Page 26 of Love You More

I don’t need to ask how things are going any more with Tim because I always know. If she wakes up here, there’s trouble in paradise, soon to be resolved with an apology for saying something insensitive. His emotional quotient isn’t exactly the highest, and every fight ends with a half day of sex in his single at the squalid frat.

I point her in the direction of the French press, where I’ve saved her a cup of coffee after drinking two myself.

She’s not a morning person, and somehow, she’s signed up for a ceramics class that meets three days a week at eight in the morning.

No mistake there. No one is holding classes at eight in the evening.

“I don’t feel well,” Ella whines.

“Yeah? Hangover?”

“No. I didn’t drink last night. I felt crampy.”

I know Ella’s cycle the same way I know my own, and it’s too early for her period. “Maybe you ate something?”

“So much something. We had Thai food from the good place.”

“Well, that probably explains it. Now get thee into thy shower.”

Normally, her boyfriend Tim has the job of waking her sleepy ass up in the morning. Or not. I have no idea if she’s actually passing Italian. It was part of the deal we made when I moved into her place—she’d keep quiet and not reveal to the university that I’m illegally crashing in her dorm every night, and I wouldn’t hassle her about her grades.

It takes every bit of self-control not to comment when I know she’s pulling an all-nighter to get a paper written, but I promised. All the more reason to work two jobs and find my own place, so I can boss her around like a proper older sister. Plus, I’m sick of living in her space, and it’s time for me to get my own apartment.

“Wait, tell me about the job. When do you start?”

“I’ve been working there for two days already,” I tell her, astounded that she’s so clueless. “Do you not read your texts?”

She picks up her phone from on top of a milk crate that doubles as a bedside table and squints at the screen. She tosses it on the bed with a shrug. “I thought I responded to these.”

“Ella, you’re so full of shit. You just acted shocked that I got the job, and I told you about it three days ago.”

“Did I respond?” Slumping against the wall, my sister looks at me for the available millisecond before her eyes drift shut. She’ssonot a morning person.

I walk over and flick her forehead. “Ow.” She takes a swipe at me, but with her eyes still closed, she misses by a foot.

“Wake up. Get in the shower.” I give her a nudge in the direction of the tiny bathroom, where the mirror is still fogged from my shower a half hour ago. It’s a quarter to seven, and I’m about to head out the door, but I need to make sure she’s awake and on her feet before I leave.

Ella staggers into the bathroom and slams the door behind her. It’s the last I’ll probably see of her for another few days, which is fine by me. “Love you, El,” I call after her as I scoop my canvas tote over my shoulder.

“Love you too.” It’s the clearest thing she’s said this morning, and I know she means it. We’re all we’ve got, and even though we were born with diametrically opposed circadian rhythms, she’ll always be my ride-or-die.

Closing the closet door on my viniculture experiments, I take a sniff of the air to make sure it doesn’t smell like wine. The last thing we need is to have the university inspect the dorm and kick Ella out for fermenting wine in campus housing.

Not that it’s overly forbidden. We checked all the fine print before I ever rented my first hand-corker, and there was nothing in Ella’s dorm contract that mentioned fermenting alcohol. Then again, it probably doesn’t come up a lot.

All the more reason, though, that I need to sock away money from my jobs so I can get my own place eventually.

ChapterTen

Jax

“Daddy!” Fiona flies into my arms when I open the front door. It’s earlier than I usually get home, six on the dot. But after having Ruby take care of Fiona every afternoon for a bit over a week, I’m surprisingly caught up on work.

I’ve even managed to get more sleep. For the first time in two years, I don’t feel like a worn out half-human at the end of a work day.

I still haven’t figured out how to make up for half a billion in losses, but I have a few new ideas. If I’m not a walking zombie at work, it ought to help me come up with more.

I swing Fiona in a circle and deposit her in the chair she sprung from a moment earlier. “How was your day, lovebug?”

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