Page 16 of Wait for Him

“Go, go. I'm right behind you.” She pulls Bennet into her before he can protest, wrapping her arms around his neck, and something about her changes immediately. I watch her eyes go glassy over his shoulder as she holds him tighter. “I'm so proud of you.”

He lifts her clean off her feet.

“Thanks, Rose.”

Then he sets her down and takes off toward the stage at a jog, tossing a look over his shoulder at me that assumes I'm following.

I'm not.

Not yet.

“Rose—”

“How old are you?” She cuts across me so quickly I barely have time to register the question.

Her eyes are dry already. Composed. Shoulders squared, face calm, every trace of the woman who was about to cry against her brother's shoulder packed neatly away somewhere I can't reach.

“Twenty.”

I don't hesitate or dress it up. She asked me not to lie to her, and I'm not about to start now.

It's like I've knocked the wind out of her.

Her lips part, and for the first time since Bennet walked her over here, the control slips.

“You ordered whiskey at the bar.” She blinks, like she's trying to work backward through the night and figure out where the hell she missed it. “You know what? Never mind. Fake ID. Of course you had a fake ID. Fuck, Jack.” She closes her eyes. “Marcus. I don't know what the fuck to call you.”

“Jackson.”

Her eyes open.

It doesn't change anything." I take half a step toward her. "I'm twenty. I’m a grown man, Rose.

Jesus Christ.

Even I hear how fucking stupid that sounds.

Her eyes close again.

“That's not helping, is it?” I drag my hand over the back of my neck.

“Not even a little.”

“Okay, forget I said that. But I can't stop thinking about you. I went back to the app the next day and your profile was gone. I've been trying to figure out how the fuck I was supposed to find you when I didn't even know your real name, and now you're standing here and you're fucking Bennet's sister, which is a whole separate problem I haven't even begun to process, but—”

“I'm thirty.”

Everything in me goes quiet. She says it flat and clean, like she's finally found the thing that's going to make this simple.

“Thirty?”

“Yes.”

I stare at her.

She gives me a humorless little smile. “You told me twenty-four. I told you twenty-six. Looks like we were both pretending to be something we weren't.”

Ten years.