Chapter 16
November 20, 2024
I don’t know why I let myself get comfortable, to expect that things would stay this way indefinitely. I’m living life backward. Each morning I wake up, I have no idea what’s in store for me. I should expect the unexpected. But December was an exquisite month. Like, truly exquisite. Mornings filled with sleepy cuddles and kisses in bed, busy days at work, quiet evenings at home eating dinner on the couch together. Christmas was perfectly low-key. Instead of a grand gift exchange, Milo and I spent the day lounging around the flat, drinking hot cocoa and watching our favorite holiday movies. A few times we hung out with Desmond and Poppy. I’ve gotten used to this new routine of our life.
For that reason, I yelp when I walk out to the living room this morning and see my younger brother, Jordan, passed out on our sectional. There he is, his six-four frame sprawled over the plush white couch cushions, his socked feet dangling off the arm. From under the fuzzy beige blanket, he snores. Coco is curled in a fluffy white circle on top of him.
“He sounds like a freight train,” Milo mumbles from the kitchen.
“Um, how did he ... when did he ...?” I catch myself as I drift off.
Milo’s chuckle is a low rumble in his deepened morning voice. He takes a long sip from his coffee mug. “Glad I’m not the only one who’s lost track of time during his impromptu visit. Two weeks is more than long enough with your brother. Especially all the late nights. Don’t get me wrong. I love the guy.”
Milo groans softly as he rubs the back of his neck. “Your little brother lives like a tornado.”
I nod, taking in the state of the living room. Jordan’s open suitcase rests in the corner, looking like a bomb exploded out of it. Wrinkled clothes and shoes lay scattered in and around it. His coat sits in a rumpled pile on the floor. On the coffee table are his phone, a half dozen empty coffee mugs, and three plates.
“I guess he couldn’t even make it to the guest room last night.” Milo sighs.
“I’ll take care of it,” I say to him. “Sorry about all this. And sorry we were out late on a work night.”
He smiles and reaches to tuck a chunk of my hair behind my ear. “Don’t be. He’s your family. This is your place. And he doesn’t get to visit often, so I’m happy to stay up and hang out with him when he’s here.” He glances at his phone. “His flight’s at noon. You still good to take him to the airport?”
I nod, feeling a pinch in my chest that my little brother, who I haven’t seen in more than a year, is leaving. But then I remember that I’ll have two whole weeks to spend with him, just backward.
Milo’s phone buzzes. He smiles at the screen. “It’s my mom. Get ready, she’s gonna wanna talk to you.”
“Oh ...” I’m nervous. I have no idea if that’s a good or bad thing.
Milo takes my hand gently in his and walks us back to the bedroom as he answers. “ M?e. How are you?”
My stomach ties itself in knots as I listen to Milo chat happily to his mom. Tristan never handed the phone to me to talk with his mom, and for good reason, since she couldn’t stand me. But I’m guessing by the way Milo was smiling when he said his mom will want to talk with me, she likes me.
I hope she does. At the very least I hope she doesn’t hate me.
After a minute of Milo chatting in Portuguese and English, he chuckles.
“Sure, she’s right here.” He smiles and hands me the phone before stepping away and into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
“H-hi ...” I realize that I have no idea what her name is.
“Riley! Querida! How are you?”
I’m quiet for a second, stunned at how genuinely happy she sounds to hear from me. Actually, “giddy” is a better word.
My shoulders begin to loosen. I register that she’s used a Portuguese word that I remember hearing growing up in the Bay Area. I think it means “dear.”
My insides go warm. “Dear” is such a common word of endearment that exists in so many languages, but that doesn’t matter. She sounds like she means it when she calls me that.
“I’m good, thanks,” I say. “How are you?”
“Oh, you know how it is. Work, work, work. But! I took today off to go shopping with my sister. Actually ... what’s the word Milo uses ... ‘hooky’? I’m playing hooky.”
She lets out a melodic laugh that reminds me of the way Milo laughs. His is lower and deeper than her sweet tone, but the rhythm is the same. Boisterous and full and bright.
“Good for you,” I say, feeling even more at ease. “You deserve to have a little fun when you’ve been working so much.”
Another sweet chuckle. “I knew you’d understand. So tell me! How’s your shop?”
