Chapter 43 Pane
Pane
One month later
“Come in.”
I look up from my computer as the office door opens and Natalie skips in, her mouth dropping, her eyes going as big as volleyballs as she takes in my new surroundings.
The office is nice—there’s lots of polished wood, undercabinet lighting, crystal decor I didn’t pick out. Not to mention the view of the city skyline.
She lets out a wolf whistle. Where does a ten-year-old learn how to do that? “Fancy, shmancy. You clean up good, kid.”
A laugh rumbles from my chest. “Thank you. So do you. How’s school?”
She plops down in one of the chairs in front of my desk. “Oh, you know. I drew pictures of kids and made them pay twenty bucks for their portrait.” My little sister pulls a stack of folded bills from her pocket. “I’m rich!”
“Looks like it.”
Nat flaps her hands against the armrests. “You got a great view.”
I spin around and check out the skyline. My heart stutters once, twice, goes empty. Once, weeks ago, it would have expanded to feel love at this sight. That’s because I would’ve known that waiting for me at the end of this day, this trip, back in Georgia, was Rowe. But she’s not waiting for me.
So I feel nothing. “I do have a great view.”
“Then why don’t you look pleased about it?”
“I’m pleased.”
She exhales a loud gust, lips flapping as spit and air spew out of her mouth. “You don’t look it. Pane, you haven’t smiled since we played with piggycorns.”
“I didn’t play with piggycorns—and, Nat, I have a lot of work to do.”
She jumps up. “Greta’s outside, anyway. I just wanted to say hello.”
“Hello.”
Before she goes, my sister points to a cube-shaped box sitting on my desk. “What’s that?”
I eye the label and my heart throbs in pain. But all I say is “It’s nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing.”
Before I have a chance to stop her, Natalie lifts the box’s flap and narrows her eyes as she pulls out a glass bottle. It’s shaped like a woman, curvy and sensual, and the name Rowe is typed in flirty, swirly letters across the front.
She lifts off the cap and sniffs. “Is this—”
I open my hand. “Give it to me.”
My sister gently lays the bottle in my palm. “I was just curious.”
I toss it into the trash. It lands with a deafening thunk in the quiet room. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Natalie?”
She glumly rises. “No.”
“Then I’ll talk to you at bedtime.”
My sister starts to walk out of the room. Stops. Turns around. “You can do one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Try to smile, big brother.”
I clench my jaw until she’s out of the room, and it’s then, and only then, when I’m alone, that my mouth trembles.
Just when the hold that I have on my emotions begins to disintegrate, I remind myself that Rowe did me a favor. We were too different, our worlds too unlike each other’s.
Then I grab the empty box and toss it on top of the perfume bottle that holds Rowe’s scent—the custom fragrance I had specifically made for her as a gift. Sunbeam would have loved it.
After staring at the trash can for a second longer, I swallow my feelings and get back to work.