“Well, that’s nice.” She wanders closer, her shoulder brushing mine, and her smile grows wider because of it. “Does she adore you the way you adore her?”
“She probably can’t stand me. I still hearyou’re so nosy, Linc!Andstop nagging me, Linc,every time I close my eyes. It’s anolder brother’s job to be annoying. The way I see it, Ry and I had that in common.”
She exhales a soft laugh, glancing ahead as we step off the curb. “Maybe that’s why you were such good friends. You bonded over your love of harassing younger siblings. Your parents?”
“Are they around?” I set my hand under her elbow and lead her off the road as we approach the other side. “Yeah. Still married and chilling. They’re empty nesters now, with no grandchildren to fuss over. They call once a month to make sure I’m still alive, and call Scar far more often, since she’s far more likely to give them grandchildren.”
“Is she in a relationship? Anything serious?”
“No.” I dig into my ice cream again. “She’s had romances over the years, probably more than she ever shared with me.”
“I assure you that’s true.” She snickers. “Ry has no clue about Justin’s penis. Not everything needs to be shared.”
“Swear to Christ. If someone had told me three weeks ago I’d knowthismuch about some other guy’s dick so soon after moving to a new town, I’d have called them a liar. But here you are, obsessing over a penis youswearyou don’t like.”
“Not obsessing,” she giggles. “Reminiscing. I’m not talking about a regular small penis here, Lincoln. It was extraordinary. It’s like if I saw a ninety-pound bright pink cat in an alleyway; I’m gonna bring it up sometimes. It’s reasonable.”
“Get fresh stories,” I grumble. “Justin is a dead horse, and you continue to swing a stick.”
She clicks her tongue and goes back to studying her dessert. “Guess we’ll see what stories I have once you pull my Spanx off.”
My cock turns hard, and my eyes go to the stars above. “You’re a monster. You’re mean and cruel.”
“So give us something new to talk about.” Snickering, she scoops ice cream onto her tongue. “What weird thing did you do as a kid? Do you believe in Santa? Are you sure your sister isn’t happily cohabitating with a man, but you’re so annoying with the big brother stuff, she refuses to tell you? She probably has a million penis stories to tell, and no one to tell them to.” Beaming, she swings her eyes up to mine. “How would you feel if I called her? We could exchange notes, and I could make a new friend. You were buddies with my brother. It’s only fair I make friends with your sister.”
You’re not calling my sister, because then you’ll figure out how much of a fucking liar I am.
I firm my lips and bump her shoulder with mine. “I don’t believe in Santa, but I kept the magic alive for so long, my baby sister probably walked through high school calling everyone else a liar.”
“Oops.” She grits her teeth. “You set her up to look silly.”
“Not my brightest idea,” I concede, releasing the tension in my jaw. “But I set her haters straight and broke the news to her gently. I would know if she’s cohabitating with a man because she would tell me. And don’t make that face,” I grumble when she does, in fact, make a face. “It’s not naivety. She’s asked me to run a guy’s ID in the past, to make sure he was who he said he was.”
“And as someone with private investigative experience,” she drawls, “you were all too happy to oblige.”
“Yes. And lucky I did, because—circling back to the entitled white male nonsense—we were able to establish some of thesedudes were duds. They think love bombing is a shortcut to trapping women. Which is probably true for some, I guess. For those who don’t know better. But grand gestures don’t fool my sister. They only make her suspicious.”
“So, you found what? Criminals? Liars? Bank robbers?”
“Corporate jockstraps, mostly, driving Lambos they couldn’t afford, working jobs different from those they told her about, living in houses they would never own, and so deep in debt, green leaked out their ears.”
“It’s all about money? Their personalities don’t factor in?”
“You’re trying to make me sound like an asshole.” I loop my arm around hers and pull her closer. “It’s not all about money, but drowning in debt means he has poor decision-making skills. If he’s lying about his job, then…”
He’s a liar. Like me.
Fuck.
“If the repo man is taking his assets every time she turns around, then he’s not really someone I want in her life. Honesty and stability matter. I’d rather she were with a modest man with a regular job and less zeros in the bank than a tech-bro fuckwit who’ll leave her holding the bag when he dips out. So yeah,” I conclude, meeting her eyes, “it matters, and I’m more than willing to run his name if she’s thinking about getting serious. She trusts me enough to ask, and to maintain that trust, I provide proof, not opinions.”
“Have you ever given her the green light when she asked about someone?” Her lips twitch with a smile. “She says she met this dude, Brandon. She likes him. She wants you to check him out. If he’s decent, do you give her the go-ahead?”
Done with my dessert, I drop it in the trash as we pass a can.And when Nova offers hers, I take it and repeat. “I’ve green-lit one or two of them. None named Brandon, though.”
Wrapping her arm around mine, she rests her cheek on the ball of my shoulder and snuggles in. “What happened to those guys? The ones you approved?”
I lead her off the curb again, crossing the street and angling toward a small bridge that disappears into a swatch of thick trees. “They dated or whatever, and I guess it fizzled out. Financial acumen and honesty aren’t the only things required for a successful relationship. If there’s no chemistry, then there’s no future. But I’ve proven to my sister, at least, that I’ll tell the truth and approve the worthy.”
