“I thought you lived around here?”
She narrows her eyes. “And how would you know that?”
“I stalk you, duh.” When she rolls her eyes again, I add, “Ian mentioned it once. So why are you staying with them?”
She sighs, scrubbing a hand down her face. “Pipe burst in my apartment. Apparently, it’s going to take a while to fix it. They found mold in the walls, so they have to do a complete reno of most of the units.”
“Jeez, tough break.”
“Fucking telling me,” she snorts.
I make a face. “Ian and Dee don’t have a guest bedroom.”
“Nope,” she says, letting thepmake apopsound. “Couch city for me.”
“Ouch,” I answer with sympathy. “And they’re still in the honeymoon phase.”
“Trust me,” she groans, “I know. They arenotquiet. It’s a fucking nightmare.”
I cover my ears with my hands. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
“A couple of weeks ago, you were talking about thinking of Ian naked,” she reminds me.
“I can’t be blamed for what my brain does,” I remind her. “It has a mind of its own.”
I take her in then,reallytake her in, noticing how tired she looks. Not just physically, but it’s something that seems to emanate from inside her, like it’s oozing out of her. It’s in the droop of her shoulders, the dark circles under her eyes, the tension she seems to carry in her entire body.
I can’t help but ask it, it just comes out. “Something else wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know…You look…tired.”
“You said that the last time I saw you,” she points out.
“Well, it’s still true.”
There’s a flash of vulnerability in her eyes, and oddly enough, I want to do something about it. Touch her hand…tell her it’s okay…I don’t know. Something. It’s a weird sensation.
I like to tease Abby, I do—mostly because she’s so easily riled and it makes me a little giddy to be the one to make her that way—but lately it seems like she’s a lot more…down than she usually is.
“Look,” she sighs. “I love your sister and my brother, but…”
“But?”
She throws up her hands. “If I have to sit through another dinner where they’re both prodding me to talk about my feelings, or how I’m doing, or asking if there’s anything they can do for me—I’m going to scream.”
“Ah,” I say, realization dawning on me. “They’re babying the shit out of you, huh?”
“For months,” she says wearily. “And I appreciate that theycare, I really do, but it was bad enough when I had my own place…Now, I swear they’re like my parents. Always texting and asking when I’ll be home, asking if I need a ride from work, asking me if I remembered to charge mycell phone—ugh.” She shakes her head. “I know I sound like a jerk right now.”
“No, no,” I tell her. “I get it. It sounds exhausting.”
She looks up at me with wide eyes, nodding slowly. “Exactly.Exactly.Itisexhausting. And on top of school and my dad and everything else, I just—” She blinks at me, her lips parting. “I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this.”
“Eh, I’m a great listener.”
Her lips purse. “You rarely shut up long enough to be a good listener.”
