“Yeah. Totally. Just give me, like, five minutes.”
“Mm-hmm.”
He takes a sip of his coffee, still looking around.
Sniffing, almost. Oh my God.
“Did you switch detergents?” he asks.
“What?”
“Smells different in here.”
My laugh comes out a little too high. “No. Same as always.”
Inside the closet, something shifts. Just barely, but I hear it and freeze.
My brother’s eyes narrow slightly. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
He glances toward the closet. No. Absolutely not.
He takes a step in that direction.
“I’ll grab a hoodie,” he says. “It’s freezing in here. You’re really cranking the AC.”
“No!”
The word flies out of my mouth way too fast, way too loud.
He stops and looks at me.
I swallow, scrambling. “I mean—I’ll get it for you. You don’t know where anything is.”
“I’ve been in your room a million times. I helped organize this house before you moved in.”
“Yeah, but I reorganized.”
“When?”
“Recently.”
He stares at me.
“I think I have a hoodie, in the, uh, bathroom.”
He frowns. “The bathroom?”
“Yeah.”
I pivot fast and head that way, praying he follows and doesn’t think too hard about it.
Spoiler: he thinks about it.
He follows me in, arms crossed as I rummage through absolutely nothing.
“Cass.”
