Page 54 of The Kingdom of Ruin

“I don’t know, but I feel like you would usually put up more of a fight.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to mention Nora, but I slam my lips shut. If it were my sister and me right now, we would argue for hours over what to watch together, only for me to give in eventually to make her smile.

I can sense she wants some form of explanation as to why I’m out of sorts, but she doesn’t need to know about my sister. So I give her something else entirely. Something she’s already semi-aware of.

“It’s just Brody,” I murmur. Does he have me out of sorts? For sure, but there’s so much more to it.

“That went from a hot secret to ice cold real quick,” she assesses, and I scoff.

“Oh, it never got hot.” I stuff a piece of chocolate in my mouth to shut myself up for a moment as her eyes narrow.

“What am I missing?” she prods, and I shake my head.

“So, so much.”

She clears her throat and laces her fingers together in her lap. “Well, if you want to spill, I’m here. There’s no pressure, but I find it’s easier to get things off your chest sometimes.”

“Thanks,” I breathe, slightly in shock. I was certain she was going to start peppering me with questions, but instead, she’s letting me set the pace. This might be the factor that separates her and Nora. Nora would never leave me alone when there’s information to be had.

A knock at the door breaks the moment and Flora rushes over to reveal Arlo on the other side of the threshold with a bag of food.

His eyes narrow for a moment, as if he’s concentrating, before they widen with excitement. “Is that The Office playing?” he asks, handing the bag off to Flora.

“It is, but you’re not invited,” she retorts, and he frowns.

“What? Why?”

“It’s girl time,” she points out, like it’s really that simple. I don’t mind if he’s here or not, but I don’t want to say that in case it’s her who wants some space from him.

“I can be involved with girl time,” he insists, and she shakes her head with a little cackle.

“I can see the outline of your dick through your sweats. Definitely not allowed,” she declares before slamming the door shut in his face. She turns to me with those familiar pink cheeks as she heads over to the bed.

“What am I missing there?” I ask, using her own words back at her.

“What do you mean?” She doesn’t look at me, opting to sort out the food instead.

Shrugging, I glance back at the door, expecting another knock, but nothing comes. “I don’t know. Your connection seems completely different than…step-siblings,” I admit, and she sighs.

“Yeah.”

Despite there being so much unspoken in the air between us, we fall into a comfortable silence as we eat our food and fixate on The Office. Admittedly, it makes me grin more than I would expect, and I almost laugh at one point, but I refuse to admit it.

“I’ve known Arlo since I was five,” she states, looking down at the few fries she has left. “I’ve loved him since I was eight, or I think I loved him then. It felt like it,” she admits. “I knew I was crushing hard on him when I was fourteen, and when I turned twenty…my dad married his mom.”

“Well fuck,” I blurt, earning a smile from the defeated redhead beside me.

“Yeah, that.”

“Have you guys ever talked about it?”

She shakes her head. “No, but I’m sure it’s obvious to him. He’s just too nice to make things awkward.”

“That’s bullshit,” I retort, regretting it the moment she winces, but when she looks up at me with a confused gaze, I know there’s a tinge of hope in there too.

“It is?”

“If that’s what he was doing, then I would say that’s shady as hell, but there’s a level of care there for you, too. I can’t decipher either of you enough to figure out anything more than that, though. But I don’t get the feeling he’s purposely avoiding the elephant in the room to save your feelings, because we all know that only ends in devastation anyway.”

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