Chapter 3 #2
His parents get here first, still dressed up from the party, his mother’s hand never leaving his father’s forearm. His grandparents are right behind them, still in their fiftieth-anniversary best, silver-haired and ramrod straight, like sitting up perfectly well will somehow fix things faster.
Because apparently Blankenships travel in herds, and every single one who walks through those doors asks about Cora.
Not Oliver.
Well, Oliver too, but always Cora first.
How is she? What happened? Has the doctor said anything? Does she need anything? Is there anything we can do?
It’s a lot.
It’s loud and warm and overwhelming in a way that makes my eyes sting more than the quiet ever did. Because this is what it looks like when a family shows up whole: no hesitation, no Is it my place to ask?
I sit there with my knees pulled up and my heel bouncing against the linoleum, trying not to think about how long it took anyone to show up for Hope and Cora and me, back when we were the ones in waiting rooms with nobody’s names on our forms.
Hope sits beside me, pressed against my arm, her knee jittering in time with mine, like we’ve synced up without meaning to.
Payton has claimed the chair on my other side.
I don’t know how that happened.
One minute it was empty. The next there’s a six-foot-whatever of a cowboy folded into a plastic hospital chair designed for a normal-sized human, knees jutting up too high, boots planted wide, one arm slung along the back of my chair without actually touching me.
His knees keep bumping mine, though.
Every time his leg shifts, a little static of warmth transfers straight through my jeans.
I keep pretending not to notice.
“So where do you fall in all of this?” I ask, mostly to have something to say that isn’t, Are you going to be sitting that close to me the whole time?
He looks over, and up close I can see a thin white scar through one eyebrow, the kind you get from doing something stupid as a kid.
“All what?”
I gesture toward his family, at the wall of Blankenships murmuring and hugging and passing a phone charger down the row. “This Brady Bunch situation.”
“I’m the youngest.”
That tracks.
There’s something about him, a lightness maybe, something in the loose set of his shoulders, the way he sat down like the plastic chair was a porch swing.
Not immaturity. More like he’s never learned to expect the worst thing to happen.
Lucky bastard.
“How youngest?”
He frowns. “What does that mean?”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
I nearly choke on my chocolate, the last bite going down wrong, catching somewhere behind my breastbone.
He pats my back, his palm broad and warm between my shoulder blades.
I jerk away, heat flooding my face for an entirely different reason now. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Twenty-two?”
He looks genuinely confused. “Yeah?”
“Years?”
Now he laughs, that same low huff from the hallway. “That’s generally how we measure age.”
Jesus Christ.
Twenty-two.
He is twenty-two years old.
I have shoes and purses and T-shirts older than him.
Okay, that’s probably a lie.
But I probably have something that’s that old.
The point is, he’s a baby.
A giant, broad-shouldered, blue-eyed baby with enormous hands and a smile that keeps doing unfortunate things to my reproductive system.
And my whole body needs to get that memo immediately.
Absolutely not.
Nope.
Whatever tiny spark of interest my vagina has developed in the last half hour is hereby extinguished, doused, salted, and buried in a shallow grave behind the vending machines.
I am a grown-ass thirty-two-year-old woman. I do not lust after twenty-two-year-old boys, especially twenty-two-year-olds whose older brother is involved with my foster sister.
That is a sentence no rational woman should ever have to tell herself sitting in a hospital waiting room.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Perfect.”
“You’ve got that terrifying look again.”
“I told you. It’s my face.”
His mouth twitches, the same small tell from the hallway.
I look away before mine can do the same, fixing my eyes on the double doors at the end of the room, willing them to open, willing someone to walk through them and tell me my sister is fine.
Kid.
He’s a kid.
A giant man-child in a plastic chair too small for him.
I repeat this several times in my head like a chant, like it’ll take if I just say it enough.
It does absolutely nothing to make him less attractive, which is deeply irritating.
My phone buzzes against my thigh. So does Hope’s. We look at each other and dive for them like they’re live grenades.
Cora: We’re okay. BOTH of us.
Cora: Strong heartbeat. Measuring right on track.
Cora: I’ve got low iron and low blood sugar. Apparently crackers are not a food group.
Cora: Oliver knows. Everything. I’ll explain later.
Cora: Also I’m told his ENTIRE family is in the lobby???
Both of us. My eyes burn, but I’m not a crier, so it must be the bleach.
Beside me, Payton’s phone goes off like a slot machine. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz-buzz-buzz. He thumbs it open and goes completely still.
“Wait,” he says.
He scrolls.
“Wait, wait, wait.”
He looks up at the ceiling tiles like they owe him an explanation. Then he turns and looks at me, and his eyes are enormous.
“Did you know?”
I arrange my face into nothing. I’ve had a lot of practice. “Know what?”
He tips the screen just far enough for me to see a message from Oliver. Cora is her.
Oh, hell.
“I plead the fifth,” I say.
“You knew.” It isn’t an accusation. He says it like I’ve been holding out on the ending of a really good book. “It’s Oliver’s.”
“I’m her sister. I know everything. It’s in the bylaws.”