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London wasn’t about to tell her that nudes going viral wasn’t even a thing back when she was in school. She felt old enough around her little sister.
She was done dancing around this.
“Here’s the deal,” London said. “Once you turn eighteen, you are free to splash your coochie all across the Internet. It’s yours, do what you want with it. But at fourteen, this”—she held the piñata shaped like Captain America’s shield up to Nina’s crotch—“needs to remain behind the shield.”
“Seriously?” her sister drawled.
“I was going for dramatic effect,” London said. “Look, I’m not here to lecture you—although, I now realize this entire conversation has been one huge lecture. I just don’t want you to get hurt. And if you’re doing these things in hopes of getting your dad’s attention, please don’t. Take advice from someone who spent way too much of her life seeking his approval. It isn’t worth it, Nina.”
London knew she was overstepping, but she couldn’t stand by and watch Kenneth put yet another daughter through the emotional turmoil he’d put her through. She would protect Nina and Koko.
“You know that you can always come to me, right?” London said.
Nina nodded. “When you’re not working,” she said. “But you’re always working.”
It was true. And if she took that fellowship in Chicago, moments like these, which were already few and far between, would become nonexistent. She could promise to fly her younger siblings up to Chicago for fun weekends in the big city, but she wasn’t in the habit of making promises she knew she wouldn’t keep. She barely made time for them now, and she lived only twenty minutes away.
For someone who’d asked Santa Claus for a little brother or sister back when she was in kindergarten, she’d sure turned into a poor excuse for a big sister. She had to do better, whether she stuck around Austin or moved to parts yet unknown.
“You can come to me,” London repeated. “If I’m in surgery, I’ll call as soon as I’m done. That’s a promise.” One she was determined to keep.
London wrapped an arm around Nina’s shoulder. “Now that my chances of being the supercool older sister are shot to hell, what do you say we go back to the house and fill this piñata with candy?”
“You still have a chance to be a cool older sister,” Nina said. “I get my driver’s license in two years, and your Mini Cooper just happens to be in my favorite color.”
“Hands off the car, chick,” London warned.
Nina laughed. Then she tucked her hands into her back pockets and rocked on the balls of her feet. “Actually, there is one other thing.”
London’s heart began to beat faster. She hadn’t expected the requests to start this soon. “What is it?” she asked.
“I made the junior varsity volleyball team. Mom was able to come to the first two matches, but now she has to take Koko to her math tutor on Saturdays. And, well, Dad said that he finds girls’ volleyball boring.”
“What an asshole,” London groused.
Nina’s eyes widened with shock.
Okay, so calling their dad an asshole in front of his impressionable younger daughter was probably out of bounds, too, but London didn’t give a shit.
“Text me the schedule for the volleyball matches. I’ll make as many as I can,” London said. She would also talk to April about tutoring Koko. There was no need for Koko to see a math tutor when her older sister had never met a math problem she didn’t love.
By the time she and Nina arrived back at the house, London was certain she’d gotten her anger under control. But the moment she spotted Kenneth’s black Mercedes-Benz in the driveway, her jaw clenched.
She pushed her Mini’s door open with more force than necessary, and yanked the bags from the back seat. She caught herself marching toward the front door and forced her feet to slow down. This was neither the time nor the place for a confrontation. She should at least wait until Miles’s birthday party was over.
“Oh, good! Y’all are back,” April said as soon as London and Nina entered the house.
London headed straight for her father. “I need to talk to you,” she said. “Now.” She started for the hallway that led to the bedrooms, not bothering to check to see whether he was behind her.
She went into Koko’s room. The bright pink walls plastered with K-pop boy bands should have lifted London’s mood, but not even the cuties from BTS and Got7 could break through her haze of fury.
The minute her dad entered the room, she whirled on him.
“How fucking dare you!” London said.
“Hey, watch your language, young lady!”
“Don’t pull that paternal bullshit with me. You don’t get to pick and choose when you want to play father. Not anymore.”