I tell her how busy the store has been while I silently try to figure out just how well we know each other. Based on how comfortable she is when she speaks to me, it seems like we’ve met and talked to each other before. And we seem to get along pretty well.
“That’s lovely to hear, querida . You work so hard, be sure to take some time for yourself too, okay?”
I can’t help but smile at how sweet she’s being.
“And how’s my Milo treating you? He’d better be good to you.”
I’m taken aback by what she’s said. Not the way that she’s phrased it. Her tone is sweet and light, not accusing at all. It’s more that I’m surprised that his own mom would care so much about me, my well-being. It’s so ... genuinely kind of her to care about me like this.
Portia never seemed to care how Tristan treated me.
“He’s amazing,” I say. “You have nothing to worry about.”
“That’s good, querida .” I can tell she’s smiling. “But if he slacks off, you just tell me, okay? I’ll get him back in line.”
She lets out another sweet chuckle. I know she’s teasing, but I can also tell she’s serious at the same time. And that does something to me. Emotion bubbles in my chest at just how kind she is toward me. How she seems to genuinely care about me. How good it feels. How I never felt it with Portia.
I clear my throat and tell her I will. We say a quick goodbye right as Milo walks back into the bedroom. I hand the phone back to him, and he converses in Portuguese for a moment before hanging up and tossing his phone onto the bed.
He grins at me. “She adores you.”
“You think so?”
“Absolutely.” Milo reaches both arms up and stretches. “Shower time,” he groans. “Good luck with waking up your brother.”
He kisses my cheek before heading back into the bathroom. I step to my nightstand, grab my phone, and look up the word “querida” just to be sure. This backward timeline has scrambled my memory a bit.
“Dear.”
I take a moment to let that joy settle deep inside me. After having a mother-in-law who hated my guts, that one little word means everything.
I walk over to Jordan, my phone in hand. I carefully scoop up Coco before giving her a kiss on the top of the head and setting her on the nearby armchair. I pull up the Rage Against the Machine playlist on my phone, turn it to full volume, hold it next to Jordan’s ear, and blast it. His eyelids fly open, revealing bloodshot eyes, and he shoots up to a sitting position.
“Wh-what the fuck, Riley?” He rubs his eyes with his fists. His floppy ink-black hair sticks out in every direction. “God, turn it off!”
I bite back a giggle and jump-hug him after pausing the music. He makes an “oof” sound but wraps his massive arms around me.
“God. You haven’t done that since we were teenagers,” Jordan mutters when I release him from the hug and sit next to him on the couch.
“Well, you’re pretty much reenacting your teenage days. It seemed fitting.” I glance around the living room draped in his dirty laundry and dishes.
“Okay, yeah, you’ve got a point,” he mumbles and inhales. “Coffee?”
“Made by Milo. You need to tell him ‘thank you.’”
“I’ve told him ‘thank you’ every morning for the coffee.”
“Not just that, Jordan. For crashing here.”
“I know, I know.”
I hold up my hand to block his bottom half, which is adorned only in snug boxer briefs. “Ugh, seriously?”
“What?” He flashes his trademark confused frown and scratches his mop top. “It’s uncomfortable to sleep in my jeans.”
I groan and roll my eyes. “Can you maybe invest in a pair of pajama pants? Good god.”
He leans down to give Coco a scratch under her chin. “Hey now. I make a lowly teacher’s salary. Pajama pants are for rich people.” He swipes his jeans from under the coffee table and yanks them on over his legs. “I gotta piss.”
“Thanks for sharing.”
He starts walking toward the hallway bathroom, then stops before turning back to me. “Admit it. You missed me.”
He flashes that smug smile I remember from childhood. It conjures a familiar mix of irritation and nostalgia. My little brother drives me nuts. He always has, and I have no doubt he always will. But I love him. This is our dynamic. Giving each other shit and bickering in that good-natured sibling tone between bouts of pulling pranks on each other. We’ll be a hundred years old living in the same nursing home doing exactly that all over again.
I smile. “Of course I missed you. Now hurry up and get ready so we can grab breakfast before I take you to the airport.”
Half an hour later we end up at a café across the street. Jordan wolfs down the biggest full English I’ve ever seen. I take in his puffy eyes, how his baby face is stubbly. There’s a bluish tinge under his eyes. He must be hungover. I glance down and notice that the knuckles of his right hand are swollen. I wonder what he got up to last night.
