“Bye, Buzzkill,” Mia sneered under her breath before skipping to the door arm in arm with me. As soon as we stepped inside, I breathed a sigh of relief. I loved my brother, but his overprotectiveness sometimes made me feel like I was suffocating.
“I don’t get where he gets thenerve,” Mia grumbled, waving to her doorman before clicking the elevator button, flipping off my brother’s sports car as he pulled away.
Her glower followed us inside and up to her apartment door. “I mean… is it his ass? Does he shove the audacity clear up there for safekeeping?”
“Mia, be nice. He’s my brother.”
“Thisisme being nice. Because I’m this close—” She held up her fingers barely a millimeter apart. “—to beating his ass until he lets you behave like a grown ass woman. So, really, me holding myself backisbeing nice.”
I looked at her while we walked down the hallway. Mia wasn’t going to be fighting anyone, anytime. Especially not my stocky brother with a temper issue. She lost every battle with a Sephora makeup sale. One promise of a brand new eyeshadow palette from him, and she would be toast.
“I mean, if you’re old enough to get a tramp stamp that you later regret, you’re old enough to live without someone constantly surveilling you!”
My brows knitted together. “What’s a tramp stamp?”
Mia froze in the midst of jingling her keys in her lock before sighing and turning. She squeezed my cheeks with a gentle smile. “Oh, you sweet summer child.”
“What is it?”
“Never mind,” she laughed. “Come on.”
I followed her into her apartment, which was decorated with an eclectic assortment of prints, knick-knacks, and far too many throw pillows. Despite our almost laughable salary from the City Ballet Company, Mia always seemed to have enough budget for a little trinket wherever we went.
Not that Jules let us go many places. But sometimes he took us to the mall, so I took that as a win.
I smiled at the view out her floor-to-ceiling windows, the city lit up like a Christmas tree. The world was so wide I could hardly believe it sometimes. My little corner of it felt so small.
Mia flicked on her large television before stalking to her modern kitchen and setting a bag of popcorn in the microwave. Our dinner on nights like this, when we couldn’t bring ourselves to cook after a performance, nor order takeout that we couldn’t afford. Mia’s parents might have subsidized her luxury apartment while she danced for the Company, but they weren’t paying for her food delivery fees.
“So,” she began later, flopping onto the couch, a bottle of wine in one hand and a bowl of popcorn in the other. She patted the spot next to her. “I’ve given you a couple of weeks. When are you finally going to tell me why you’ve been acting soweirdlately?’
I was in the middle of wrapping myself in a pink fuzzy blanket—one she kept here just for me, knowing they were my favorite—when I stilled, my eyes dragging over to Mia, whose hardened expression told me I wasn’t getting out of it this time. I’d been putting off her many questions for months, and I knew I would soon be reaching the limits of her patience.
I just wished it had lasted alittlelonger.
With a sigh, I scooted closer to her, grabbing the bottle from her hands and taking a direct swig. The sickly sweet taste burned the back of my throat, and I coughed. Drinking was never really my thing. I was always too focused on dancing to go out with friends, and I hadn’t been twenty-one for long anyway. Plus, it wasn’t like Jules was offering me his liquor to try.
Needless to say, that was something Mia changed shortly after we met. Now, I still didn’tlovedrinking—who likes dealing with headaches and regrets in the morning?—but I didn’t abhor every second of the nights she dragged me out to the clubs either.
“Spill, Evangeline.”
“Fine,” I groaned. “But you can’t tell anyone.Andyou can’t judge me. Or react. Or ever bring this up again.”
“The only one of those I’m actually agreeing to is to never tell anyone. But I will be judging, reacting, and most certainly bringing this up again because you never have secrets, ever, and I plan on taking full advantage of this.”
I tried to glare at her, but she looked at me like I was a wet kitten—angry yet adorable. “Fine. I kissed someone.”
True to her word, Miadidreact.
A lot.
First, she threw the popcorn bowl up, kernels launching into the air and landing like snowflakes around us. Then, she screamed, clapped her hands, did a few laps around the room, sat back down on the couch, squealed and jumped up again, and did a few more laps before wrapping me in a hug and pulling me back down with her, giggling like a madwoman.
“Eva! You kissed someone! Youkissedsomeone! Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. That was your first kiss, right?”
My cheeks burned as I nodded. I didn’t love to be reminded of how inexperienced I was, because it wasn’t like Iwantedto be a lame, unkissed virgin with no knowledge of what things like tramp stamps were. But with my sheltered upbringing, going to a small, women-only boarding school for high school, then dedicating my entire universe to ballet as soon as I was old enough to fully commit to it, there hadn’t been time or space for love to blossom. Plus, there was no one I everwantedto make my first kiss.
But I’d kissed Alek twice.
