“Erm, yeah, maybe not. I mean, I’m not shy about taking a quote-unquote walk of shame, but not usually around sisters and not usually while half naked. You sure about that key, though?”
“Jax, I know where you work.”
“Right.” Jax gave a small smirk.
“I trust you.” After all, they knew almost all of the same people. “Now I really should go.”
“Yes, yes.” Jax waved him off and watched silently as Ari collected clothes and stepped into the en suite.
He took the fastest shower of his life and quickly dressed in his black jeans and T-shirt. When he emerged, Jax was still lounging in the bed and playing on his phone.
“Take your time,” Ari said, because he felt like he should say something.
“Don’t worry about me. Get back to Afra. I’ll text later.” Jax waggled his phone.
Tenderness swept through Ari, and he could not curb the impulse to lean down and kiss Jax’s mouth. “Thank you,” he breathed, “for understanding.”
“No, uh, no problem,” Jax said somewhat breathlessly. Had Ari made him uncomfortable? Was that too romantic?
Ari stepped back. “Right. See you later, Jax.”
Afra got up from the couch when he emerged and said nothing as Ari led her to the door.
Once outside on the sidewalk, Afra led him toward their favorite local café, where Ari bought them drinks. He waited until they were settled on a relatively isolated park bench to ask, “What’s wrong?”
“So, kids.” She fiddled with the straw in her iced coffee. Ari waited. He’d never understood how his mother couldn’t see the extent to which the topic pained Afra. “We’ve… we’ve been trying. For a while.”
“I didn’t know.” He reached out, and she took his hand and squeezed it.
“I know. We never said—first because we wanted to surprise everyone, and then….” She took a deep breath. “We’ve been doing IVF, but… the first one didn’t take.”
His chest ached. He didn’t know what to say. “Afra….”
“I have an appointment today to try again, but if this doesn’t work… I think—know—they’ll tell me we’ve reached the end of the road.” She gave a weak smile, her eyes glassy.
Ari pulled her into a tight hug. “I am sorry. I wish I could fix this for you.”
“I know,” she said, her voice muffled in his shoulder. He buried his face in her hair. As children, she had been his hero, the brilliant older sister who could do anything. She often still was; his life would be an utter shitshow without her influence. Seeing her this upset barely computed, so he vowed to hug her for as long and as tight as she wanted.
A few minutes later, she untangled them and gave him a tiny smile. “Thank you for understanding.”
“You’re my sister—”
“I know.” She patted his knee, straightened her spine, and cleared her throat. “We’ve been talking to an adoption specialist. We didn’t—” She stopped, and her mouth twisted into a wry smile. “We didn’t want to put all our eggs in one basket. Ha-ha. So if this doesn’t work out, our prospects look good. I mean, Ben’s a child psychologist, so…. I’m just not sure how to tell our parents.”
“Ah.” As doctors, his parents would understand logically that infertility was beyond Afra’s control, especially at her age—that neither she nor Ben were to blame and that adoption was a lovely way to expand a family. Surely they must have some idea by now that it might not be in the cards for her to get pregnant. But Ari had no idea how they would respond emotionally. “They’ll understand. Eventually.”
“Yeah,eventually. I’ve been debating whether to tell them now or when we’re matched with a potential mother. You know?”
Ari did know. Surprises were often easier to handle when they were a done deal instead of a hypothetical, but….
“Adoption can take a while.”
Afra nodded, her eyes unhappy but her mouth a firm stubborn line.
“But in the meantime… I don’t know. Every time they mention the kids thing, it hurts you. I hate that.”
“They do the same to you,” she said weakly, but Ari shook his head.
