She grumbles something under her breath, shifting around in my lap until her arm is low around my back and her knee is hugging my side. She’s using me as a human pillow and the thought makes me smile, some of the tension finally slipping from my shoulders.
“About what?” she asks.
“I don’t know. What do we usually talk about?”
“I usually ask you a bunch of questions and you g-grunt at me.” She laughs into the bouquet of daisies on my shoulder, the delicate petals fanning out over my chest. She traces over it gently—the long stems, the thin ribbon inked between them. Her thumb trails to the hollow of my throat and she leaves it there, nose at my collarbone. I adjust her in my lap.
I can’t think when all her skin is pressed to mine. I can hardly breathe.
When I don’t offer anything in the way of conversation, she sighs. “Tell me something about the sky.”
I tilt my head back against the couch and consider, stretching my legs out beneath the coffee table. “There’s a meteor shower at the end of April,” I start. Her legs shift and I’m distracted by the weight of her against me, her bottom lip dragging against my skin. I breathe in slowly.
“I know,” she tells me. “I saw it on your f-fridge.”
I forgot I put the map there. Usually one of the cats collects it for their nest and I have to extract it from between stolen shirts and a necktie I’ve worn twice.
Evelyn’s weight becomes heavier against me, her forehead nudging at my chin. I jostle her slightly, my hand sliding across her skin. “Come on, honey. Stay awake with me.”
She whines and it sends a bolt of heat rocketing through my blood. I clear my throat and grapple for something to fill the limited space between us.
“I read online that it’s considered a common shower.” That’s what the article said. Common. Like a bunch of dust, rock, and ice leftover from the creation of the solar system isn’t something incredible. When did we stop marveling at the world around us? When did we stop looking at the stars?
“Meteors come from comets?” She mumbles it into my neck, lazy and slow.
I nod. “Yeah.” I slip my hand down to her hip and squeeze once. “Bits of comet, I suppose. When the remnants start to fall through our atmosphere, they catch on fire.”
“When you p-put it like that,” she laughs, a slight catch in the sound. “It sounds beautiful.”
I smile against her temple. “It is, though. It is when you think about it. These things are circling the sky for—god knows how long, really. And then we knock into their way and they start to fall, lighting up the sky as they go. Think about every kid that looks up to the sky and sees that flash of light. That’s magic, isn’t it?” Eight years old and standing in my parents’ backyard, corn stalks up to my knees and my pajamas a size too big, the hem of my pants dragging. A flash of light and my heart in my throat. A wish made on a star. “What in the hell is common about that?”
“I told you, I’m not going.”
I peer out of the kitchen to the living room where Evelyn is wrapped up in four blankets on the couch, a mug of tea cupped gently between her hands. The cats have all burrowed in various spots in her cocoon. I can see Vixen by her shoulder, her tail curled gently over the back of Evelyn’s neck. With a purely selfish impulse, I brought her one of my flannels to wear and I can make out the rolled sleeve as she brings the mug to her lips, the collar stretched wide over bare skin.
Gus stopped by not too long ago, the ambulance barreling into my driveway. Evelyn had been mortified, hands curled tight to her chest, quietly asking if bringing the behemoth was really necessary. Gus had chuckled and unloaded his bag, gently checking her over.
“It’s my work whip,” he told her, two fingers pressed to the delicate skin on her wrist as he took her pulse. “Next time I’ll rent a limousine.”
I had made a sound at that. There won’t be a next time. We won’t ever be re-visiting this little trip to the pond again. The next time Evelyn goes there, it’ll be one-hundred-and-two and sunny. I’ll put her on one of those backpack leashes. Now that the fear is gone, I’m left with nothing but a buzz of frustration. I have to hold myself back from sitting close to her, scooping her up against me. I want to feel the heat thrumming beneath her skin. I want to wrap her in seven more blankets and lock her in this house.
I slam the box of tea bags shut and toss the metal container in the cabinet, making enough noise to wake the dead. I somehow manage to not dislodge the phone cradled against my shoulder.
“Oh, now you’re telling me things,” Nova snips on the other end of the line. I can imagine her pinched face, the way her hands clench into fists when she’s pissed about something. “You’ve got a woman—a high profile social media starlet, mind you—staying with you for weeks, and you don’t say anything to anyone. But now you’re telling me. Okay.”
“Didn’t want to make it a thing,” I explain. I also didn’t want all of my sisters showing up on my doorstep. I watch as the social media starlet shifts on the couch, her hand petting at one of the cats. It’s their own fault if they haven’t been paying attention to the phone tree.
“You could have mentioned something at dinner this week.”
Evelyn had been at Stella’s place when I attended family dinner on Tuesday night. I brought her home a Tupperware container of potato salad and she ate it for breakfast, three days in a row.
“There was nothing to mention.”
Nova snorts.
“I have no idea how long she’s staying and you guys get … weird.”
They get invasive. All of the rooms in this house would have suddenly found themselves occupied by the sisters Porter if I so much as mentioned Evelyn’s name.
“We don’t get weird.”
I keep my thoughts to myself. It’s not worth the argument.
Nova circles back to her original point. “You have to go.”
“I absolutely do not have to go.” Evelyn’s blank expression morphs into curiosity, a question on her brow when she glances over to me. I roll my eyes. “I fixed the Carter thing. Harper can be on your team again.”
“Harper doesn’t know anything about botany.”
“She knows some things.” Like plants need sunlight and water to live, but that’s probably it.
“Do you not care if we win?”
“Nova.” I stir some honey into my mug. “Please believe me when I say that I could not care any less about your chances at winning.”
She sucks in a deep breath and pauses. I can hear her devious little mind plotting on the other end of the phone. “Alright, well,” she sighs, a gust of breath. She’s probably sitting cross-legged in her tattoo studio, a sketchpad open on her lap. “I’m sure it will be fine. Mom will be disappointed you aren’t there, but you can always visit her another time.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Went right for the kill-shot, didn’t you?”
She snickers. “I play to win the game, big brother.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Tell Evelyn I say hi.”
I toss my phone on the counter with a clatter and shuffle back into the living room, kettle in hand. I top off Evelyn’s mug and collapse back against the couch with a sigh, her feet automatically digging under my thigh. They’re still cold and I consider getting back up for a thick pair of my socks. Maybe the ones she stole three days ago that she thinks I don’t know about.