Propping her shoulder against the door, she crosses her arms over her chest to look at me with a cocked eyebrow. “Oh? And do you feel you deserve to be forgiven?”
I tilt my head to look at her. “I never said it was about forgiveness.”
Gia rolls her eyes. “It should be. You’re an asshole, you know that?”
“Yes,” I sigh. “I’m aware.”
Her eyes soften slightly as she moves out of the doorway. “Come on. Carson will be excited to have some ice cream before bed.”
As I step into her house, I bend down to kiss the top of her head, then poke her side right where I know she’s ticklish. She responds by sticking her fingers into my armpit, and I throw an arm over her shoulders so her face is jammed against me. “What’s that? Oh, you love me, too? That’s so nice, Gianna. So sweet.”
“Uncle Leo!” Carson shouts, bounding toward me. He’s an eclectic mix of my sister and Travis. He’s type-A like Gianna, but outgoing like Travis. He has our eyes, but Travis’s hair color and complexion. It never ceases to amaze me how genetics work. “Is that ice cream?”
“It is,” I tell him as I bend down to scoop him into my arms. The movement makes my leg cramp, but it’s worth it when Carson squeals in excitement. I place him on a kitchen chair, standing, while Gianna grabs spoons and bowls. “No bowls needed. I got us each our own pint.”
“My own pint!” Carson shouts gleefully, jumping up and down. He’s wearing Spiderman pajamas, with a hole in one knee, and his chaotic energy makes me grin.
“You will be having a small portion, sir,” Gianna chides. She looks at me in disapproval. “He has school tomorrow, Leo. I’d like him to go to bed before midnight if possible.”
I wince as I realize the error in my ways. “Whoops. Sorry, kiddo. Mom rules this house, not me.”
“Aw, man,” Carson says with a pout as he drops his butt to the chair. “No fair.”
Gianna crouches next to the chair. “I guess you can go to bed with no ice cream, then. Would that be better?”
“No!” he shouts.
“Okay, I’ll give you a little bit, then.”
“Yes, Mommy.” Carson beams up at his mom, and my heart cracks a little. I’d never really planned on or expected to have a family. It wasn’t something I considered to be definite. If ithappened, great. If it didn’t, I was happy being an uncle. But every moment with Ella, Oliver, and Violet has made me want more. For the first time, I’m jealous of my sister because she’s a mom.
Travis gets home as Carson is finishing his ice cream, and dutifully takes him up to bed for the night, leaving me with my sister. She doesn’t speak, only raises her eyebrows at me. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” she asks.
“Like you’re waiting for me to drop a bomb on you.”
“You showed up here unannounced, Leo. Clearly you have something you want to talk about. You’ve never appeared here for no reason, so spill it.” Shit. She’s right.
I blow out a breath, scrubbing a hand over my face, then sliding it around to grip the back of my neck. “I think I accidentally fucked up, and I don’t know what I should do next.”
“Accidentally.”
“Yes.”
“How does one accidentally fuck up, Leo?” she asks, her voice deceptively calm. This is when Gia is the scariest, if I’m being honest.
“I need to know how much you know before I continue,” I stammer. “I’m not sure where to start.”
Her eyes narrow. “How about you start with the weeks after you banged my best friend against her apartment wall, then didn’t call her once?”
My hackles rise as I feel myself go on the defensive. “I showed up a couple of times a week at the bookstore for a bit, but she wouldn’t see me. I assumed she wouldn’t answer my call either.”
“But you didn’t try.”
“No,” I admit. “And before you ask, I didn’t text either. I wanted to see her. I knew she was freaked about what had happened, and I knew anything on the phone wouldn’t help matters. So I kept going into the bookstore, but she was never available. I figured if she could see me, she’d see that I wasn’t going anywhere. That Iwanted to keep seeing her. And then life happened, and all hell broke loose at Everlasting. I basically lived there for two straight weeks, and stupid shit kept breaking, and I never had time to make it back to Purrfect Books. So now it’s been like two months since we were together, and I don’t know what I should do.”
Closing my eyes, I tilt my head back to rest against the top of the chair. I wait patiently as Gianna processes my info dump, and she finally says, “Have you actively been seeing that therapist this entire time?”
