Ryan presses his lips together, shaking his head. “It’s happening, isn’t it?”
I’m thrown off. “What? How did you…”
He smiles and says, “Ru, be serious. What’s the point of having a twin if you can’t know what they’re thinking?”
I laugh, mostly out of shock. Of course he could see it. Of course he knew. All this time, I’ve been carefully crafting how I might approach him about it, but I was kidding myself. Trying to control something I couldn’t.
I’ve known for a while now that I can’t hide from what I want. But knowing and doing are different things, and I’m still finding my way. I’ll get there, though. I’m trying.
“How long?” Ryan asks.
“Awhile,” I confess. “I’ve just been afraid to tell you. I didn’t want to screw anything up. I didn’t want everything to get weird because of me.”
He shrugs. “Just blame Penn, then.”
I laugh again, but as it fades, my throat tightens. “I don’t know, Ry. What if it all blows up?”
My brother looks at me, eyes alight. “What if it all works out?”
I look too good tonight to cry, so I steal Ryan’s water and take a drink, hoping that’ll calm me down. He shifts in his chair to wrap an arm around my shoulders, letting his head rest on mine. “One of these days,” he says, “you’ll have to stop worrying so much about the rest of us.”
“Okay,” I promise.
Ryan squeezes me again. “Mom will be thrilled. She’s always liked Penn better than us, anyway.”
I snort. “He’s such a suck-up.”
“The worst,” Ryan agrees.
The crowd starts to dwindle, but still, it will take my brother at least fifteen minutes to say his goodbyes, so I slip on my purple coat and maneuver past the pickleball bros to find Penn.
His smile cracks open at the sight of me. “Hey.”
“Hi.”
Penn grabs his coat and shifts out of the group, pressing a hand to the small of my back to lead me away from the cloud of cologne. Outside, the frigid air is a welcome shock.
“You’re coming to Curly’s,” he says, slipping on a dark wool jacket he’s worn for years. I can see his breath. “Right?”
“Actually, Ryan’s got to leave. So he just called us a car.”
Penn’s face falls. “Oh. Right. Okay.” He sets his hands in his pockets, his shoulders shrugged up around his ears in the cold. “Did you have fun tonight?”
“It was perfect, Penn.”
His pleased grin wedges right under my rib cage. “Yeah. It was.”
He steps closer, just an inch, and his eyes flash with something familiar and intimate. I study his face, a map I’ve memorized. I know every freckle, every mark on his skin, and I can picture him older, too, can see us together, laughing, every sidelong glance a conversation. I’m overwhelmed, all too aware of my own breath, and his, and maybe that’s why I say it. “You were right. I’ve thought about it.”
“About what?” Penn asks.
I shouldn’t do this right now. This is his night, and I’m just thrown off by the snow and the stars and his loaded stare. “Never mind.” I shake my head. “I—”
He cuts me off. “Nope. No take-backs, Wynne.”
His lip quirks, and it unhooks something inside me.
“Us,” I say simply, delighting in the way his eyes spark. “I’ve thought about us. You and me. A lot.”
