Page 69 of Red Flag, Green Light

“It progressively gets more complicated, but I’m not ready to share all those details. Ultimately, when I first saw you and you offered me a polite smile, I lost my mind. You were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and you spared me a scrap of attention. I’m probably too used to being avoided and ignored. It meant a lot that you saw fit to grace me with a bare minimum kindness.”

“You were throwing cards,” I say.

“Yeah. I do that a lot.”

“I thought it was cool. I was nervous about moving into my own place all by myself. I’d wanted to be alone, but after the long, silent drive out here,alonewas scary. I stayed in my car for a while, watching you throw card after card, thinking it was insane that there were people in this world who actually put apples on other people’s heads to practice aim. When I finally found the strength to get out, I felt less alone.” Sugar sweet scent fills my lungs. “Because…you were there.”

“You know,” he whispers, “most people don’t find my presence at all calming or reassuring in any way at all.”

I snake my arms around his waist. “I’m not most people.”

His hand tangles with my fingers. “True enough.” A labored breath pushes against my hold. “So. Courthouse?”

“No.”

“Would it help if I beg?”

“I’d prefer to be the one begging.”

His thumb runs against mine. “Go ahead, then. I’ll let you.”

“Nice try, villain.”

His chuckle soothes something aching, and I squeeze him as close as I can, wondering why some people aren’t nearly aspeopleyas others, and why peopling with this person doesn’t feel quite so peopley at all.

Chapter Nineteen

Lie in the grass, next to the love of my life.

Mars

Blue sky stretches above me, an endless painting slathered with strokes of white. Running my fingers across the warm grass I’m lying in, I sigh. “My brother is broken.”

“That sucks,” Ceres says, emotional-support queen, while she re-pots one of the many orchids in her backyard. They’re her favorite flower, and they are everywhere.

I tilt my head toward her and find her staring intently at a ladybug on her finger. The tiny creature crawls up to her nail, unaware how blessed it is to be the object of Ceres’s attention, then—rudely—it flies away as though a goddess’s wide, starstruck eyes aren’t following.

Being this close to the footage is a whole new level of hypnotic. “Do you have any siblings?” I ask.

“Not any that count.”

What an interesting answer. Pushing myself up on arms that are getting used to their daily pushup training regime—which looks likedo as many as you can and do more than yesterday—I smile. “Might you bless me with an explanation?”

Light catches the green and blue shades in her hazel eyes when she looks my way. “They’re from previous marriages. I’ve never met them, and I don’t really think about them until someone mentions siblings.”

“Ah.”

“I’m my unit’s only, but since both my parents had previousentanglements, I was never treated like an only child. Or maybe I never acted like enough of a normal person to get theonly child syndrome?” Her attention slips skyward, then she shrugs and returns to her potting soil. “Point is: I know how to share.”

“Yes, yes. Because sharing is the single thing multiple children glean from the experience of growing up together.”

“Isn’t it?”

“There is also the lifelong codependency.”

Her lips soften. “I think your relationship with your brother is special. I’ve known siblings who never call each other and others who wish death upon one another. Nothing codependent between them. No siblings I’ve ever met have been quite like you two.”

I suppose that makes enough sense. After all, not everyone is blessed with a Jovey. “Your parents…”

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