“Brat,” I muttered under my breath, and I might’ve swatted at her if she hadn’t immediately padded her way to her bed. She was dressed in her pajamas, but she had her laptop open on her bed, Netflix loaded. “Whatcha watching?”
“Haven’t decided yet.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I’m thinking of a really ancient throwback, likeMonte Carlo.”
I sneered at her. I trailed into her room, looking at her walls. She wasn’t like me, with papers on every surface, but she did have a few posters up, as well as a few art frames she’d picked up at garage sales. Her bookshelf was meager, and it reminded me of the one in Jamie’s room. Jamie, who always seemed to have a new book in handwith a very small bookshelf. “Jamie said thanks for helping him fill the pothole.”
“Before or after you two argued in the driveway?”
“You heard that?”
“Some of it.” Penn brought her computer onto her lap, but didn’t look at it. “Why were you with Dalton?” And then, ever so slightly, she patted the space on her bed beside her.
“It’s a long story.” I walked over to her bed and sat down, immediately drawing her top sheet over my legs. “The short version is because I wanted to remind myself that he sucked.”
“Good. I was afraid my older sister reallywasan idiot.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Penn shrugged. “You know, I thought…” She stopped, quirking her lips to the side. “The other day, when you asked me if your character looked like anyone. He looked like Jamie.”
I was a little taken aback by the subject change, but just said, “Yeah.”
“Did you mean to draw him?”
“No.”
“You like him?” Penn looked over at me, and our gazes locked. She was so attentive for her age, so discerning, that it only took a second of her looking at my expression to nod. “I knew it.” Penn leaned further back against her headboard, giving her head a little shake. “I knew your fake relationship would end with one of you falling for the other. I just thought it’d be Jamie.”
I thought it’d be both of us, I thought, tracing the seam on her sheets.
“You should tell him,” she suggested. “Maybe you’ll be surprised.”
“You must not have heard the whole conversation yesterday, then. He doesn’t like me like that.”
Penn sighed a little through her nose.
I’d expected Nellie to text me today because surely Jamie had already broached the topic of our breakup to her. I’d expected her to be shocked, to call me and demand to know what happened, but she hadn’t. I wondered what Jamie had told her. That he’d caught me with Dalton? And how had she responded—disappointment? Was she trying to organize her thoughts before texting me? Had Jamie not talked to her yet? The questions swirled around in my mind, leaving me uneasy.
Penn and I were both quiet long enough for her computer screen to dim from being idle. She tapped a key, bringing it back to life. “How does it feel to know that you’re being replaced as the babysitter come fall?” Her words had a sarcastic barb to them.
“Don’t say that,” I muttered, glaring at her. “You’re not replacing me. I don’t want you taking on as much as I did.”
Penn rolled her eyes. “I’m not looking at it the same way you did. You always looked at watching us kids like you were being a fill-in parent.” Her voice softened. “A fill-in for Dad.”
“It never felt that way.”
“But youactedthat way. You never got angry. You never yelled. Youparented. There’s a difference.I’m not like you.” Penn lifted her chin. “If Junie throws a cup at me, I’d throw it back.”
I arched a brow.
A small smile tugged at her lips before she forced it away. “Fine, okay, I wouldn’t. But I wouldn’t put up with half the stuff you do.” She kicked at me lightly. “You’re going to come home and be impressed by the tight ship Mom and I are running.”
“Don’t get rid of me that fast,” I muttered, slouching lower against her headboard, looking over at my sister. She wasn’t looking at me, but at her computer screen, and it lit up her bright eyes. “I’m still the babysitter for the rest of summer.”
“Not a babysitter.” Penn tipped her head to look at me. “Their sister. My sister.”
I looked at Penn—really, really looked at her. Her hair was almost brownish in the dim light, tucked behind her ears, revealing her face. She still had her RBF, but I could see the softness in her brown eyes, the same look I’d been catching glimpses of over the past few weeks. The same look I’d been brushing off.My sister, she’d said, the two words tinged with something that sounded like hope.
Heart squeezing, I snugged up into Penn’s side the way Junie had to mine, clinging. “Check—isMonte Carlostill on Netflix?”
