He laughs, but then his expression goes pensive. “Hey, do you think I’m too set in my ways? Too predictable?”
“No…”
Something in my voice makes him frown.
I hurry to add, “You’re just conscientious. You’re like Greenwich Mean Time. People can set their clocks off of you. But that’s amazing! Think about me and my neurotic people-pleasing. Or Margie and her dangerous, extroverted risk-taking. Stable issomuch better.”
“Boring, you mean.”
“No, not boring. Avery Vaughn, what’s going on? Where did this come from?”
He shifts uncomfortably and lifts one broad shoulder dismissively. “Had a professional disagreement today at work with a visiting colleague from another lab. It grew heated and got personal. Doctor Cassidy—er, the colleague, I mean—said… Whatever. Doesn’t matter. Thanks, Pen.”
“Doctor Cassidy is now my mortal enemy. He—”
“She.”
“She can choke on a can of tuna.”
“Why tuna?”
“Hello?” a woman’s voice calls from the other side of The Hole. I tense up, but before I can warn him away, Avery pulls the sheet back.
Anna beams at him, and Avery looks momentarily shell-shocked. I mean, she’s pretty, but not stop-you-in-your-tracks— Okay, okay, fine. She’s pretty. And she’s…Jack’s sister, I realize. The girl from the photograph!
“5A, I wanted to introduce you to my sister because she won’t stop approaching this hole until I do,” Jack says, coming to stand at Anna’s shoulder.
“Do you want to come over?” Avery asks, standing to push the sofaI’m still sitting onout of the way and helping Anna step through The Hole. I want to smack him with my taco.
I wipe my hands and set down my food, trying with all I’ve got not to let my annoyance show as I face Jack and his sister. I smile tightly. He’s the dildo who once taped down the buzzer for my apartment so it’d ring nonstop. And left a box of trash in the lobby addressed to me. Who just unscrewed my cabinets. Whowants my apartment. I don’t know why I’m relieved that this woman is his sister—it shouldn’t matter. That I had any reaction at all is aggravating as shit.
“Penny,” I grit out, introducing myself.
Anna clamps a hand over her mouth, her eyes crinkling with mirth.
“Holy hell. Okay. I’ve been dying to see The Hole, and it did not disappoint. You are a legend.Legend. This issosomething I would do. And I thought there would never be anyone who got under Jay’s skin more than me, but I was so wrong.”
Anna pauses and tips her head to the side, quizzically. “I know you.”
“Uh, we met,” I say.
Jack frowns. “When would you have met? Anna’s never been here.”
“No, I was here the day you moved in, remember?”
Jack’s lips firm, and he crosses his arms. “Oh, yeah. The Seth fight.”
Anna’s bubbly smile drops, and she narrows her eyes. “Stop. It was early days for us, so I don’t blame—”
She stops herself, as if recalling her audience. To Avery and me she says, almost apologetically, “I came by Jack’s that day because I was having trouble with my then boyfriend,nowfiancé.” She waggles the sparkler on her finger.
Avery looks crestfallen, but only to those who know him well. He removes his glasses and rubs a napkin over the lenses, his eyes downcast.
“And Jack, being an annoying big brother, had different ideas than I did on how to handle it. We ended up not talking for a while.”
She looks uncomfortable with the confession and glances up at her brother.
“Yeah. My ideas involved stringing him up by his balls for cheat—”
