31. Kirin
Kirin
“You can’t buy those,” Kirin argued the following Monday evening as Rose picked up two bags of generic ground coffee and dropped them into the basket one at a time with a raised eyebrow.
It was their first trip out alone since their chat with Margot at St. James Sweets.
Emmaline had headed home that morning after a lot of fussing.
He loved how much she loved Rose. He didn’t even mind being interrogated at random intervals.
Given how she’d hugged him and squeezed his face before she left, he figured he’d passed the test.
Rose was healing. Her wrist weakness and lack of movement persisted, but she was regaining her strength slowly.
And when she wasn’t running between her many appointments or classes, she was on the phone with lawyers.
He’d tried to be there for most of them, but while Rose was on injured reserve, he wasn’t.
And he was grateful her mom stayed the whole week.
Getting out to do grocery shopping felt almost foreign after the last week.
He’d hoped for a calm visit, but the store was busier than expected.
He was a little edgy even though they had the coffee and tea aisle to themselves.
He channeled his nerves into looking over the limited options to compare to the list Ainsley had scribbled on an old receipt.
They were supposed to be at his mom’s place in forty-five minutes, but Ainsley had shoved the shopping list into Rose’s hand with a frantic plea to get coffee, if nothing else, before running out to her study group.
He’d watched Rose contemplate arguing—not that Ainsley was there to hear it.
She’d already disappeared down the stairs.
Her roommates gave her space, but they lingered in the apartment, wanting to stick close to Rose without smothering her.
It was adorable to watch. Rose had felt smothered, but she’d never tell them.
He wondered if Rose considered this a step toward normalcy when the door at the bottom slammed shut in Ainsley’s wake. Rose had folded the paper and tucked it in her pocket with a smirk.
“Why not? It’s coffee. That’s all Ainsley put on her list.” The challenge was there, and he shook his head, laughing softly to himself.
“Have you not noticed the type of coffee she buys?” he asked, but Rose just looked at him, her eyes glowing with amusement when he lowered his voice. “It’s all that fancy flavored shit, fully caffeinated, usually espresso”—he waved a hand toward the basket—“and this is light roast decaf.”
“Ah.” She rolled her eyes, that smile trying to make an appearance again until she tamped it down and continued, “Well, she won’t send me to get her coffee after I warned her she was running low four times, now will she?”
He narrowed his eyes at her, and she mimicked the look, pursing her lips and scrunching her nose at him.
They’d spent last night after the women’s soccer game in her bed while she sulked about not being allowed to play, with her laptop between them as they binged Bake That Cake until Rose fell asleep.
He’d crashed somewhere between the season two finale and the season three mid-season challenge.
“Is this payback for her hovering all week?” he asked, and Rose once again battled with keeping the smile off her face.
“Of course not.” Then she turned on her heel and grabbed the generic, flavorless powdered creamer and dropped it into the cart beside the unflavored decaf coffee she’d selected. “Ainsley wanted proof I’m feeling better, and telling her doesn’t seem to make a difference. This is her proof.”
Kirin shook his head as he followed her.
Rose from a week ago would have brought the best to atone for stressing her roommates out.
But as she went down the rest of Ainsley’s list, buying the worst options possible, he realized she was right.
More than anything else, treating her roommates like she would her siblings proved that.
By the time they got to the last quarter of the list, he was helping Rose find the worst of the worst. They were cackling to one another about their shopping cart of chaos all the way through checkout. He loved seeing a smile on her face again.
They made it to his mom’s place with three minutes to spare.
Ainsley’s shopping sat primly on the back seat with a seat belt around the two brown paper bags.
Every time he caught sight of it in the rearview mirror, he chuckled to himself.
Rose smiled at him, her laughter quiet and happy.
She was still amused as she climbed out of his truck and her phone rang.
“It’s my mom,” she said as she answered, and he waved her off, her sweet voice growing quieter as she walked away. “Hey, Mama. I’m glad you made it home safe.”
Ten minutes later, he was standing in the bay window watching as Rose paced along the length of his mom’s flower bed of bright, fall-colored mums. Her fingers worried her lower lip as she nodded to whatever her mom was saying.
“So, you love her?” Laurel asked from behind him, her voice teasing but soft as she wiped her hands on a lemon-printed towel.
