“I’ve known you for six years. That’s not likely.” She’s smug, but she’s also right. “I’ll start, since apparently we need to have this conversation again. Are you sure there’s nothing going on between you and Julian? Nothing…romantic?”
I despise that she asks the question like she already knows the answer.
“Nothing in the least.” I drain half the glass before sticking a fork in the jar of peaches. “This is purely business. We’re not even really friends.” This is more of an outright lie, since I’m warming to the idea of Julian becoming my friend. No one’s more surprised than me.
“So you’re letting a perfect stranger take over your dating apps?” She raises a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Try again.”
“Fine. We’re friends. Happy?” After I’ve taken a few sips, she picks up the box and leans over the counter to refresh my glass. “God, you’re such an enabler.”
“If your hobbies weren’t so expensive, I’d find other ways to bribe you,” she says, filling her own glass next. “This is the only way I can pull the truth out of you.”
“There’s nothing to pull!” I’m so convinced of this, I let myself drink faster than I normally would. I’m somewhere near the middle of her second pour when I say, “He’s different than I initially thought.”
“Aha!” She pumps her fist at this tiny nugget of truth she’s uncovered. “I knew it.”
“There’s nothing to know.” I shake my head vehemently. “You knownothing.”
“Does Andrew know you guys are friendly?” she asks. “I’m sure he haslovelythings to say about that.”
I huff at her sarcasm before the gravity of what I’m doing weighs down on me. How could I possibly let my brother’s best friend take over my dating apps and think it was a good idea? The image of them laughing behind my back sets my face aflame more than the alcohol ever could, and then I shake my head. That’s not Julian. It’s true I thought differently once, but aside from our second first date, I haven’t found any evidence to support that he’s anything like Andrew. Julian is a lot of things, but cruel isn’t one of them. Still, thepossibility that Andrew could know about what we’re doing is enough to make my pulse pound.
“Ohno.” I rub at my temples to stave off the coming headache. “I’m letting Andrew’s best friend take over my dating apps. What the hell was Ithinking?”
There’s no way my brother knows about us. I told Julian not to tell him we went out. That has to extend to what we’re doing now, doesn’t it? All my life, Andrew has given me hell for existing. For taking extra time at our parents’ house to figure out what I want to do with my life. For being wary of the dating landscape. For playing video games for a partial living. For wanting something more out of my life than what my sister has and what he wants.
To him, it’s harmless teasing. The few times I’ve broached the topic, I’ve been told I’m the problem for not knowing how to take a joke. If he knows Julian is helping me, Andrew will never let me live it down for a single moment.
“Give me a second,” I tell Bella, miraculously hopping off the barstool without a dizzy spell and pressing my phone to my ear. It rings twice before Julian answers.
“This is a surprise,” he says in lieu of a simple hello. “What’s up, Leticia?”
“Hi.” I ignore Bella’s eyes burning a hole in my back, as well as the impulse to take this call in my room. I’d only be proving her point. “Listen, I know this is random, but you haven’t told Andrew about anything we’re doing, have you?”
“No,” he says. “Funnily enough, it hasn’t come up.”
“Okay. Good.” I breathe a sigh of relief. “If you could do me a favor and let it not come up ever, I’d appreciate it. My brother and I…” I trail off, unsure how to explain our relationship. I haven’t given him many details the few times he’s asked, and I have no idea what my brother’s told him about me. “It wouldn’t look good for either of us.”
“Right.” His tone is indecipherable. “Well, don’t worry. I won’t tell him. I haven’t even told him we know each other yet. It’s sort of hard to explain without telling him about the second first date fiasco.”
“Can you not tell him that we know each other either?” Inwardly, I wince. The immediate guilt bubbling up my chest doesn’t help when he sighs.
“Leti—”
“I know it’s a lot to ask.” Julian doesn’t strike me as the type of person who’d be comfortable lying, least of all to someone close to him, but I’m desperate. “But it’s better for both of us this way. Trust me.”
“Is this because y’all are in a fight, or because you’re ashamed of me?”
“We’re not in a fight.”
“Ah, so youareashamed of me.” His tone is teasing, so if anything I can be grateful I didn’t accidentally hurt his feelings.Again.His face from when I said our date was mediocre is still burned in my brain. It wasn’t even true, so I don’t know why I said it. I have enough to feel guilty for as it is.
“I’m not ashamed ofyou. I’m ashamed I need outside help with my dating situation in the first place,” I explain. “Andrew can’t be trusted with sensitive information. He’ll make my life a living hell. More so than usual anyway.”
“He’s your brother. It wouldn’t hurt to try more with him.”
“I’m sorry, at what point in this conversation did you turn into Elena?” I pull a face, half tempted to convert this call to FaceTime so he can see how much his words disgust me. “Or worse, one of myparents. Blegh.”
“I’m just saying.” He laughs. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to cut him some slack every once in a while. He might surprise you.”
