18. Girl Talk
Chapter Eighteen
Girl Talk
Neve
Fia and Cade’s house smells like the sweet tang of sautéing green onions and the smoke of rye as Cade makes a round of fancy, whiskey cocktails.
“I’m glad we’re doing this again,” I say, smiling at Cade as he pushes my drink across the counter to me. “It feels like since I moved here, we’ve been kind of… lax with our sister time because I’m closer. But I don’t want to get complacent about it, you know? These catchups are important to me.”
Fia turns from the stove, where she’s cooking our dinner—duck donburi. “Me neither. We’ve just both been busy, right?”
Cade shrugs, pulling up a barstool at the end of the island. “I mean, we’ve been planning a wedding, and it was the start of a new semester, which is busy both for us and for you.”
I nod, trying to keep my cool, but my mind immediately goes to Grant. I try to cover by taking a too-big sip of my drink, promptly choking on it.
“That bad, huh?” Cade chuckles, raising his glass to me.
“It’s been fine,” I say hoarsely, throat burning from the whiskey that went down the wrong way. “I mean, I think so, anyway. It feels like it’s going fine.”
“My sister,” Fia says fondly from the stove, not even turning around. “Always ‘vibing it.’”
“Hey, be nice,” I chide, but there’s no heat in it. “I’m good at vibes.” I tip my chin toward her fiancé. “I clocked this one with a hundred percent accuracy, didn’t I?”
Fia glances at me over her shoulder, rolling her eyes, but I see the naked affection shining there. Cade throws me a playful wink.
After dinner, he retreats to their newly decorated study so Fia and I can have some proper sister time. As much as I love him—and as much as Fia does too, obviously—the catchups we’ve been missing are just the two of us. That’s how it’s always been.
“So, how is the wedding planning coming along?” I ask conversationally. “You know you have to let me help at some point, right? It’s supposed to be my job.”
Fia groans, her head tipping back against the back of the sofa.
“We’ve not really got that far into it yet.
But we were thinking early in the new year, at that nice country house in Aurora Harbor.
We went there for a date night, and the food was fantastic.
” She sips her drink. “We would want that as the main focus. A nice meal, a good wine flight, and some well-chosen cocktails.”
I snort a laugh, raising my glass. “I’m sure Cade will be all over that.”
Fia’s lips twitch. “So, tell me about this.” She knocks her knee gently into my moonboot. It’s t-minus six days until I can lose the damn thing—again.
I groan, downing the rest of my drink. I can’t remember what this one is called, only that it’s rum-based and tastes like maple syrup. “I was out with Vida and her partners when they stopped by on a layover before a game. I tripped on the way out of the bar.”
Fia sputters a laugh into her martini glass. “Your friend is a bad luck charm.”
I grin despite myself. “That’s what I told her. So… yeah, Wren ended up bodily hauling me to the ER.”
Fia’s brows fly up. “You were in the ER? On your own?”
I swallow hard. “Yeah. Vida and the guys had to get their flight, so I told them to go. It was… uh, it was the night I texted Cade about the rosé. There was no rosé. Or—well, there might be, but that wasn’t the point…” I trail off.
Fia is frowning now. “You were fishing.” Not a question.
“Yeah. I was panicking.” I avert my gaze.
“You should have just told him what happened. You should have told me what happened.”
“I didn’t want you to freak out.”
She fixes me with a glare. “I do not freak out.”
“Debatable,” Cade says from the doorway. When we both whip around to look at him, he raises his palms in supplication. “Sorry. I’m not trying to eavesdrop on sister time—I just came in to grab a beer.”
Fia eyes him as he passes, but he melts her easily with a kiss to the forehead. I borderline melt as well. They’re so cute it’s nauseating.
When Cade is gone again, Fia touches my knee. “What happened?” she asks gently.
I roll my lips in, debating whether I should tell the truth or lie, but she’s too good at body language for me to be able to get anything past her, so I bite the bullet. “When I found out you and Cade weren’t in town, I didn’t really know who else to call.”
