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“Do you think,”don’t do it, Caroline, please don’t do it,“we could hang out sometime? Bishops still does those wings you like.”
There’s not an ounce of subtlety, not an inch for misconstruing her question; Bishops was our regular date spot. When I drag my gaze upward to meet hers—I’ve been staring at my thighs for the past ten minutes, scared what eye contact will bring—the look in her eyes makes me feel like I’m a grouchy old man about to kick a goddamn puppy.
“Caroline,” her name is heavy on my tongue, tinged with something bitter that tastes an awful lot like guilt, “that’s not why I came home.”
“I know.” Her tiny recoil is hidden well, her wince covered with a drop of her head. “I just thought we could…” She trails off, chewing on her bottom lip, tendrils of hair escaping her braid and flying around her face as she shakes her head quickly. “Never mind. You’re right.”
It’s quick, the scramble as she gets to her feet, practically throwing herself down the ladder before I can get a word out. She flees my presence, a flurry of rapid blinking and watery eyes and strained noises, and as I watch her disappear out the barn doors and rejoin the crowd, I can already predict the topic of conversation in our tiny, nosy town for the foreseeable future.
Great.
* * *
“Oscar! Hurry the hell up!”
I cringe, both at my real name and at the volume of my eldest sister’s voice as she raps her knuckles on my bedroom door. Once, twice, three, and four times until I’m groaning, grabbing my backpack with one hand and ripping open the door with the other. “Stop yelling. I’m right here.”
Fingers yank my hair as I brush past, and I twist to slap Lux’s hand away. “Finally,” she huffs dramatically, redirecting her attack to my back as she shoves me down the hall. “We were about to leave without you.”
Ha. More like her impatient ass was about to herd everyone away without me.
“Sorry,Mom,” I quip, flicking the godawful floppy hat sitting atop my sister’s head.
“Piss me off this morning, Oscar,” hisses her dry reply. “I dare you.”
“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
Ratty old Birkenstocks clip the back of my heels as Lux shoves me again, her sarcastic laugh echoing off the walls. “Someonewoke up to our sister passed out on the bathroom floor reeking of beer and covered in her own vomit.”
I don’t need clarification on which sister; a certain fake blonde has been inexplicably mad at the world lately and taking it out on us. It turns out the enthusiastic greeting I received at the beginning of summer was a fluke; Lottie is a fucking nightmare.
An alcohol-drinking, curfew-skipping, lip-giving nightmare.
The first time I caught her sneaking in past curfew, I labeled it a youthful indiscretion. The second time, I let her off with a warning. But the third time, when red eyes and wide pupils plagued my little sister, I acknowledged the problem.
What was meant to be a reprimanding but supportive confrontation quickly became a screaming match. The house filled with yelled reminders of how we’re not her parents, accusations of ruining her life, claims of hatred. Lux screamed back, calling her every name under the sun, asking if she thought we wanted to be her parents, if she thought she wasn’t ruining our lives, if she thought we loved her a whole lot right then.
They’ve been walking on eggshells around each other since then, both acting like they’re not overwhelmed with guilt and regret.
So, I’m not surprised when, upon being unceremoniously prodded into the living room, Lottie is nowhere to be found. Everyone else is here though, looking as disheveled and tired as I feel, as though they too were dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn on their one day off.
A day spent at our favorite creek hidden near the Northern edge of our property—where Serenity bleeds into the dense, beautiful forest immortalized on many a sketchbook page—sounds nice until you’re awoken by shouted threats and banging pans when the sun is still kissing the horizon.
My poor, victim-of-circumstance friends greet me with simultaneous yawns, Nick’s face like thunder while Cass remains in his permanent state of mild amusement. “Your sister is bossy.”
I grunt my agreement. Understatement.
We follow my bossy sister towards the barn, where the already tacked and ready to go horses proof that her work today did not begin at annoying her siblings out of bed. Any reprimand dies on my tongue, replaced by a stifled laugh at the sound of my friends’ quiet groans, the instant tensing of their shoulders, the grumbled, undoubtedly explicit Portuguese; it’s safe to say my city-bred friends have not enjoyed getting acquainted with life in a saddle. Hell, even I had some trouble the first week, jelly legs and stiff fingers plaguing me as I got used to hours on end atop Shaggy after months not riding.
It was a welcome relief when muscle memory finally kicked in. I’m not sure what was more painful—the aching muscles or the mockery from my sisters.
“Shut the fuck up.” Nick cuts me with a glare when I don’t quite manage to keep my amusement at bay. In my defense, my oversized, suavely coordinated friend awkwardly clambering atop an equally unhappy recently rescued Percheron named Princess is a sight no one could resist chuckling at. “Go make some more girls cry.”
Jesus Christ. I knew telling my friends about the Caroline incident was a bad idea.
A half-hiss, half-laugh of a noise escapes Cass, his shaking head doing nothing to hide his grin. “Because you, Nicolas Silva, have never made a girl cry.”
“Happy tears,” Nick drawls an amendment. “Very, very happy tears.”
