Chapter 26
26
Kieran
The evening sky outside was apricot colored from the sinking sun, and rays of purple streaked through the twilight. The door was locked, but we were all perched around the seating area where Sybil, Granddad, Tom, and Lila were playing poker. Tom eyed Sybil after her bold five-nickel bet. I watched her tongue peek out to touch the corner of her lip, the pink of it in contrast with her dark red lipstick. She wasn’t bluffing this hand, but I still followed the path of that tongue during her standoff with Tom. Since that night in the shop the week earlier, it had been easier to be around her in that we’d seemed to figure out how to touch and talk in a way that felt natural. It had also been exponentially harder, because every time I walked into the kitchen, I flashed back to her in my arms, the moment when I should have kissed her, and how I’d been just about to confess that she made me feel lucky. I hadn’t said it out loud, regretting the notion of oversharing immediately. Still, seven days later, it was more difficult every day not to bring it back up.
“I’m out,” Lila said, dropping her cards.
Granddad eyed his hand and then studied Sybil before tossing his hand to the table. “Too rich for my blood.”
I’d run upstairs to let Penny outside since Mrs. Nguyen was sick with a cold, and came back to the game in progress, the four of them around the table. They invited me to join, but I’d preferred to watch. Sybil fit in so well here with us, laughing with Lila and calling out Granddad for cheating. I imagined walking up behind Sybil and rubbing her shoulders, sharing secrets about Tom’s tells as an excuse to whisper in her ear.
“I’ll call.” Tom kept a serious expression, eyeing Sybil. “What you got, girl?”
“That’s Ms. Sweet to you, old man,” she said, laying out her cards. “Full house, queens and threes, baby!” Her grin widened as she grabbed the pot from the middle of the table. “I told you I’m lucky!” She giggled, stacking her coins and listening to Tom’s good-natured grumbling.
“She’s a shark,” Granddad said, shuffling the cards. “You better watch out, son.”
I nodded, earning a smile from Sybil. “Why do you think I refused to play? I’m saving my loose change to pay for school.”
Lila held up a palm. “That’s it for me,” she said, glancing at her phone. “There’s a new food truck I’m going to check out with Marcus.”
“My Marcus?” Sybil asked. “He finds the best places to eat.”
“You’re dating her roommate?” I slid from my perch and took a few steps toward the table.
“Leave her alone,” Sybil said, stretching her arm around my waist. The gesture was so casual, so easy, and the way she pulled me closer was innocent, but the sensation rippled through my body. “They’re just hitting up a food truck.”
“He’s always way too protective,” Lila said, nudging my shoulder as she grabbed her bag from the chair.
“Good.” Tom knocked on the surface of the table. “Always important for an older brother to look out for his siblings.”
Granddad chuckled. “I don’t know…I think my Lila Bean takes care of herself pretty well.” He’d used the nickname for Lila since she was small, and she dropped a kiss on his cheek.
“That’s right,” she said. “Kieran is way more likely to need looking out for.”
“True,” Sybil said, slipping her fingers into my pocket. “You really dropped the ball with me.”
Lila shot me a quick look, her eyebrows raised before she glanced at our linked fingers. “I don’t know,” she said, pushing open the front door. “I think my record of success is still intact.”
Granddad pushed back from the table. “Always a pleasure, Sybil,” he said, swiping his small stack of pennies from the table. He bent to kiss Sybil’s cheek and clapped a palm on her shoulder. “We’ll get ya next time.”
“I’ll be ready.” She let go of me to stand and give him a hug. He’d already told me how good for me he thought she was and how happy he was to see us together. It hurt to hear that, to know it was all a lie. “And I’m onto your cheating now,” she called after him, and he laughed with a wave.
He and Tom were on their way to dinner at the pho place a few doors down, and I watched Granddad’s movements, encouraged by how he was getting stronger and steadier every day. Just a month earlier, it had seemed impossible that he was ready to take the shop back over, but now, it felt safe to hope. Returning to school was within reach, only I hadn’t called them yet about my reenrollment. I’d been having fun lately with Sybil, but I had no choice but to go back. School wasn’t supposed to be fun, so why did I keep hesitating? I was building something for my future by attending medical school. There was no real choice facing me; still, I just hadn’t called.
I flipped the lock on the door now that Sybil and I were alone. “How’d you do?”
When she spread her pennies out in front of her to count them, the urge to step behind her hit me again. Maybe to drop kisses along her nape as she counted, seeing if I could throw her off.
I let go of the door and picked up the cards from the table. Having something to do with my hands was helpful in pushing thoughts of Sybil’s neck from the front of my mind.
“Forty-six cents,” she said. “Not too shabby.”
I walked behind the counter where we kept the cards for slow days, not that we’d had many lately. “You are a shark,” I said. “Should I be concerned?”
She dropped her handful of change into the tip jar, the coins clinking against the side of the glass. “Probably.” She crossed her arms on the counter and leaned forward, the motion pushing her breasts out and giving a tempting—way too tempting—view down the V-neck of her shirt as she slid a fingertip along the pattern in the countertop. “I’m pretty good at bluffing.”
“I could figure you out,” I said, dragging my gaze back to her face before she caught me admiring the freckles that spread up from her sternum.
