“Me, too.” I nodded, heading to the couch.
“Want a drink?” she asked, going into the kitchen.
“Just some water.”
This was my baby sister playing host for me in the apartment she shared with her boyfriend. Probably the only thing I regretted about joining the air force was how much I missed of my sisters growing into the women they were now. At least I’d been there for a few pivotal moments in the last year or so.
With two water bottles in hand, she sat on the other end of the couch, facing me with her legs crossed.
“You still run every morning?” I asked after taking a sip of my water.
“I try to.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s hard to drag myself out of bed after a long night at work.”
“Welcome to adulthood.”
She snorted. “Yeah. So how’s getting ready to have twins going?”
I laughed, flicking my water bottle lid at her. She flung her arms up dramatically to protect her face, then laughed at herself. “It’s awesome,” I said with much sarcasm. “She fights me on every damn thing. Doesn’t want to share anything. Doesn’t like talking about herself, or her health, or how hard she works.”
“Yeah, she never talked about herself the whole year I lived with her. I wish I would have asked her more while I was there.”
I messed with the label on my water bottle, wondering why I’d come to my sister to whine about my girlfriend. It wasn’t my greatest idea ever, but it was all I had at the moment. “She wouldn’t have shared anything. She doesn’t ever. Even all that time I emailed her, she just joked around with me and gave me a hard time.” I ran my hands through my hair, thinking about her phone conversation I’d overhead the night before. It hadn’t told me anything about her except that there was someone out there who she shared with. Her voice had even changed, almost like she had a completely different accent. “She ever tell you about someone named Del?”
She made a face, muttering, “Del?” Her mouth quirked while she thought on the name. “Never heard her mention anyone named Del. Who is it? Another guy?”
“No. I don’t think so” was all I said, not wanting to get Ava fired up about anything that hadn’t actually happened.
Instead I changed the subject to our family, bringing up Mom and Dad coming to Tennessee in the next week or so. But I kept thinking about this Del person, wondering who it could be. Her reaction when I mentioned the name the night before wasn’t defensive or angry, and she said she would tell me another time. It was unlikely that it was family, since she always shied away from the subject.
I would have to wait until later to bring it up. But I most definitely would.
Later that evening, I waited on the couch while Kate got ready. She’d taken a nap after I picked her up from school, so I’d chilled on the couch catching up to where she was on The Walking Dead. The weather in this state was shitty at best compared to the cool weather I was used to in Germany, but I figured I should wear jeans on our date, though I was sticking to a gray T-shirt. She’d picked some place called Brokers, saying she was craving a good steak. The pregnant woman was going to get whatever she wanted.
When she came out with her hair hanging in long curls atop a black-and-white striped dress that hugged her belly and hips and hung off her shoulders, I stopped breathing. The dress stopped right above her knees, showing off a good amount of those long tan legs. I stood from the couch, looking her over from the top of her head down to her spiked black high heels. It should have been illegal for her to look so damn sexy with that pregnant belly.
“You clean up good,” I commented a bit raggedly.
A smirk tugged at her red-painted lips. “You don’t look too bad yourself. But we better get going before I decide to change back into leggings and a T-shirt.”
As if she looked any less sexy in leggings. Women. They never knew how good they looked in just about any attire.
My nerves almost got to me when we started on our way. We’d flirted, slept together, and fought quite a bit, but we had yet to go on an actual date. She deserved better than what she seemed to be used to. I wondered if any guy had ever taken the time to take this bombshell on a date. With how damn hot she was on a bad day, I couldn’t believe no one had.
I rested my hand on her bare knee on the way to the restaurant while she chatted about an algorithm she was working on. The brains on top of her beauty sure were a plus. We could be nerds together and talk about things we both understood. It was one of the areas we’d connected on that night I met her when Ava first moved in.
The restaurant was an old three-story building with a bistro on the first floor and fancy dining on the second. The maître d’ took us up to the second floor. It was classy with dim lighting and light music playing. He sat us at a small table, reading off specials before leaving us. The server appeared before I could utter a sentence, getting our drink orders—her ordering Dr. Pepper and me a beer.
When the server left us, Kate smirked at me with raised eyebrows.
“Just because you can’t have one doesn’t mean I can’t, toots.” I smiled. “Besides, this is a celebration.”
Lips pursed, she muttered, “Sure, sure. Wish I could celebrate with a beer.”
I chuckled. “Doc said you could have a sip or two.”
“Oh, believe me, I had plenty before I knew I was pregnant. It’s a wonder these babies are so healthy. But a good beer is about the only thing I’ve craved thus far.” Her mouth quirked. “And steak. Oh! And peanut butter. I go through about a container a week.” Golden eyes lighting up, she leaned forward, elbows resting on the table.
“Yeah, I saw you sucking on a spoon of it before your nap.” I smirked.
“Don’t judge me. At least there are some things I want to eat.”
That was true. With how little she ate and how much weight she’d lost, I was glad to see her eat anything at all.
“Honey, if it’s steak you crave, I’ll slaughter a whole freaking cow for you if it means you’ll eat.”
She laughed so hard, she snorted, melting my heart a little more, right when the server showed up with our drinks. Kate ordered the most expensive steak on the menu, which pleased me. I may have been joking about the cow, but if it meant she’d eat, I’d take her to that restaurant every night of the week until those babies popped out.
When he left after getting my order, I watched her sip her soda while looking around the restaurant. The way her eyes sparkled, the rosy color in her cheeks, enthralled me. This mystery of a girl could have been a supermodel in a different life, yet she’d chosen to study computer science.
“Why’d you pick computer science?” I asked.
She jerked her gaze to mine, rolling her lips between her teeth. “It fascinates me.” She shrugged. I held a hand out to prompt more of an explanation. “The things we can do with computers. Algorithms, programming, and problems to be solved. This whole world of things that was created by man. There’s just so much that has yet to be discovered. I want to discover something.”
A slow burn ignited in my chest. There may have been a story behind her, but she lived in the now, blazing a trail of her own. The control was only a small part; there was so much more to her. I had stifled that by trying to take her job away from her.