Page 9 of Spreading Her Wings

“Here, as far as they’re concerned, youare.”

I froze when Sasha slid into the booth across from me. “Hi, I’m Sasha!” I cursed the social butterfly. Why had I brought her with me? She’d better not ask too many questions.

“This is Auston, Andy’s brother,” I told her. She had met Andy a few times before she moved to Chicago. Sasha laughed.

“It’s nice to meet you. I’ll leave you ladies to your drinks, hmm?”

I waved to him, eagerly grabbing my drink from Sasha and taking a long gulp before she spoke. “So, Auston? How long have you been dating?”

“We’re not.”

“Yeah? Then why did the girl at the bar just ask me if I’m friends with Auston’sgirlfriend?” She glanced at the bar, likely looking at the girl in question. With a small shake of my head, I swallowed another gulp. “And if you’re not dating, then why is he staring at you right now?” She waved over my shoulder.

I whipped my head around, locking eyes with him. My stomach flipped, and where there was usually irritation, there was something I couldn’t quite place.

Tolerance.

Before I could convince myself calling Katie wasn’t a better idea than just telling my friends no, I was clicking on her name and listening to the phone ring. I expected it to kick over to her voicemail on the third ring, and a temporary feeling of relief filled me until the ringing stopped.

“Hello?”

“Hey, kitten.”

She sighed on the other end of the phone, surely frustrated by the nickname I was becoming more insistent on using. The more she disliked it, the more I enjoyed seeing her irritated look turn into a small, amused smile she couldn’t hide. “Seriously?”

“Everyone is having drinks this weekend. Simone insists you come with us. I didn’t have it in me to tell them no, so…”

The line was quiet, and I imagined she was looking for an excuse. “Can we just not right now?” Her voice was soft, almost defeated, and when she sniffed, my stomach sank.

“What’s wrong?”

Another sigh. “Nothing is wrong. I’m fine. It was just a long day.”

The way she said it told me otherwise. “Katie…”

“Auston, I said I’mfine.” The authority in her voice stilled me. “Can we just talk about this later?”

I couldn’t argue with her. “Yeah, sure. I’ll text you tomorrow, okay?”

She mumbled an okay before the phone disconnected. An image of her brown eyes welling with tears and her empty house crossed my mind. What did she normally do on a bad day? I assumed she’d call my sister or Jules, and they’d show up with a bottle of their usual red wine to do whatever they normally did when they drank. What did she do now that they weren’t here?

I grumbled and grabbed my keys.Fuck me.

I rang the doorbell, holding a pizza and a plastic bag in the other hand and hugging a bottle of wine between my arm and side. The porch light flicked on, and I could practically hear the exasperation through the door before she opened it, prepared to tell me to leave. She stopped when she saw dinner.

“Humor me?” I held up the wine as a peace offering.

She sighed but stepped aside and let me in. “What are you doing here?”

“Wednesday is movie night, but I didn’t have anyone to watch it with. I thought maybe I could bribe you with wine.”

Her face relaxed, and she took the bottle from me, a small smile pulling at her lips. “Idolike wine,” she said with a shrug. When she stretched to the top shelf of the cabinet for glasses, her shorts slid up her legs.

I tore my eyes away from her, setting the pizza and plastic bag on the counter. “I hope you like pepperoni and black olives.” The smell of the spicy pepperoni and sweet sauce filled the air,and I reached past her for plates. She stiffened in front of me when I got close enough to her to smell her coconut shampoo.

“That’s myfavorite! Did you really get olives? Nobody ever gets olives…” There was a skeptical look on her face that disappeared when she looked in the box.

Setting a slice of pizza on the plate and handing it to her, I laughed. “I know. I’ve heard you complain about no olives before, remember?”

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