Page 12 of I Can't Even

“Yes, he did,” I said. “Believe me, the sight of Liam in his altogether is forever burned on my retinas.”

The two of us were in the kitchen hunched over mugs of Soph’s banana tea while Em visited with Babs. With my sleep rhythm wonky from night duty, and now with the added vision of sexy, naked Liam in my head, there was no way I was ever going to sleep. Ever.

Soph had cut the ends off a banana and then boiled it, peel and all, in water for about ten minutes. She then strained the hot liquid into a mug and topped it with a sprinkle of cinnamon. She assured me it would knock my ass out. I was so tired I’d have taken a fist to the temple if it meant I could be blissfully unconscious, but this seemed worth trying first.

“Was he, you know, happy to see you?” Soph asked. “He was, wasn’t he? No, don’t tell me. I’m married. I shouldn’t even be thinking about another man’s magic wand.”

“Magic wand?” I snorted and very warm banana tea shot into my nose, making me cough and hack. The cinnamon stung.

“Sorry—the twins and I had one of our annual Harry Potter movie marathons the other night,” Sophie said. “Wand sounded much more genteel than dick.”

“Seriously?” Em strode into the kitchen. “Is that all you two talk about? Dude parts?”

Two spots of color blazed on my baby sister’s cheeks and again I felt as if we had let her down by not making sure she was properly educated and appreciative of masculine anatomy.

“Jules got to see Liam’s bits,” Soph said.

“Ha! Trust me when I say there was nothing bitsy about it.” I smiled into my mug as I took a sip.

Em’s eyes went wide, like tennis-ball size, as she stared at me in complete horrified amazement.

“Explain,” she said. “How did this happen? It’s not like a girl just stumbles upon a guy’s compass point and gets a good eyeful.”

“Tried that have you?” Soph asked and Em’s face went rashy.

“No!” Em said. “I would never!”

“Calm down, Em,” I said. “She’s just teasing.”

Em glared at Sophie who ignored her, which compelled me as the middle child mediator to divert Em’s attention by telling her what had happened between me and Liam.

“Well, that was pretty aggressive, don’t you think?” Em asked. “I mean, he just dropped trow right there in front of you, knowing you were watching?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure my watching was the whole point of him letting the man cannon loose.”

This time it was Soph who snorted banana tea up her nose.

“Whatever for?” Em asked, clearly not appreciating my witty way with words.

“I suspect to remind me of what I’ve been missing for the past nine years.” The memories hadn’t faded and nobody else compared.

“Thinks pretty highly of himself there, doesn’t he?” Em asked, as if indignant on my behalf.

“As he should,” I said with a deep sigh.

“I knew it!” Sophie banged her hand on the table and we all jumped.

Em shot her a dark look and tiptoed to the door to see if Babs was still sleeping. Thankfully, she was.

“I still say that was a pervy thing to do,” Em said. “Downright hostile, in fact.”

“Maybe.” I traced the grain of the wood table with my finger while I considered the different angles of what had happened upstairs. “But since the last time he saw me was right before I skipped town with his best friend, well, I can’t really say that I blame him.”

Silence reigned. The night I had fled our childhood home at the age of eighteen, without saying a word to anyone, was still one of the worst nights of our collective lives.

Babs and I had had the mother of all fights, and in a fit of hysterics only an eighteen-year-old can manage, I jumped into my friend Jessie Lopez’s Jeep and drove all the way across the country to New York City to attend school at my father’s alma mater, Columbia University.

It had been the plan all along, but I’d arrived a month early without a dime to my name and my poor heart all shrunken up like an apple head. Leaving like that, with no goodbyes, was not one of my finer life moments. Jessie and I found a crap two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn that we shared with three other impoverished students, and jobs waiting tables at a Mid-Town restaurant. I hated everything about it, especially the way I’d left home, because I knew there’d be no going back.

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