Page 66 of The Way We Fell

“Play planes, Aunty Roo!”

“Let’s play planes, Maisy!” Ruth pastes a wide smile on her face as she reaches for Maisy’s duffel bag full of toys. She tips them onto the carpet and the three of us get to work building an imaginary airport, before I continue our previous conversation—this time in a more hushed tone.

“Look, Ruthy. You like him. He likes you. What have you got to lose here? Go and have some fun, love. Maybe he’ll just scratch an itch, or maybe it’ll turn into something amazing. But you won’t know if you don’t go.”

“Look at you, little poet.”

I grin smugly.

“But I don’t know,” Ruth continues. “What if he doesn’t even scratch the itch?”

“Then at least you can say you tried.”

Ruth tips her head to rest on my shoulder as Maisy rolls a model aircraft along my leg, lifting it into the air and waving it around.

“Look, Aunty K. It flying!”

“It’s flying, Maisy Pop! Where is it going?”

“The clouds!”

“The clouds? I want to go to the clouds! What do you think is up there?”

A firm knock at my front door interrupts the conversation and Roo pops to her feet immediately, empty glass in her hand.

“I’ll get it,” she says, swiping an empty chocolate wrapper from the floor and sashaying out of the room. I hear the front door open a few seconds later, and then Ruth’s head pokes around the living room door.

“K,” she begins with a furrowed brow. “Care to tell me why my brother is at your front door?”

Oh, fuck.

I shrug in response, arranging my face in what I hope is an expression that saysI have no idea, but Ruth just raises an eyebrow. A moment later, she enters the room properly with her big brother’s arm slung across her shoulders. He’s wearing the biggest shit-eating grin, like the cat that got the cream. It doesn’t quite reach all the way to his eyes until he looks right at me, but when it does, and the tension lifts from his shoulders, warmth floods my veins and settles in my belly. His smile makes me weak, and not just in the knees.

Maisy drags her attention from our puzzle to Ruth and Jay.

“Who’s that, Aunty Roo?”

“This is my big brother, Jay,” Ruth answers. “You met him at my house, do you remember? He played planes with you.” Maisy nods slowly, grinning and showing off twin rows of tiny white teeth.

“You remember Maisy,” Ruth says to Jay. “And you know Katy.”

“I do know Katy,” he says with the barest hint of a smile.The fucker. I think he does a little more than ‘know me’, considering the number of times he’s had me naked and screaming his name in the last week. But Ruth can’t know that I know what her brother looks like naked, and the guilt of keeping secrets from her eats away at me, leaving an uncomfortable, itchy, unsettled feeling in my stomach. “I was just passing by, and thought I’d stop and say hi when I saw your car, Roo.”

Nice save.

Ruth narrows her eyes.

“Come on, Roo, you know Katy and I are friends.” Jay gives his sister’s shoulder a squeeze, and Ruth’s eyes narrow further. “You won’t drink beer with me, and Katy will. What’s a man supposed to do?”

Ruth rolls her eyes as Jay plops down onto the armchair in the corner. His usual seat. What does it mean that I’ve come to think of the seat as his? I think I need to get out of here for a minute.

“I’m gonna make a coffee. Anyone want anything?” I stand and brush imaginary lint from my leggings, brushing a hand over Maisy’s curls as she looks up at me with concern in her bright green eyes.

“I’m good.” Ruth takes my spot on the floor with Maisy.

“Coffee sounds good,” Jay answers as he pops to his feet again. He wavers unsteadily, gripping the back of the chair for support as he tests his weight on his right leg a few times. “Need a hand, Princess?”

Ruth’s eyes snap up to us.

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