Page 36 of I Think They Love You

“He won’t.” Denz pauses, considering. “You really think he might?”

“If I ran into someone I once found hot and there was a tiny possibility they were single and—” A sharp blush flares across Jamie’s cheeks. “You know what? Never mind.”

Denz has questions. But a loud knock at his doorway stops him. It’s Kami, smiling weirdly, holding a powder-blue box.

“I’m hanging up,” he says.

“Talk to Braylon! Figure your shit out! Find out if he wants to fu—”

Denz ends the call. Kami plops down across from him.

“New local bakery we’re thinking about partnering with,” she explains, revealing a variety of cupcakes in the box. Denz reaches for a dulce de leche. Kami starts with key lime.

This awkwardness between them is new. It’s unexplored territory. Even while Denz was in Athens, he stayed in constant contact with her. They’ve always been on the same side of everything. Politics, climate change, which Jonas Brother is the hottest.

(It’s Nick and they won’t be hearing any other suggestions.)

They’ve never gone this long avoiding each other, including when Kami found out Denz told JamieandNic he was gay before her.

But here they are, licking frosting off their fingers in silence.

At last, Kami says, casually, “A reporter followed me into the lobby this morning.” It’s not a rare occurrence for someone to stop them outside the building, asking for a quote. “He tried to get on the elevator with me.”

Denz snaps forward so fast, he gets lightheaded.

“What the fuck?”

“Don’t worry.” Kami giggles. “Corrine MMA’d his ass. She’s quick for sixty.”

Denz peels the wrapper off his cupcake. Anything to keep his mind off what he would’ve done if he saw that reporter. “What did he want?”

“Info about Dad retiring. The next CEO.”

“Did he mention names?”

Denz wonders if he came up at all. If the media looks at him as a serious contender. The same way he’s looking at himself.

“The aunties. Some business investor who financed a hybrid car. The Carter kids.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“To mind his own fucking business.”

Denz laughs. As much as he always wants to protect his sisters, he knows they don’t need him. Kami’s four years older. She dealt with the family’s fame long before Denz recognized it existed. And Nic can throw a punch better than him.

“We missed you at Sunday dinner,” Kami mentions.

Every few weeks, Leena hosts a big dinner. Despite Kenneth’s insistence on hiring a caterer, she spends hours in the kitchen cooking. Uncle Orlando shows up with beer and wine. Uncle Tevin and Auntie Eva fight over their favorite sports teams. For one night, everyone’s under the same roof, laughing and shouting for hours.

Denz passed on his mom’s invitation because: (a) she’d expect Braylon to join and there was no way he was upending Braylon’s life twice in less than forty-eight hours; (b) he was in no mood to answer the eight million questions about the “new boyfriend”;and (c) he’d promised Jamie a Will Thacker Night—Moonstruckand thin-crust Hawaiian pizza.

“How’d it go?”

Kami grins. “Same as usual.”

“Mom yelling at Uncle Tevin for trying to help in the kitchen.”

“Jordan ignoring everyone after losing during Spades.”

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