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In a lot of ways, we were alike. Physically, we were both blond, tall, and thin. Whereas I got the ass, she got the boobs. Where I got my mom's blue eyes, she got Dad's gray. And we both were raised up under a strict parent who was always very concerned about things like appearances so we both learned to rebel at young ages. But where I had my quiet rebellions I always tried to keep my father from finding out about, Elana practically waved hers in his face. She didn't even try to tame her sex hair when she came home from one of her lover's houses when we were teens or sneak in the back door when she came in drunk. She spent money on ridiculous things she didn't need or want just to piss off our father. She crashed her first three cars he bought her.
When I was young, I had always seen her as kind of badass and strong. It took me a long time to see that all the rebellion was her way of getting attention. That was what she wanted. She didn't want love, she wanted people to notice her. Especially men. Every guy in her life was a sad testament of her need of validation from them because she never got it from our father.
Elana had 'daddy issues' written all over her.
And, worse yet, she didn't even realize it.
Regardless, she was my big sister. Where Roman was my sun growing up: bright, warm, uplifting, Elana was my moon. She was the one I cried to at night in our beds after I got reamed for not doing the extra credit in a class I was already getting an A in. She was the keeper of my secrets, a place I could bury my hopes and fears and know no one else would ever find out about them. She was a dark, deep kind of comfort.
Maybe that was why my nights had felt especially lonely since she disappeared.
"What about your sisters?" I asked when I realized we were both halfway through our meals and I hadn't shut up except to chew.
"Kenzi is a real ball-buster. She's a lot like my mom in that way, always up in your business, never shy to share her very emphatic opinions. Reese is a lot more shy, quiet. Mom managed to keep them both off the streets. Kenz went to design school and has her own small line in one of the boutique shops in Milltown. Reese got her masters in library science and, obviously, works in the local library."
I paused to take a sip of my drink and finally got the nerve to ask something that I had wanted to since I met him. "Can I ask how the heck you got a name like Paine?"
He laughed a little, pushing his plates toward the end of the table for the passing busboy to grab easily. "I was a big ass baby. Ten pounds, four ounces. Mom was a skinny thing, hips like a twelve-year old boy. She couldn't get me out. So they gave her a massive dose of Ketamine and took me out. She was out of it for almost a full day after. Couldn't even hold or feed me. So my dad, the shit he was, filled out all the paperwork. He was probably high at the time and thought it would be funny because of how much pain I put my mother through before they finally decided to do a c-section."
"She didn't want to change it once she was back to functioning?"
Paine shrugged. "It's hard to say what went down between her and my dad. I know shit went bad as I got older, but I think when I first came around, she was head-over for him. She probably decided to humor him and leave it. It worked out in the end. There might have been a little ribbing when I was too small to know a fist to the face shut up a bully, but come on... a gang member with a government name like Paine?"
I smiled, imagining it was definitely better to be a gang banger by the name of Paine than to be, say, Billy or Brian.
We talked over green tea ice cream, skimming over the topic of my father, concentrating a bit more on silly, nothing things like hobbies and cars, both of us being fans of a nice ride.
When the check was dropped, as customary, on Paine's side of the table, I nodded my head toward it. "I don't suppose you're going to let me..."
"Nope," he cut me off, reaching for a wallet, pulling out a credit card and putting it inside the book without so much as looking at the bill, and held it out just in time to hand it off to our passing waitress. It was all so smooth you'd swear it had to be practiced. But, I guess, Paine was always just effortlessly smooth like that.
