestic flair, though she didn’t miss all those hand-knits at Christmas. But she was ten years Eustace’s junior, and she wanted things Eustace didn’t—most significantly, a family. Cordelia understood her sister’s reluctance to commit to parenting after their own childhood, but it was hard to explain that to people who hadn’t lived it with them. And Emily, in the end, didn’t understand either. That breakup crushed Eustace for a while. But she slowly pulled herself back together, pouring everything into her business—a coping mechanism she’d learned from her sister.
Roberto, on the other hand, had been one of a number of casual engagements Eustace used to fill the time and her bed before and after Emily. Cordelia never minded that her sisterenjoyed herself, but “revolving door” didn’t seem a healthy relationship model.
“Come on,” Eustace said, elbowing her sister. “You’ve got to admit, he’sveryeasy on the eyes.”
“I don’t have to admit anything,” Cordelia muttered, watching the way Gordon’s arms stretched over the hydrangeas, pulling his muscles into leanly knotted cords. “There are just so many tattoos.”
Eustace snickered. “I knew you thought he was hot.”
Cordelia rolled her eyes. “What are we? Fourteen?”
Her sister shrugged a shoulder. “Oh, Cordy, evenyourloins aren’t completely devoid of feeling.”
Cordelia frowned. “He looks like one of those satanists or someone from a motorcycle gang.”
Eustace shot her a withering glance. “Because you’ve met so many?”
“John is more my type,” Cordelia said, unable to peel her eyes away just yet.
“John is not a type.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
Her sister sniffed. “He looks like he belongs in a Rolex ad.”
“So?” Cordelia felt suddenly defensive. “Those men are attractive. They’re models.”
Eustace dropped her chin and looked over her mug at Cordelia. “No one wants to go to bed with a Rolex ad.”
Cordelia stared out at Gordon gathering up the branches he would need to haul off. “But they want to go to bed with bikers and devil worshippers?” she asked, affronted.
“When they look like that, they do,” Eustace replied, sashaying away from the window just in time for Gordon to look up and spot Cordelia watching him alone in nothing but her flimsy nightshirt.
Cordelia flopped on the bed.
“How exactly do you know this guy worships the devil?” Eustace asked her.
“His fingers spell outhell fire.”
Her sister frowned.