Kirin turned, catching Rose’s faint reflection still outside, and couldn’t help the small smile tugging at his mouth.
“Yep, but don’t tell her that just yet. I don’t want to scare her off,” he said, wrapping an arm around his sister’s shoulders.
“Thanks for bringing over food all week. It helped more than you know.”
“You’re welcome.” She blushed, and he squeezed her a little tighter. “It was nice to see her outside of practice—to really start over and get to know her. And I’m partial to the way you glow around one another. It’s adorable and gross.”
“You glowed once,” he teased. “Or have you already forgotten about Lance—”
“Enough said!” She cut him off, face going tomato red as she glanced toward the kitchen, where Evan and their mom were already bickering over what qualified as a salad.
“Oh, don’t want Mom hearing about you mooning over her old grad student?” he chuckled. “You realize she knew the entire time. That’s why she kept inviting him over.”
“She—what?” Laurel’s eyes narrowed as she shot a menacing glare toward their mother. “Diabolical.”
“I think she hoped it’d be exposure therapy,” he said with a grin. “That guy was as dull as a pile of bricks. I’m not sure how you never caught on.”
“He was not,” she hissed, and Kirin chuckled again.
“He was. I got trapped in a discussion about typos in classic literature and whether they were intentional, messages from the beyond, or simple mistakes.”
“Lo’s always had shitty taste in men,” Evan said from the kitchen table without looking up. “It’ll be fun to see who she ends up with. Poor guy won’t know what he signed up for until it’s too late.”
“Like you have a clue about my love life,” Laurel shot back.
“Half my team thinks they’re in love with you. They stalk your socials and speculate about what you wear under your chef’s coat, so yeah, I know plenty,” Evan said casually. “Is this why you two had that rule about dating teammates? So you don’t have to hear this crap?”
“Yeah, until Rose,” Laurel said, half laughing, half grumbling. “Usually, teammates are off-limits.”
“Well, my guys are smitten, and no number of embarrassing stories has dissuaded them. Maybe you’ve got contenders.”
Evan’s grin widened as Laurel’s eyes narrowed. Kirin pressed a hand to her head before she could lunge. “Go chill out. Check your vegetables or something.”
Laurel grumbled something about ungrateful siblings and the internet providing more support but stomped toward the kitchen.
Kirin leaned toward Evan. “She’s gonna kill you by accident one day because she doesn’t understand your humor.”
“She’d never hurt her baby brother, or at least she’d never risk losing her subscribers to take me out.” Evan’s gaze shifted back toward the window, following Rose as she laughed at something. “She doing good? Her face looks better than when I saw her on Wednesday.”
“She’s getting there. Just checking in with her mom.”
Evan nodded, then looked at him squarely. “I like her. And happy looks good on you.”
“Yeah?” Kirin asked.
Evan clapped a hand over his shoulder, his expression serious for once. “Don’t fuck it up.”
Kirin scoffed. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Anytime.” Evan chuckled and shoved him toward the front door. “You’d better go get her. Lo’s gonna start stressing about her warm veggies getting cold.”
Watching Rose with his family wasn’t that different from watching them with Harrison and Leon—both fit as naturally as breathing.
Even after a week of Laurel and Evan camping out at her place, he was glad they had tonight to unwind together.
Rose was finally feeling like herself again.
He hoped tonight helped everyone else see that, too.
Their evening started the same way it always did.
Mom clapped her hands and pulled the Monopoly box—or in their case, Dole-opoly—from the seat beside her like she’d just unearthed buried treasure.
Evan whooped like a maniac. Kirin sighed, taking his seat at the table, already resigned to watching his brother’s inevitable victory and silently rooting for Rose to knock him off his pedestal.
Laurel groaned before the lid was even off. “No way. We agreed never again. Evan is the worst winner to ever walk the earth.”
Mom countered, “We agreed not to let Evan be banker again because we can’t trust him. Which is why Rose will be banker.” She grinned at Rose, pleased with her own logic. Laurel slumped dramatically. “Besides, I know you want another shot at being top banana.”
“Yeah, great idea,” Laurel shot back. “Let the girlfriend of the second-best cheater handle the money. That won’t go wrong at all.”
Evan gave Mom an approving slow clap. She bowed as if she’d just accepted an Oscar. Laurel muttered something under her breath and stalked off to grab food.