Page 47 of A Break in Communications

“Ugh, I guess whatever. To each their own. How long have you known her?”

“Two years, one hundred and two days.”

“Damn, that’s specific. How long have you wanted to get with her?”

“Two years, one hundred and two days.”

“What do you think it would take for her to date you?”

“Hell if I know.” I stopped, looking at her, only really processing the conversation once I stopped gazing at Anna. “Wait, what?”

She scowled. “I knew it. There is something fishy. What, is this just a fling Anna’s presenting as a happy relationship so Mom leaves her alone?”

I stared at her for a second before I turned fully away from Anna-watching, squaring my shoulders with her. “You’re not as dumb as Anna said you are.”

“Wow. After how much I’ve hyped her up?”

Well, Veronica seemed to know her sister better than Anna realized. Doubted we’d be able to keep up the charade around her anyway. She knew a little too much about us anyway, after last night. I leaned back against the wall, kicking one foot up over the other. “Actually, yeah, basically. Don’t tell anyone, though. Anna would kill you and me both.”

She scrunched up her face, stepping in closer to me, almost confrontationally. “So you were lying about it being love at first sight? After I got my hopes up thinking maybe it was cute?”

I laughed drily. “Look,I’vebeen wildly in love with her since the moment I first laid eyes on her, but that’s been one-sided. It was kind of just one thing led to another that ended up with us here like this…”

“You actually mean that?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Yes? What are you, the love police?”

“Ew, fuck the police. Nah, I just don’t want Anna in love with someone who just sees her as a fuckbuddy.” She stepped back from my personal space bubble, relaxing. “Well, you seem chill. I take it back then.”

I pursed my lips. “I’m actually pretty sure I’m in love with someone who just sees me as a fuckbuddy, but I’m okay with that. I mean, I’ll take all of her I can get.”

She laughed, eyes sparkling. “Oh, you actually are psyched about her. Okay, that’s pretty cool. So did you actually get together that night where Kelcey found you, or did you only finally do it for the first time last night?”

Well, I didn’t see the point in lying to this woman. She was strangely perceptive in her own way, anyway. “Well, you know how it is. All the kissing and gazing into one another’s eyes for the family, we couldn’t really help it.”

“Ew.” She wrinkled her nose. “I had to hear Anna’s first time with you?”

“That’s where you draw the line? So you do get icked out by your family having sex.”

“It’s not the sex, just the… first-time of it all. Like, that’s so… romantic.” She waved me off. “Gag.”

A person could write dissertations on this woman’s thought process and not cover it all. “It wasn’t exactly romance.”

“Yeah, filthy fuckfest I guess is more accurate.”

“More in that… we’re not getting romantically involved now or anything.” I turned back away, focusing on the little square window dressed up with tinsel and puffy snow. “We had a whole conversation about how she’s physically attracted to me, but not romantically… and that it wouldn’t be fair to me to onlygive me half of what I want. I tried to protest that part, but, well, you know Anna. She’s pretty stubborn once she’s got her mind set on something. It’s cute.”

She grinned. “You are such a sucker for her. She could punch you in the face and you’d thank her.”

“Anna described you as clueless, but you’ve picked up in a couple days what she couldn’t tell for almost a year and a half.”

She scrunched up her face. “Anna’s always been talking about you. Like, way too much for someone she supposedly hates. And weirdly always found a way to work you into conversations whenever the topic of dating came up, like, Mom’s all,you should get a girlfriend,and she’s all,I’m too busy with Lucy never leaving me alone,like, okay, you useless woman, maybe we can address the fact that Lucy comes to mind every time someone mentions a girlfriend?”

Did she do that? I didn’t dare read into why. It felt too good to be real, almost comically so, like a Nigerian prince scammer. No Nigerian princes were actually trying to offload their fortunes onto me, and there was no way Anna Preston had actually been longing for me all this time. I’d believe the Nigerian prince first. “Anna is not useless.”

She rolled her eyes with the drama only a youngest sister could conjure up. “Okay, not exactly the important part, was it? Jeez, you’re just as useless as your girlfriend. Anyway, point is—” She put her hands on her hips. “Anna sucks at feelings, so if you really want to date her for some reason, you’ll have to make it clear.”

I shoved my hands in my pockets, looking around the room, focusing on anything other than Anna or Veronica. “I know how to respect her answer… as much as I might be in love with her, no means no, and I’m not going to sit around waiting for her to change her mind.”

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