Well, that explained a lot. Elliot had deliberately saved me from embarrassment. A gesture of friendship, surely. Not that that explained the hand on the hip. It was probably a mistake.
Evgenia swam away on the next “Polo,” though by then it was pretty much guaranteed Elliot would be catching Carina. My sister played without subtlety, moving in whatever direction Elliot did on each turn, putting herself closer and closer to him. I watched Klara watching Carina, my cousin’s frustration mounting until her nostrils flared and eyes blazed with rage.
At last, Elliot had no choice but to catch my sister, who giggled loudly and threw her arms around his shoulders. “You got me!”
Elliot squirmed, wriggling his shoulder to try to dislodge her embrace. And then he leaned in close to her ear, said something in hushed tones.
“What?” my sister responded, her eyes going wide.
Oh, no, was he doing what I thought he was doing?
He said something else I couldn’t hear, and then my sister went limp, finally releasing him and falling backwards into the water up to her chin. The chin started to wobble. But my sister did not cry. Carina stood up, walked over to the stairs, and got out of the pool.
“I’m sick of playing,” she said. Now the wobble was in her voice. And then she ran out of the room.
I threw Elliot a look that could have boiled the pool in two seconds. Then I got out, grabbed two towels and our bag of clothes, and rushed after my sister.
Seventeen
I followed the wet slapping of Carina’s feet until I caught up with her at the lift bank. Her red-rimmed eyes told me there had been tears, though it seemed they were brief. Now she was just hiccupping sporadically. Without words, I handed her a towel, then her shoes, and we made our way back to the Sofi.
To add insult to my sister’s injury, we were staying in Elliot’s old room. There was no escaping him. She threw herself down on one of the beds, coincidentally the one where he and I used to sleep.
“I feel so stupid,” she groaned into the pillow.
“You shouldn’t,” I said. “Elliot led you on. And when I told him to let you down gently, I did not mean in public—”
Carina whipped around. “Wait, you told him to do that to me?”
“No! Well, yes. Kind of. It’s really complicated.”
My sister sat up and leveled me with a stare. “Explain.”
I sat down on the bottom bunk opposite her, buying myself time to work up my courage. I wanted to tell her everything, but I was used to telling her nothing, so it was hard. Unnatural.
“Elliot and I used to have a thing, as you know.”
“You told me it was over,” she said.
“I know. It is. But things were a bit more . . . serious between us than you knew. And it ended dramatically.”
“What does that mean? Leo, just tell me.”
I took a deep breath and let it tumble out. “We were engaged, back when. But then we weren’t. I’m sorry I never told you. Anyway, Elliot was kind of bitter about it, so when he came back here, he was trying to make me miserable, and one of the ways he did that was by saying yes to you at speed dating. I scolded him soundly for it, for toying with your feelings, and told him to let you down gently—”
“Whoa, whoa, Leo.” Carina held out her arms, as if to brace herself against the onslaught of information. “You were engaged to Elliot?”
“Uh, yeah. Surprise?”
Carina furrowed her brow. “Did you lie to me? When you said you were over Elliot? You let me throw myself at him, with speed dating and everything else?”
“That was before I knew Elliot’s agenda, though. I know I should have told you about the engagement, been honest, but I want you to be happy and—”
Next thing I knew, I was engulfed in a tight hug, Carina having thrown herself practically on top of me.
“You’re such a good sister,” she said into my hair. “But you’re also a huge idiot.” She pulled back with a disapproving look. “You should have told me. I would never hurt you, not on purpose. Unlike some people.” She frowned. “Our cousin is such a witch. She knew, right? And she’s been throwing herself at him too.”
I nodded. “Witch, though?”
“Well, she is family,” Carina reasoned. “Now you’re going to tell me the full story of you and Elliot. I need to know exactly what I was stepping in the middle of.”
So I filled my little sister in on all the sordid details, watching as her brow inched farther and farther up, until it fully disappeared into her fringe.
“Dad, Aunt Freja, and Klara staged an intervention? Wow.” She looked down at her hands in her lap, then laced one of them through mine. “You know I never would have been into him, gone after him, if I had known, right? You’re my sister.”
“I know.” I drew her into a hug, this one of mutual comfort. This felt far more natural, being her big sister, offering myself.
“He’s gorgeous, of course, and definitely kind of flirty?” She looked to me for affirmation, which I had to give. Elliot wasn’t innocent in all this. “But if I’m honest, he and I have basically nothing in common.”
Laughter shot through me. Never had there been a truer statement to tumble from my baby sister’s lips.
“We’ll find you someone perfectly suited to you,” I promised. “You’re wonderful, and I’m really happy that you’re my sister.”
“Ugh.” She smacked me playfully on the shoulder, poorly suppressing a smile. “So sappy. And what about you? Do you still love him?”
My face must have said it all.
“Leo! You should tell him! He either hates you or loves you back, with the way he’s been acting. I noticed him flirting, but like I said, he flirts with everyone, and I thought you weren’t interested.”
“We’re just friends. We buried the hatchet,” I said.
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s true!”
“I’ll ask you again tomorrow, after you’ve spent the night in his bed.” She pointed across the way. “So you two, like . . . you know. In that bed?”
“Conversation’s over. Let’s go to bed.” I left her giggling after me as I went to shower. Carina would be just fine.
* * *
I rose to find the ship eerily quiet. It seemed I was on a new sleeping schedule, and waking before everyone else was my new normal. I crept into the hall and listened up the stairs, but I heard no sign of another early-morning coffee tryst between Elliot and Nora. My pleasure at the realization was far too acute. I didn’t want to run into him, anyway. I’d be too tempted to give him a piece of my mind about how atrociously he’d handled the Carina situation.
I took the opportunity to do some housekeeping and retrieve my mother’s dresses. We’d sealed them up years ago after Father complained they were taking up too much space in his closet. I hadn’t wanted them in mine. The daily reminder that she was gone would have been too much.
I padded in bare feet out of the servants’ wing to the mid-deck storage unit. It was dark inside and musty, only one of which was helped by my turning on the lights. The room was full to the brim with old furniture, dusty boxes, and a graveyard of fashion. Too many of my ancestors had been too proud to recycle fraying and faded clothing, so they ended up here, crammed into a series of wire racks someone had fashioned from scrap. I’d started upcycling pieces as best I could, which went for the furniture, too, but so many of the pieces were too fine to cut up. My mother’s dresses especially, which I kept carefully wrapped and stored so that one day Carina and I could actually wear them. That day was coming soon. The Valg Ball was too close for my liking.