“Look at you,” I said. My voice came out wobbly, so I cleared my throat. I gestured to a nearby chair and said, “Have a seat.”
“Can I bring you anything? A drink or a sandwich?” Lupita, clearly a much better host than I, asked Lexi.
“Um, no, thank you. I’m good,” Lexi said. She crossed the room and sat down in the armchair nearest the couch.
I watched her, tried not to stare, and failed. She was thirty, soon to be thirty-one, and she looked so much like our mother that I felt my heart clutch hard in my chest. She had long light brown hair that curled on the ends, big hazel eyes framed by pale lashes, a stubborn chin, and even the same faint spray of freckles across her upturned nose. Her voice was just like our mother’s, too. It wrecked me.
“You look well,” Lexi said. Her voice was soft. I felt Jackson stir beside me, reminding me that he was there.
“Thanks,” I replied. I was not about to divulge the past nine months of sheer hell. Instead, I gestured to Lupita and Jackson. “This is my housekeeper, Lupita, and my . . . tra . . . friend, Jackson.”
Jackson shot me a quick glance, and I knew he’d caught on that I didn’t want Lexi to know he was my trainer or that he mostly lived here in case my body decided to flip me off again. Too much information.
“It’s nice to meet you.” Lexi and Jackson leaned forward and shook hands. Then she waved at Lupita, who hadn’t left her position by the door but who waved back with a warm smile.
“If you need me,” Lupita said, and I nodded. She closed the door softly behind her when she left.
Jackson half rose from his seat. “I’ll just—”
“Stay,” I said. It came out like an order. I softened my tone and added, “I’m sure Lexi won’t mind.”
My sister gave him a tiny smile and nodded. “Not at all.”
Jackson settled back onto the couch. I could feel him glancing between us, confused. Not a surprise, given that I’d never mentioned having any family, because, as far as I was concerned, I didn’t have any.
Lexi looked around the room, taking in the massive television, the video game still frozen on the screen where Jackson’s character had had his head lopped off, and the oversized leather furniture and utilitarian coffee table. It was definitely a man’s lair. The whole house was, in fact, and I suddenly wished I’d taken Lupita up on her offer to buy fresh flowers or plants to soften the place a little. It had seemed pointless to me at the time since flowers and plants always died.
The quizzical expression on Lexi’s face, the pinch to her lips, and the tiny V between her eyebrows as she tried to reconcile this house as the home of the brother she’d once known reminded me so much of our mother, before everything went wrong, that for a second, I felt as if I’d been cast back in time and my mother was about to read me a story or teach me to tie my shoes. It was jarring.
I fought the memories off, digging into the pain and betrayal of my childhood to ward against any soft feelings that might bubble to the surface. I had no issues with Lexi, aside from not knowing her, not really, but our parents were another story.
“Well,” I said. I wanted to get right to the bottom of her visit, even though I had a pretty good idea of why she was here.
“You look good,” she said. She lifted a hand as if she’d reach out and pat mine, trying to connect. I moved my hand away from the armrest and her hand fell awkwardly back into her lap.
“So you said.” I wasn’t trying to be curt, honestly, but I could think of no reason why she’d be here right now save one.
“I did, didn’t I?” she said with a laugh. It sounded forced and it clanged, a dissonant sound in the otherwise quiet room. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you.”
“Twenty years,” I said. That wasn’t entirely accurate, but she didn’t need to know that. I had checked up on her over the years, enough to make sure she was well cared for and got a full-ride “scholarship” to the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design to study architecture. She didn’t need to know that either.
“A lifetime,” she said. Her eyes, one of the many traits we shared, met mine. At one time, she had been my person, my sibling, the only living being I’d walk through fire for without hesitation. Now she was a stranger. I glanced away.
“You look well, too,” I said. My tone was grudging, but I didn’t want her to think I was a complete asshole. My throat got tight when I added, “You look like her.” I didn’t need to say who. She knew.
“Do I?” she asked. She lowered her face and stared at her hands, clasped in her lap. Her thick curtain of honey brown hair fell about her face. She tucked it behind her ears, just like our mother used to do. “I don’t really remember her. My memories of her and Dad are fuzzy.”
“Lucky you,” I said. The bitterness in my voice was like acid, and I was surprised it didn’t burn a hole in my tongue. A flash of pain crossed her face, and I regretted the harshness of my words. What had happened to us as kids hadn’t been Lexi’s fault. I blew out a breath and, needing this surprise visit to end sooner rather than later, asked, “How much?”
She tipped her head to the side, looking confused. “What?”
I rolled my hand in a get-on-with-it gesture. “How much?”
She raised one eyebrow and stared at me. This was an expression all her own. “What are you talking about, Nicky?”
“It’s Nick,” I said.
“What are you talking about, Nick?” She emphasized the ck. I was only surprised she didn’t swap out the N for a D, but it was implied.
I almost laughed in relief. There she was. This was the girl I remembered, who gave me hell when I wouldn’t take her along on bike rides with my friends, who punched the neighborhood bully right in the eye when he was tormenting a pigeon, who had fought like a bobcat, all teeth and claws, when the system separated us so that she could have a family of her own while I was sent to a series of foster homes and then finally a group home for wayward—Ha! More like unwanted—teen boys.
“I think it’s pretty obvious why you’re here,” I said. Despite being happy to see that she had retained some of her feistiness, I didn’t want to play games about her purpose. We had been siblings once, but those days were long gone. There was only one thing anyone ever wanted from me now.
She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “Is that so? Do enlighten me.”
“You need money,” I said. “And since I have it, you’ve probably decided to pull your old connection to me as your big brother out of your back pocket and cash in.”
I heard Jackson make a choking sound from beside me, but I didn’t bother to look at him. I was too busy taking in the kaleidoscope of fury that was twirling in front of me in the form of my very pissed off sister.