Page 132 of Jump on Three

Jerking away from Rhys, she turned to me. “What’s up?”

I placed my hand flat on the empty spot where Evelyn should have been. “Have you even noticed your sister isn’t eating? She’s skipped breakfast the last four days.”

“She’s fine,” Delilah said carefully. “She’ll have breakfast.”

“No. She can’t just pick up breakfast on the way to class. She only eats a cranberry-orange scone.”

Rhys leaned around Delilah to glare at me. “Back off, Sokolov. If you want to talk to Delilah, it will be with respect or not at all. What you will not do is accuse her of not caring for her sister.”

Delilah patted his hand. “It’s fine.” Then she tapped the flat brown bag next to her plate. “I noticed, Ivan. Just like I noticed you haven’t been in her room for days. I’m not pressing because I know she will talk when she’s ready, but if you dumped her—”

“I did not.”

“Okay. Well, something is going on. You’re being an asshole, and my sister is disappearing into herself.” She pushed the bag toward me. “Here’s her scone. Why don’t you go give it to her?”

I swallowed hard, looking from the scone to Delilah. “I will. Thanks. And I’m sorry for being an asshole. I know what kind of sister you are. You would not neglect her.”

I left my food mostly uneaten and returned to the dorm. Once I’d decided to go see her, I couldn’t get there fast enough. The elevator ride was interminable, and the hall seemed to stretch for miles, but I finally made it to her door.

She opened it slowly, peeking her face out of a crack. “Ivan,” she croaked. “Good morning.”

“Let me in, angel. I have your breakfast.”

The opening widened as she moved back, and I stepped inside. For a long moment, we stared at each other.

It had been six days since she’d told me she wouldn’t come with me to Miami. I had seen her, had eaten a few meals beside her, competed in our final swim meet of the season, but I hadn’t looked at her.

Or touched her.

Now that she was in front of me, looking so damn small and as despondent as I felt, I wondered what the hell I’d been doing, wasting the precious time we had left.

I placed her scone down on the couch and opened my arms to her. “Come here, angel.”

Her hesitation was brief and wobbly, then she was in my arms, wrapping hers around my middle. She was shaking, heaving hot breaths against my chest.

I buried my nose in her hair, inhaling her scent, committing it to memory. Soon, that might be all I had.

“I do not know how to do this,” I admitted.

“I don’t either, but how we’ve been doing it isn’t right.” She tipped her head back, looking up at me with glassy eyes. “I’ve missed you, and you’re here. Can’t we hold off the heartbreak for when we’re no longer together?”

“I don’t think I can, but I will learn to live with it so I can have this time with you.”

There was only us. Only this. This time was ours to miss. We had wasted too much already.

“I thought you were angry at me,” she said.

“I am angry, but not at you. Disappointed, yes, but never angry. And even if I were angry with you, I would still want to be near you.”

Her palm flattened over my sputtering heart. “You haven’t been near me for days. Nearly a week.”

“I guess I’ve been licking my wounds.”

Her nose crinkled. “Disgusting idiom. We stop our pets from doing that. Why would we claim to be involved in such an activity?”

A foreign sound escaped me. A laugh, something I hadn’t done since Miami.

“I love you so much, Evelyn.”

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