“Oh.” I tuck my hair behind my ears, feeling West’s eyes on the back of my neck.
“Why, what did you think I meant?” she asks.
“West and I aren’t, we’re not—” I’m searching for the words to emphasize that nothing is going on between her brother and me when he stretches across the counter and gently removes the mug from my hand. His arm brushes mine as he lifts the mug to his lips. He takes a long sip and wordlessly hands it back to me, as if to sayWe are.I blink up at him, dazed as his tongue darts out to lick a drop of coffee off his lower lip.
Gabbi watches with raised eyebrows, and any plausible deniability I had goes right out the window. I swallow, my knees a little wobbly after West’s naked display of intimacy. “So, what are you up to this morning?” I ask Gabbi.
“Just stopping by to borrow West’s lockpick. I locked myself out when I went for a run this morning.” She rolls her eyes at herself and lets out a colorful series of swear words.
“Hey, since you brought it up, is your brother a serial killer or something? I can’t think of another reason he’d own one of those.”
West glances up at me over the bowl he’s cracking eggs into. “It’s for late-night break-ins.” He throws me an easy smile, and I have to repress false memories of his mouth doing other things, the dark scruff on his chin scraping wonderfully against my skin.
“It’s for me,” Gabbi interjects. “I’m a fucking idiot, and I lock myself out all the time.”
“Was a spare key out of the question?”
“If I had a nickel for every spare key I’ve given him, taken back, and then lost, I’d have at least two nickels. Now he keeps a lockpick on hand because he’s worried I’m leaving keys all over the city.”
“I wonder what it’s like,” I muse.
“What?” Gabbi asks.
“To know the version of West that’s thoughtful. Kind. Not an asshole. I’ve heard rumors of his existence, but…” I shrug and take a sip of coffee.
Gabbi laughs, and West gamely ignores the insult. “There’s oatmeal with brown sugar on the stove. I remember you used to like that. Scrambled eggs will be ready in a few minutes. Or feel free to raid the pantry. You can have anything you want.” His voice is still hoarse from sleep, and when his eyes flit to mine, a flash of last night’s dream comes back to me.
Gabbi stands and stretches. “He wants you to have the oatmeal, though.”
“Gabbi.” West’s tone is exasperated, with maybe a hint of warning?
“He went to the store at seven a.m. to buy it,” Gabbi says with a gleeful smile. “Okay, bye!” She scoops up West’s lockpick from a key bowl and jogs down the hall and out the front door.
His fingers find a pen on the counter. He spins it in a circle. “She can be a lot.”
“She’s a little sister. Torturing our older brothers is our birthright.”
“I deserve it, probably. She’s actually pretty cool.” He picks up the pen and taps it against granite.
Adult West is less fidgety than the boy I met at nineteen, but it’s still there inside him, emerging when he’s not keeping it carefully restrained. He almost looksnervous.
“What is the rest of your family up to these days?” I ask.
“One brother is a forest ranger in Idaho, another one is on a cross-country biking trip at the moment, and the baby of the family is still living with my parents. They’re all doing well. I don’t go home that often, though.”
“Still?”
“I’m not angry anymore. I just know what’s good for me and what’s not. After my grandma passed and my brothers all got a bit older, my mom didn’t need as much help with them.”
I nod as five hundred follow-up questions appear in my head unbidden. “I should leave.”
“Now? You don’t want to eat?”
I look at my dead phone. I can’t contact Daphne, I have no hotel room to return to, and Ishouldeat before my signing this morning. I can spend another thirty minutes with West, right? What’s the worst that could happen?
“Do you have a charger?”
He shows me where to plug in my phone, and then I cross the kitchen and hop onto the counter next to the stove while he scrambles eggs in the pan. I don’t want to give him a trophy for doing the most basic cooking task, but too many of the guys I’ve gotten into situationships with in New York treat food delivery apps like their own personal chef and taxi service.