“Bet I can read you better,” she challenged, one eyebrow cocked. “That’s probably why you didn’t want to play.” She waved her index finger between us. “You knew I could read you like a book.”
I made a grab for her fingers, wrapping my hand around hers. Her hand looked small in mine, and she gently curled her finger against my hand. “You’re cocky, Sweet.”
“It’s not being cocky when it’s true.” She cupped her palm over mine. “For example,” she said, “I know you were just checking out my boobs when you thought I wasn’t looking. A total tit scan. Official TTS behavior.”
I placed my other palm over hers, like we were a team about to leave the dugout. “I was looking at your freckles,” I admitted. “Not your tits.”
“My freckles?” She tipped her head to the side and slid her hands away, brushing the bridge of her nose. “Nice try. You were definitely looking at my chest.”
“Not those freckles. Here,” I said, pointing to the spot I’d been inspecting, and regretting the motion immediately because it was hell to have my finger hover so close but to not trace the constellation on her skin. “You have five right here.”
She looked at my finger and then at her chest. She traced the path I would have, and I followed her fingertip’s movement from left to right. “How have I never noticed that?”
I swallowed and pulled my hand back, leaning on the counter. “I guess some things are easier for other people to see,” I said, letting my gaze dip to where her finger traced again and listening to her little “hm” of amusement.
“Like how I can see how much fun you are secretly,” she said with an impish grin, hoisting herself onto the counter and tucking one leg under her knee.
“Lies.”
She laughed, and I heard her phone buzz in her pocket.
“Don’t mind me if you need to get that.”
She let out a breath, puffing her cheeks. “It’s my mom. She’s been on me about you coming for dinner tomorrow.”
I’d agreed to a meal with her family after they’d stopped by the shop, but that felt like eons ago, when I figured it would all be easy—truthfully, now I felt nervous. “She’s been on you about how I’m probably a scam artist?”
“That, food allergies, your astrological sign, how serious we are, what kind of medicine you plan to practice, how you feel about retirement planning, and if you’ve ever been interested in skate parks.” She held up her phone for me, where the notification read nine unread messages from Mama Mary. “Oh, and if you have any aliases, because she didn’t find any outstanding warrants on you but wants to be sure.”
“No allergies,” I said, running through the list of questions in my head. “I’m a Virgo.” I noticed a loose thread hanging from the pocket of her jeans. “And I want to be a neurosurgeon—the human brain is fascinating, and I’ve always had really steady hands.” I snagged the thread and rolled it between my finger and thumb. “No aliases or warrants, outstanding or otherwise, and I’d feel better about retirement planning if I had more income, but I’m all for it.”
I pulled gently on the thread, and instead of giving, it tugged Sybil’s leg closer to me. I liked the tether between us and how it felt comforting to tell her things and for her to know me, even in those small ways. “Why did she ask about skate parks?”
“When I was a kid, my dad left us and opened a skate park in Connecticut,” she said. “I guess she’s just making sure history doesn’t repeat.”
“Is there a big market for skate parks in Connecticut?”
“No idea. I hope so—it made him happy. He used to visit, and then it was only calls. We don’t hear from him very often now. I kinda thought he’d call when I won, but I’m sure he’ll check in at some point. He’s honestly kind of a footnote in our lives now. Grace didn’t invite him to her wedding.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Irony is that I’m much more likely than you to run off and open a skate park.”
I saw the shrug for what it was—another of her attempts to make herself the joke, and I pulled on the thread again, harder this time, in hopes of pulling her out of where she was going with her explanation. “You’d be cute in a helmet and elbow pads, but you’d never abandon your family. You’re not built like that. And you’re too memorable to be a footnote.” I moved the pad of my thumb up and down the thread. “But to your question, I’ve never even been to a skate park, nor do I have plans to own one.”
“She’s really going to love you,” Sybil said, looking down at where I held the fabric. “Once she understands you’re not scamming me.”
“That I want into your heart,” I added, parroting the agreement from the night in the shop.
“And my pants if you don’t pull them apart before tomorrow.” She swatted at my fingers tugging on the thread until I let it go.
Reminded that I shouldn’t be pulling on the seams of her clothes just to create a connection, I looked for something to do behind the counter and began stacking receipts. “You’re right. I’ll keep my hands to myself.”
Sybil gave a small, distracted laugh. “My sister and her fiancé, Warren, will be there. And you met Mom and Paul. They’re cool, but probably there shouldn’t be a lot of PDA in front of them. I think more serious probably looks better, like…I don’t know. Professional?” She was staring at her hands when I looked up.
No PDA and acting professional were what I would have wanted a few weeks ago—it was the closest thing to not lying. Except I’d been looking forward to the excuse to touch her more away from the shop. “Sounds good. Hands off and keep it focused.”
“Just…you know. They think I’m the wild one, so someone like you who’s so focused and serious…and if I look that way, too, it’ll be good.”
“Definitely,” I said. “Sounds good.” I placed the neat stack of receipts back where it belonged, everything lined up and in order, because she was right: I was serious and focused, and I could put things, like my too-vivid imagination, in order. “That will be easy.”