“That’s the truth,” I say, blowing out a breath, my brain suddenly a video montage of all the milestones I’ve experienced without my parents there with me. The resurgence of grief swells with every damn one of them.
“I’m going to ask you something, and if you want to tell me to fuck right off you totally can, okay?”
It feels really good to laugh. “Oh, you should count on it.”
He grins at me and reaches forward, tucking some loose hair behind my ear. “Have you ever talked to Gabe about how you feel?”
“Well, El, I’m currently enrolled in a PhD program Gabe doesn’t know anything about and praying no one figures out I’m that Amelia Sullivan. He thinks I’m working at a job I actually quit more than six months ago, and I’ve never told him about the thing I’m working on right now that is my favorite thing in the world. I am not exactly the picture of a well-adjusted younger sister who tells her brother things.”
Elliot gives me a wry smile. “So, no is what you’re saying.”
“Yeah, that’s a big no.”
He looks at me consideringly. “Do you want to talk to him?
Elliot’s deceptively simple question has me a little gobsmacked because do I? I’ve been so busy keeping all the balls in the air and hiding all the things that it’s never really occurred to me to consider whether I want to talk to him. And the truth is, I just don’t know. “Maybe. Probably. Eventually. I guess I’ve just been trying to carve out a space for myself. Figure out what I want my life to look like when I’m not Gabe Sullivan’s sister, or the sort of orphan girl, or any of those other labels people have given me. I just want to be me, whatever that looks like.”
Elliot leans forward into my space, pressing a kiss to my forehead, my hand still caught in his. “For what it’s worth, I think who you are is spectacular. I don’t have a younger sister, but I do have two younger brothers, and I know there is nothing either of them could ever tell me that would make me love them any less, and I would always want them to tell me the truth. Whenever you’re ready to tell him—if you’re ever ready—I thinkGabe would want to know everything about you, and I think he’ll tell you that you always have a place with him, no matter what.”
Elliot’s words are so similar to what Gabe said to me at Christmas that I have to rub a hand over my aching heart again. “I know you’re right. I’m just not ready yet.”
Elliot runs his thumb lightly over my jaw and then sits back, taking my hand with him and resting it on his leg, our fingers still laced together. “You don’t have to be. Now or ever. But in the meantime, you can always talk to me. I want you to. I just love the sound of your voice.” Elliot’s gaze snaps up to mine, and he shifts in his chair. “Sorry, I know that veered pretty far into themorecategory we have to avoid right now.”
I let a beat of silence pass before I give him back just a little of what he has given me. “I wish we didn’t have to avoid it. I wish things could be different.”
He gives me a soft smile. “Me too, Mystery Girl. Definitely me too. Hey, what’s your favorite thing in the world that you’re working on right now?”
“What?” I ask, a little too fast.
“Earlier, you said you hadn’t told Gabe about your favorite thing in the world that you’re working on. What is that?”
The urge to tell him that the app he’s been playing around with—the one that’s been getting fifty thousand daily downloads in the Redwood Store and is currently in the overall top ten—was my creation is strong, but for some reason I hold back, not quite ready to divulge that piece of myself. I shake my head. “It’s nothing, just a little hobby I’m working on in my spare time.”
Elliot tilts his head, studying me, then nods. “Are you hungry?”
“Hungry?” I ask, a little whiplashed from the abrupt change of subject.
He nods, letting my hand go and standing up. Walking behind his desk, he grabs a takeout bag I hadn’t noticed. “It’s lunchtime, so I got lunch.”
“I came here to work.” My protest is half-hearted even to my ears, considering my hand has been laced through his for the last half an hour.
“You also told me you regularly forget to eat lunch, and that brilliant brain of yours needs fuel to keep being brilliant and to help me solve a mystery. I ordered Chinese.”
“Chinese?”
He nods, setting the bag on his desk and tearing it open. The smell immediately has my stomach growling. “You said you missed your Chinese takeout the other night because you had to go to the department reception. I thought I would make up for that.”
“How are you even real?” I mutter, trying super hard not to just melt into a puddle of swoon right here on this office floor.
Elliot smiles. “I think you’ve been taking care of yourself for a really long time. I know there are reasons we can’t be more than what we are, but I want to take care of you where I can, if you’ll let me.”
I stare at him, unexpected emotion clogging my throat, because god, does this man ever see me, and I have no idea what to do with that. “Okay,” is all I can manage, and when a grin spreads over his face, butterflies riot in my stomach.
I am in so, so much trouble.
“Honestly, I thought it would be harder to convince you to have lunch with me,” he says, clearing a space on his desk to line up the takeout containers.
I lean back in my chair, enjoying watching him handling this. “One thing to know about me is I am very, very serious about food.”
