Page 50 of For The Record

She shakes her head, looking a little too tipsy for me to want to pour her another drink. How much champagne did she have? Her eyes are wide but glazed over when she looks up at me. “Carry me.”

“Gladly, I’ll carry you the ten treacherous feet between us and my house,” I say, lifting her easily. “Who knows what could happen if you walk on the sidewalk with bare feet?”

Skye nods as though I’m saying something very serious that makes a lot of sense. “I could die.”

I fight back a laugh at the look on her face, setting her on the porch. “We wouldn’t want that.”

She shakes her head emphatically before yawning. In the moonlight, I can see the faint dusting of freckles on her cheekbones, her wide brown eyes looking up at me like I’ve just performed some great miracle by depositing her on my doorstep. Her gaze drops from my eyes to my mouth.

“You’re too drunk for that,” I say, shaking my head.There’s no way in hell you can sleep with her in this state, I think, even as she reaches up, trying to kiss me.

Skye shrugs, her mouth inches from mine. “Not drunk enough, yet.”

Those eyes. One look at them and I give in, fingers carding through her hair and tugging on the strands to angle her head back. She gasps, as though surprised, before her hand gingerly lands on my shoulder, her touch featherlight.

The porch lights flood on, blinding both of us.What the heck? I wince as the door is flung open, trying to figure out who could be there.

“Hi, big bro,” Raina says, and I stagger back, moving away from Skye and trying not to look like a hormone-driven teenager. I step back and shoving my hands in my pockets, my eyes landing on anywhere but my sister’s accusing ones. “Don’t let me stop you. This must be… the mysterious brunette?”

Skye, to her credit, barely even blushes at the sight of my sister standing at the door, wearing sweatpants and a holey Nirvana t-shirt that used to belong to me. She wipes at her mouth as discreetly as possible, lips swollen. “Of TMZ fame, or so I’ve been told.”

Her hair is dishevelled from the walk on the beach and from me running my hands through it, the brown strands sticking up every which way.

I fold my arms across my chest. “What are you doing here, Rain?”

“I ran away,” she says plainly, going into the kitchen. She opens the fridge, pulling out a carton of milk. “I’m going to make whipped coffee. Do you want some?”

I check my watch. “It’s one in the morning. You should be in bed, not consuming caffeinated drinks.”

Raina says something about Monster energy drinks being even worse. My phone suddenly lights up with a dozen texts from my mother about Raina’s whereabouts. I scramble to text back.

Skye watches us bicker, and her expression is misty-eyed, wistful. I nudge her shoulder. “Do you want anything?”

She yawns again. “A nap.”

I smile. “I could get you one of those.” Armed with pillows and blankets, I show her to the second guestroom, the one that Raina isn’t using. When Skye is safely tucked into bed, Raina accosts me. “You’re not going to sleep with her?”

“Why would I be comfortable sleeping with someone when my little sister is in the house?” I retort, taking a gulp of water. “And why are you still awake?”

“I told you,” she says, tying her hair into a sloppy bun. “I couldn’t sleep, so I ran away.”

I lean my hip against the counter and fix my eyes on her. “Why couldn’t you sleep?”

“So you’re saying if I wasn’t here, you would sleep with Skye?” She folds her arms across her chest.

“She’s too drunk for that. I’m not a rapist, Raina.” I watch her pull out ingredients for whipped coffee. I don’t add that we just got together about five seconds ago.

Raina mumbles something that I can’t hear, staring into her mixing bowl as she whips the coffee.

“What was that?” The smell of caffeinated beverages fills the air.

“Never mind. Skye seems nice.” She pours the coffee into a glass, scraping the sides of the bowl, then takes out her phone and snaps a picture. I eye the screen: TikTok. I don’t like her using the app, but I’m not home often enough to tell her not to. “Nicer than Alina, at least.”

“She is,” I say, ignoring the dig at my ex.

“I’m worried about you, hermano major,” she says, sounding for all the world like a forty-five-year-old therapist. I half expect her to pull out reading glasses and tell me to lie on a couch. “I don’t want her to break your heart.”

“Alina didn’t break my heart,” I say. It’s true. We drifted apart, fizzled out as easily as a birthday cake candle. But it’s also true that all we had was confusion, miscommunication and layers of unknown motives. I never knew if she was with me for me, or for my job, or, the publicity. “We just weren’t right for each other.”

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