Page 30 of Nothing Less than Magic
“Stop.” I tug her sleeve to face forward, away from him.
It takes a few minutes before he notices us, then bobs his head in greeting. After his food is up, he snags the table next to ours.
“This is my sister, Lolly.”
“Yeah, Katie told me she was visiting.” He shakes Lolly’s hand. “Up from Los Angeles, right?”
“Yep.” She’s still ogling him, and I have to surreptitiously nudge her to stop.
“Were you at the parade?” I ask Knox.
“Got there towards the end, then decided to cut out before the crowds migrated to Flacos.”
“Good move.”
“Well, I’m taking mine to go.” He holds up his bag. “I’ve got another thousand words to bang out.”
“Nice seeing you.”
“Yes, very nice seeing you,” Lolly says in a lascivious voice that makes me want to strangle her.
Luckily, Knox doesn’t seem to notice. He gets to the door and calls over his shoulder, “I’ll be over tomorrow to work on the roof.”
As soon as he’s out of earshot, I kick Lolly under the table. “What are you, fifteen?”
She laughs. “Jeez, Chelsea, have a little fun, would you?”
And the thing is, I am. I’m not even trying to; it’s just so easy. And suddenly I wish I could live here forever. With Lolly. With Taylor and Luna. And Knox and Katie and even no-tact Sadie. In my head, I know it’s the buzz talking, not that I’ve been drinking. It’s the buzz I’m getting from being with my sister again, from getting to share this special place with her, this place where, for the first time in my life, I feel like I belong.
“You’re crazy, you know that, right?” I poke her in the arm.
“Don’t get mad, okay?” she says, and I know instantly that it has nothing to do with her making goo-goo eyes at Knox.
“What?”
“Austin called and asked me to come.”
I’m stunned silent, letting it sink in. My ex-husband and my estranged sister have been conspiring. “Since when do you and Austin talk? You like him even less than you like me.”
She puts her fork down and meets my gaze. “You’re wrong. Not about Austin but about you. But I’ll give him this, he’s worried, Chels. He says you could’ve been killed.”
“You’re here. You see me. Do I look near death?”
She shakes her head. “You look good, happier than I’ve seen you in a long time. But I thought you should know.”
“So that’s the only reason you came, because you thought I was dying?”
“I thought you might need me. And when has that ever happened?” She looks away, unwilling to make eye contact. What she’s not saying is that when she needed me, I wasn’t there.
“I’ve always needed you, Lolly.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.”
The parade crowd has already started to descend on the restaurant. There’s a line at the counter, and a group of kids are chasing each other in and around the tables.
“If we’re going to do this now, if we’re going to hash out what’s been going on between the two of us, let’s not do it here,” I say.
“Okay, but we’re stopping first to get a couple of bottles of wine. No way am I doing this sober.”
