Page 10 of Hit Me With Your Best Shot

She sees the look on my face and grins. “There it is. The face of someone realizing his brilliant sister knows what she’s talking about.”

I shake my head, but a reluctant smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. “Brilliant might be pushing it.”

“Admit it,” she teases, kicking her legs playfully then hops down from the counter. “You’d be a total mess without me.”

“Debatable,” I say, grabbing the bag of gummy bears and tossing it at her. She catches it with ease, ripping it open like it’s her reward for a job well done.

She chews on a gummy bear, grabs several more, then heads toward my living room.

“Not to make you feel shittier,” she singsongs. “But I met one of your fans tonight—she wasn’t exactly thrilled with your performance.”

I freeze, halfway to grabbing the remote. “Shocker. Someone is pissed I shit the bed.”

“This girl was roasting you so hard I thought about ordering marshmallows,” Nova fires back, her grin stretching ear to ear.

That actually makes me laugh, despite myself.

I sink onto one end of the sofa, stretching my legs out as Nova clicks on the television, amused by her own joke.

“She had the whole bar laughing,” she continues, scrolling through streaming options as if her words weren’t making my nostrils flare. “During the third period she did an impression of you flailing in the goal and I almost fell off the barstool.”

“Which bar?” I sit up straighter.

“The one on the corner,” she says nonchalantly, still not looking up from the screen. “I think it’s called Five Alarm.”

Ahh. That bar.

Nova’s answer only makes me more suspicious. “What were you doing at a bar on agamenight?”

She pauses, peeking at me with an innocent smile that’s anything but innocent. “Watching the game, obviously.”

“Nova.” My tone is heavy with warning.

“What?” she says, feigning confusion. “I like to support my brother. Is that a crime?”

“It is when you’re doing it from a bar instead of the arena?” I ask tersely. “You have family tickets, Nova. Expensive ones.”

As a matter-of-fact, the seats she usually sits in are against the glass and the most sought after seats in the arena. So the nights she doesn’t show up, they remain empty and could be sold for hundreds of dollars.

More so when the team is on a winning streak, or those years we’re in the finals.

She shrugs, her attention drifting back to the television. “I wasn’t in the mood to be at the arena tonight. Too many people, too much noise. You know how it is.”

“That’s it?”

Another shrug. “Maybe?”

I pause.

Wait.

Something’s off and I know her well enough to sense it.

“Fine!” she bursts out, throwing her hands in the air. “If you must know, I was there to meet a date, but he stood me up.”

I blink back my surprise.

“You’re kidding.”

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