Page 96 of The Pocket Pair

I want to go back to the world before, when an empty house felt right. When I hadn’t had to face my father’s other son. When I hadn’t known what it was like to have Val, to hold her, to call her mine … and then break her heart.

Just like I always feared I would. Call me Deputy Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, I guess.

“Please don’t take it out on my baseboards,” I beg, as Winnie violently drags one of Val’s wheeled suitcases toward the front door, letting the wheels knock into the white trim I painstakingly painted myself a few years back. I already see a scuff.

“I make no promises,” Winnie says, glaring with enough anger to light a fire. “Something we apparently have in common.”

The door slams behind her. With a sigh I swear I can feel in my bones, I get up from the couch and walk into Val’s room to help with the bags and boxes. The moment I step inside, I falter, grabbing the door frame to steady myself.

Val’s scent is in the air. Warm vanilla and sugar, like someone’s been baking cupcakes. I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to stuff down everything that’s been rising up since that guy—Charlie—my half-brother—walked into the station.

Clearly, stuffing things isn’t working. Because that’s what I’d been doing. And the moment I saw Charlie and had to think again about my—our—dad, it all rose back up again. Making me doubt. Filling me with fear. Reminding me of all the reasons I never dated seriously.

I meant what I said to Val—I wanted a break. Not to break up. But it didn’t come out right. I couldn’t say the words or answer her simple questions. There’s the general sense that I can be an idiot about women, just like many men before me, but I think I’m a very special kind of idiot to have wrecked things so completely.

Something knocks into my hip, hard, and I stumble. “Hurts, doesn’t it?” Winnie asks, shoving past me and into the room.

“I’ve been hip checked by you before. I can take it.”

“I didn’t mean the hip check,” she says, picking up another box and giving me an icy stare. “Oh, and I brought help.”

James appears beside me, and though he doesn’t hip check me like my sister, the look he gives me assures me he’d like to do worse.

“Winnie—”

“Don’t speak if you’re gonna give me some lame excuse. Just … don’t.”

I swallow, but when she tries to pass me and head through the door, I put a hand out, grabbing her arm. “Our half-brother came to see me yesterday.”

Winnie’s eyes go wide behind her glasses. James steps between us, taking the box from Winnie’s hands. He says nothing, walking by us to take things to the car.

“What did he want? Money?” Winnie asks. When I shake my head, she scoffs and says, “So, he just showed up out of nowhere?”

“He’s, um, been writing me letters for a while now.”

“You’ve been in contact with our half-brother and didn’t think to tell me?” Winnie’s voice is rising to a level that could be described as shrieking eel with an edge I might describe as borderline murderous.

“I sent them all back without opening them. I just couldn’t deal, you know?”

Winnie backs up and sinks down on the bed, stunned. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice is softer now. “I thought we were done with secrets.”

Stepping further inside the room, I lean up against the dresser, thankful I collected real wood furniture from thrift and consignment stores. I’m not sure cheap, fake wood could hold the weight of me right now. I’m pretty sure my blood has turned to something heavier and denser. Any minute now, I’ll drop through the floor, leaving only a sinkhole behind.

“I don’t like talking about it. About any of it. I’ve been trying—”

I pause when James comes back in the room. He still says nothing, which is scarier than James saying just about anything at all, but he sits down next to Winnie and presses a tender kiss to her temple. Then he pulls her right into his lap.

The sight makes my chest throb like an angry bruise. Because that could be me and Val. If I were like Winnie, better at loving. Being loved. Dealing with my stuff. The tightness that’s been crushing my chest ever since I realized who Charlie was presses in harder until each breath takes maximum effort.

“I can’t do what you do,” I say quietly, gesturing between them. “I’m not good at … feelings.”

James makes a sound that’s somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. “You think Winnie is good at feelings?”

“Hey!” She tries to shove him, but he just bands his arms tighter around her.

Raising one brow, James pins her with a look. “You really want to argue this?”

“Okay. Fine. But you’re not so hot at feelings either, big guy.”

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