Fia’s eyes narrow. “You’re hedging,” she points out.
“I called Grant.”
Those narrowed eyes go so wide I can see the white all around the outside of her amber irises, and her lips part in clear surprise she can’t hope to modulate or stifle.
“Well, actually, I sent a truly tragic voice note,” I correct before she can speak. “Then I tried to erase it, but someone knocked on the bathroom door, and I sent it on accident. By the time I was back in my sad little curtained cubicle… he’d heard it.”
“And?” Fia prompts.
This is the most rapt I’ve ever seen her over what I would argue is “gossip,” though I suppose she has a vested interest, with one party being her sister and the other party being her colleague and friend.
“He called,” I say quietly. “…And called, and called, and called. I ignored him until he sent a message saying that if I didn’t pick up, then he’d come to the ER and make a huge scene to find me.”
Fia’s lips roll in, but the rumor of a smile lingers at the corners.
“What?” I snap.
She shakes her head. “How have the simulated sessions been going?”
I sough out a breath. “Say what you want to say, Fia. Are you asking if I have a crush?”
She fixes me with her big-sister stare. “No. I’m asking if you’ve acted on it.”
“Oh, wow,” I say with a forced laugh; she can tell it’s forced. “Are we doing girl talk right now?”
“No,” Fia says flatly. “You know I hate girl talk. We’re doing sister talk.”
I groan. “I—” I hesitate, unsure of how to phrase it. “It’s not my place to say.”
Fia sets her glass on the coffee table. “That’s as good as a yes.”
My chest deflates, but I don’t know what she wants or expects from me. She’d never try to control me—Fia isn’t like that—but I can tell just from her expression that she is trying to tread carefully. She’s trying to protect both her sister and her friend from one another.
“Look, I know that individual things in isolation don’t make or break a relationship,” she says diplomatically. “Like, for example, the age gap alone. Or the fact that Grant has a child. Or the power imbalance involved with the fact that you’re his student.”
“I’m not used to you giving sermons,” I deadpan, but the joke falls flat.
Fia gives a conflicted smile. “Those are all things that create… significant hurdles for a relationship like one you’d have with him to succeed.”
“I know,” I say quietly.
“It’s just… it’s a lot to commit to. Not only because he has a child.”
“What makes you think I don’t want to commit?” I ask, voice going defensive.
“I can’t tell you what you want,” she says gently, clearly unaffected by my tone. “I know that you know what you want with your whole heart. You always have. But I just… want to impress upon you the seriousness of the situation. Okay?”
I blink, the bridge of my nose suddenly stinging.
Fia shifts on the sofa, settling her hand on my thigh, warm through my leggings. “Grant King is going to fall in love with you.”
I’m incapable of speaking, but I nod, gripping the stem of my glass so hard it feels like I could shatter it in my hand.
“You know that’s what’s going to happen, right? Once it does… you’re the bad guy if you change your mind.” Fia clears her throat. She hates doing the big sister talk, but she’ll always be honest with me. “He must know it’ll happen, too. It’s probably scaring him quite a lot.”
I chuckle; I can’t help myself. “It is.”
My mind goes back to riding his thigh in Lab C. Him coming in his pants. I feel my face heat, and Fia’s eyes go wide. “Oh my God. Something has happened, hasn’t it?”
The floorboards creak by the office door, and Cade steps into the room. “Did I win?”
My mouth falls open as I calculate their expressions, realization dawning on me. “Are you fucking serious right now? You have not been betting on us?”
I’m sure it must have been Cade’s idea, but I’m impressed he managed to get Fia to go along with it. Cade just grins. “You can’t tell me you didn’t see that coming, little Hart.”
I snort a laugh, but at least it assuages some of my fear about Fia and Cade knowing about me and Grant. I guess there isn’t really a “me and Grant” yet, but I want there to be. At least I know that I have them on my side, and that’s important to me.
Fia touches my knee again. “You really like him?”
I meet her gaze, and I can feel Cade’s eyes on me, too. “Yes,” I say honestly. “I really like him. And I know he really likes me, too.”