I scrunch my face at him in mock disgust. “Jesus, Jordan. I’m not gonna take your food from you.”
“Ha,” he says around a mouthful of toast and black pudding.
The server stops by to refill our coffees. She aims her unblinking stare at Jordan as he does his best impression of a competitive eater.
“Good lad. Quite the appetite.”
He smiles up at her, his mouth full. She chuckles and pats his shoulder, her brown eyes lingering on him. I roll my eyes. My little brother is the textbook definition of tall, dark, and handsome, with his leanly muscled build, wavy dark hair, and equally dark eyes. Women go gaga over him everywhere he goes. Drives me mad.
She asks if we need anything else, and I tell her “no, thank you” before taking a few bites of my massive blueberry pancake. “Have I ever told you just how annoying it is that you can charm everyone around you even when you’re being absolutely disgusting?”
He chugs his coffee and lets out a satisfied “ahh” sound. “All the time.”
“It’s because you’re a pretty boy, you know,” I tease, cutting through my pancake. “No one would put up with you if you looked like an ogre.”
He flashes an incredulous look at me. “I know. I’m just flaunting what I’ve got. Sue me.”
I chuckle and roll my eyes.
“So.” Jordan pushes his empty plate away from him. “You ready for what I have to say?”
“Um . . . I guess?”
“Come on. I’m leaving in three hours. We put this off long enough. I need to say this.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know you probably don’t want to talk about it.” He opens his mouth, hesitating. “But I know I have a lot to answer for.”
I’m quiet as I process the serious look on my little brother’s face. My goofball little brother who often acts more like the teenagers he teaches geography to than the twenty-eight-year-old man he actually is.
“Then say it,” I tell him.
He cups his hands around his mug, his dark-brown eyebrows furrowing slightly. I can’t remember the last time he looked so serious.
He breathes in, his shoulders rising. “I’m sorry for how I acted last night.”
“Okay ...” What the hell happened?
“I had a lot to drink, but that’s not an excuse. And, yeah, I shouldn’t have let what Tristan said get to me, but ...”
As Jordan goes quiet, trying to think of his next words, my brain screeches to a halt, like a record scratch. Jordan got into it with Tristan last night? When? How?
I zero in on his swollen right hand. He winces as he shakes it out. Shit, did Tristan and Jordan fight?
“I never liked the guy. That’s no secret.” His shoulders slump, and his gaze falls to the tabletop before he looks at me again, his expression somber.
The waitress returns with a plate of spotted dick and sets it in front of him. “Dessert for you, love?”
“Always. Thanks, gorgeous.” He winks up at her, and she turns five shades of red before walking off.
He devours half of the pudding in a single bite before turning back to me. “Look, if I could take back what I said and did last night, I would. I’m sorry for that. But in the moment, I meant what I said and what I did. You’re my sister, Riley. You’re my only sibling. Tristan hurt you, and that was bad enough, but the worst part is that he doesn’t even seem sorry. And I’ll always hate him for that.”
I’m quiet for a moment as I take in what he’s said. “I probably should have listened to you all those years ago when you met him and said you didn’t like him.”
He shrugs. “You were in love with him. I wouldn’t have listened to you, either, if you had trashed someone I loved.”
He finishes the rest of his pudding before sighing and looking at me. “So about Milo.” He sighs, his deep-umber eyes softening. “I was wrong about him. He’s a good guy. Like, truly. I like him. A lot. You two are good together.”
“Seriously?”
He nods and his gaze turns thoughtful. “I can tell you’re happy, Riley. It’s nice to see after what you went through.”
I nod, in quiet awe that my little brother actually likes Milo.
“Thanks, Jordan.”
He nods once and taps his palms on the table. He digs out a wad of cash from his wallet and drops it on the table along with a hefty tip. “We’d better head back so I can pack. Don’t wanna miss my flight and have to stay with you guys even longer. I know I’ve worn out my welcome.”
We stand up, and I ruffle his hair. “Not quite yet.”
A few hours later I drive him to the airport, and we hug goodbye. That night, as I get ready for bed, my body stiffens. When I wake up, I’ll get to find out what exactly went down between Tristan and Jordan.