“I don’t have any siblings,” Lauren said, unnecessarily. Of course Asa already knew that. “Maybe it was for the best—I saw a lot of siblings split up in the foster system, one placed with a relative while another was in a group home, that kind of thing. But I also saw a lot of siblings who only had each other, whose resilience came in part from having that one person who knew exactly what they were going through because they were going through it, too. If my parents kicked my little brother out of the house solely because they didn’t like that he kissed other boys, I’d take his side so fast it would make their heads spin. I think it’s fair for you to expect that kind of support from your sister.”
“Well,” he said, giving her a crooked smile. “I do consider you the ultimate arbiter of what’s fair. So thank you.”
He reached for her hand, and she thought he was going to hold it, but instead he circled her wrist with the watch strap, his tongue at the corner of his mouth as he worked to adjust the buckle. Once it was secure, he kissed her palm.
“I’ve fantasized about you just like this,” he said. “Naked except for your watch.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “That’s what does it for you? You have a real thing for timepieces?”
He laughed. “It’s weird, what I suddenly have a ‘thing’ for. Don’t get me started on those tights you wear to work.”
She wouldn’t have minded getting him started, actually, but she reminded herself no distraction. There would be time enough for that. “So what are your plans for the rest of the day?” she asked.
Asa’s fingers were in the strands of her hair that had fallen over her shoulder, twisting the ends in a gesture she wasn’t even sure he was fully conscious of. “That depends,” he said. “Any chance you’d be up for going to a baby shower with me?”
Chapter
Twenty-Two
This was a mistake. This was a mistake. This was a mistake.
The phrase kept repeating itself in Asa’s head as he stood outside his sister’s door with Lauren, waiting to ring the doorbell.
He blamed sex with Lauren. Well, blame was the wrong word, but being with her had given him such a rush of euphoria, of bravery, that he’d let his guard down. It had scrambled his brain, or maybe it was more accurate to say it had unscrambled it. Suddenly it had seemed possible, not that his family would’ve magically changed, but that he’d be strong enough to withstand it when they hadn’t. And at the very least, he wouldn’t feel like he was running from it anymore.
But now they were standing there, an hour and a half late, empty-handed. Lauren looked Audrey Hepburn pretty in a black dress with a pale pink cardigan, her hair in a French braid that had blown his mind to watch her do herself. Meanwhile, he was still dressed in his rumpled clothes from the night before, because there hadn’t been time to stop at his apartment to change. He’d rolled the sleeves down over his tattoos, and kept messing with the buttons at the cuffs, unused to the feeling of having fabric loosely circling his wrists.
“Do I smell okay?” he asked.
Lauren pressed her nose to his shoulder, taking a deep inhale before letting it out on a little sigh. “You still smell amazing,” she said. “It’s honestly obscene.”
“Maybe it’s better if we don’t go,” he said. “I’ll visit her after she has the baby. I’d always planned to do that, anyway.”
Her gaze was calm and steady on his face. “Whatever you want.”
Before he could talk himself out of it, he reached forward and pushed the doorbell with one finger, depressing it long enough to hear the tones ring out inside the house.
He didn’t recognize the woman who opened the door, and for a second he had the bleak, anxious thought, I haven’t seen my sister in so long I’ve forgotten what she even looks like. But then he realized that the woman wasn’t eight months pregnant, and was looking at him with a polite, if slightly quizzical smile. Of course. She must be a friend of Becca’s.
“Sorry we’re late,” he said. “I’m—”
“Oh my god, Asa?” His sister’s voice came from behind the woman, and before he could react, she’d enveloped him in a hug, her very convex belly making the embrace more awkward than it already was after the noticeable delay before he returned the gesture. When she finally pulled back, her gaze went immediately to his hair. He could tell she wanted to make a comment, but didn’t, so perhaps that was progress of a sort.