Page 45 of Movers and Shakers

“You’d be surprised at how many people love it here. My sister’s boyfriend just moved here permanently.”

He was talking to me about his sister? Besides the few tidbits I’d gotten from him as Lila, Barry usually avoided the topic.

“Maybe I’ll join them.” And I truly wanted to, especially if Barry would talk to me more about his personal life.

I wanted to keep the conversation going, but his phone rang.

“Speak of the devil,” he said, a faint smile on his face. “I should take this. I’m trying a new thing where I answer my sister’s calls.”

“I won’t keep you then.” I gave him an awkward wave. With a smile, he walked away, the same tea that I came for in his hand.

“That was close,” Juno said, coming to my side. “If you’re going to talk to him as two different people, you’ll have to work on your poker face. You looked at him the same way Lila did. And you stopped shrugging your shoulders as much.”

I knew she was right. It seemed I wasn’t the best at pretending to be two people where he was concerned.

“I’ll work on it.”

“You’re used to being Lila around him. But Rose is a very different person.”

In more ways than one.

It was like he was embarrassed about his family when it came to Lila. Like he didn’t want me to see him at his lowest.

And I got it. If I was meeting my favorite pop star, I’d be the same way.

But I wondered if we could have been more if Rose had met him first.

Barry

As I listened to Ruth’s fifth run-on sentence in the call, I stopped her.

I was walking back to my apartment. She called often these days, but she was neverthisscatterbrained.

“Is everything okay?” I asked. “I know we’re supposed to talk about life, but you seem . . . off.”

“Yeah, of course I’m okay!” Her voice was high. “There’s no major news or anything.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Then why mention major news?”

She groaned. “I would tell you, but I don’t think Ican.It doesn’t affect you, though.”

“Then we don’t need to talk about it.”

“But it is about our brother.”

I paused in my walk. What could be going on with Tom? He and I hadn’t talked since I found out he had outed Dad. But why would we? Tom and I never had a close relationship; he wasn’t like Ruth. He didn’t seem towantto be. The man was allergic to connection.

“I’m sure everything is fine.”

“That is definitelynotthe case,” she said. “Our family is fucked.”

“You can say that again.”

“Our family isfucked.”

A shocked laugh startled out of me. We hadn’t been doing this for very long, but Ruth called me crying when worried about Tom. I’d been so shocked that I agreed to reconnect.

That little voice had won out once again.

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