Page 23 of First Impressions of You

“What the hell is Winter doing there too?”

“They’re promoting the play, Luiza. It’s a work trip. He just asked me to come along.” She raises her brows at me, all superior for being right all along. “Come on, you should come with us.”

“You know that now that you’ve told me Winter’s coming too, the chances of me tagging along have dropped into negative numbers, right?”

I can’t imagine being trapped in a car with him for an hour and a half, let alone spending the whole weekend with him.

“I…” Julia swallows back the words she was about to say.

“What?” I ask, knowing my sister isn’t one to usually hold back with me.

“Don’t you think that maybe…” She pushes a lock of her silky-smooth hair behind her ear. “Cam seems to like Winter. They get along pretty well. Don’t you think that maybe you’ve judged him too quickly?”

“He’s the one who judged me without even knowing me, Julia.”

She sighs. “Forget I said anything.”

I have shifts at the front gate on Saturday and Sunday, and without Julia at home, I use my off time to watch some master classes on acting that I bought online and never got to.

Julia’s first text comes on Saturday afternoon.

He kissed me

That was all it said. No emojis, no punctuation. Just three words that I knew meant the world to her. I squeak in excitement as I read it, bringing the phone to my chest not able to contain all the joy I feel for my sister.

Whenever you’re ready, I want to know everything! Te amo

Not even Olivia’s insistence on going out with some friends on Saturday night was enough to sour my mood after that. She promised she’d be back before midnight so she wouldn’t be dead asleep for her shift Sunday morning, and she kept her promise.

She walks home earlier than expected, a smile on her face, but not nearly as drunk as I expected her to be after her first night out being twenty-one. Maybe I should start giving my sister some credit.

“Hey,” she says when she finds me lying on the couch watching a questionable dating show on Netflix to decompress before I go to sleep. “You should’ve come with us. I ran into Graham there.”

“Oh really?” I feign surprise. He’d told me he was going to The Reel Pub tonight and asked if I wanted to come with him, but I said I wasn’t feeling like going out tonight. It wasn’t exactly a lie. I just didn’t know how to tell him I was still waiting on the butterflies to make an appearance.

“He asked about you.”

“Um…”

“He’s really nice, you know?”

“Are you insinuating something?” I arch an eyebrow at her.

“Jesus,” she huffs as she drops her body on the couch next to me. “I’m just making conversation, Luiza. Why are you like this?”

I feel a slight tug at my chest. Why am I like this with her? It’s not like our relationship has always been this strained. I can’t exactly pinpoint when it changed. Being the two youngest out of the four of us, we were partners in crime for a while. Even though I was much closer in age to Julia, she was never one to like playing with dolls or putting on performances for our parents. Julia had always been a tiny adult. Olivia and I, on the other hand, gave our parents enough reasons not to want any more kids.

She used to tell me everything. I used to be her confident.

And somehow, we grew so far apart, I’m not sure I know a single thing about my youngest sister that Julia doesn’t already know.

As soon as the thought crosses my mind, the image of a green envelope appears behind my eyes. An image I had forgotten until now.

“Can I ask you something?”

She gives me a confused look at the sudden change in the conversation. She just nods.

“What’s that Golden Quill Awards envelope you have in your room?”

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