He looked pointedly at my now-empty glass. “Want another drink?”
“No thanks. One’s enough for me on a weeknight,” I said with a tight smile.
“Ah, there’s the family resemblance,” he said with a wink. “Cal was totally the same. Not a big drinker. Way more into the food.”
I frowned. That wasn’t how I remembered my sister at all. Shelovedcocktails and wine, and she’d always had much more of a stomach for alcohol than me. She could put away three or four drinks at dinner and still seem completely sober.
I thought back to the rest of the conversation we’d had so far, and that tiny seed of doubt grew roots. Kane hadn’t said anything that made me think he and my sister were anywhere near as close as he claimed. Just generic, surface-level stuff that could apply to most people. So maybe they were friendly… but were they really the sort of friends who hung out frequently and talked about everything?
I wasn’t so sure about that.
Also, I still thought it was strange that his name had never shown up in her inbox. He’d explained it away with the ‘I’m not a big texter’ line, but surely there'd be at least a few texts coordinating meetups here and there, or even just sending the occasional photo or meme. And he’d certainly had no issues texting me to coordinate this evening.
On top of all that, I’d also noticed that he’d avoided questions about my sister a couple of times, using distractions like flagging down the server or ‘accidentally’ spilling his drink. As if he either didn’t want to answer at all, or wanted to buy himself a few extra seconds to think of an acceptable answer.
I decided to conduct a little test.
“Speaking of food,” I said, raising a brow. “What was this place like with her allergies?”
“Hm?”
“Cal was super allergic to nuts, remember?”
Kane nodded. “Oh, right, yeah.”
“I’m sure she told you that story about those asshole prankster guys, right? The ones she knew from the theater.”
“Hmm.” His lips twisted in confusion. “You’ll have to refresh my memory.”
“They made her a cake, and while she was eating it, they told her it was full of nuts, even though it wasn’t. They also hid her EpiPen to scare her.”
“Oh, shit, that’s right. I remember that now. I told her I’d kick their asses if she wanted me to,” Kane said, face twisting with disgust. “Stealing an EpiPen is totally fucked up.”
“Yeah, it is.” I cocked my head. “Did you ever see it?”
“The EpiPen?”
I nodded, and he went on.
“Yeah, at an ice cream place we went to down by the harbor. She ordered a banana split with no nuts, but the dumbass server brought it out covered in them. So she got the EpiPen out just in case she’d inhaled some of the dust.” He slowly shook his head. “Crazy how careless some places are.”
“You know what’s also crazy?” I said, leaning forward. “None of that’s true. Calista wasn’t allergic to anything.”
Kane's expression went blank, all the color instantly draining from his face. “What?”
“That cake story I told you was about someone else. Someone you’ve never met,” I said. “But you’d know that if you actually knew my sister. And you’d also know she wasn’t allergic to anything.”
“I… uh…”
“You weren’t really friends with Calista, were you?” I asked, eyes narrowing. An angry heat was creeping up my chest and throat.
Kane had the good grace to look slightly ashamed. “Uh… no. Not really.”
“Did you even know her at all? Like, as classmates or something?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I, uh… I never officially met her, but I saw her a few times.”
“Yousawher?” I said, voice dripping with incredulity. I sat back, throwing my hands up. “What the hell was this supposed to be? Some sort of dare from those frat buddies of yours?”
