Page 75 of This Could be Love

“I already told you that I have no interest in sharing my love life with my little sister. Because. It’s. Got. Nothing. To. Do. With. Her.”

“Butyoudo. You’re important to her, Vince. You’re the only one she’s got.”

“What the fuck do you know? How long have you known us? Three weeks? You have no fucking idea about our lives.” His words were hard. Harsh. And he seemed to recognize it. A little more softly he said, “Why didn’t you just ask me about what’s going on between us?”

Before I could answer, I heard something in the background.Laurie. Asking Vince what he was doing with her phone. Vince hissed that she should mind her own business. Her reply was muffled. Maybe Vince had put the phone down. Or Laurie had snatched it out of his hand and didn’t realize that I was still on the other end. Both of their voices grew louder. Discussing, arguing, yelling. At some point I just hung up and threw my phone onto the bed.Shit.

Chapter 32

When I woke up, my guilty conscience immediately kicked in. I texted Laurie asking how things were. I only got a reply as I was on the way to training.

Radio silence. Pili’s picking me up.

We’re going shopping.

Under other circumstances, her staccato answers would have given me pause, but yesterday she had written to me and told me not to worry. And that her brother had completely overreacted and needed to calm down. I still felt guilty. Thanks to my blabbing, Vince was angry with his sister. She’d only been worried about him. For whatever reason. The most obvious one a failed relationshipstill weighing him down. At least that’s how I had interpreted her statements. Having said that, interpreting wasn’t one of my strengths. Otherwise I wouldn’t have misinterpreted the signs so much, wouldn’t have been so quick to convince myself that Vince had feelings for me that went beyond a summer fling.Did you think that I…was in love with you?

“Lou?” Kay’s voice tore me out of my thoughts.

“Hmm?”

“I asked you whether you were ready.”

I nodded, did a couple more shoulder rolls, and finished my warm-up. The rest of the day I dove headfirst into training and enjoyed the break from the chaos in my head. I ran back and forth from sideline to sideline, up to the net and back to the baseline, ran after balls I knew I’d never catch, and exhausted myself on serves. I was too busy wheezing, panting, and sweating to give any further thought to what had happened between Vince, me, and Laurie.

* * *

“Laurie isn’t here,” Vince said later that evening, opening the door in a gray T-shirt with washed-out writing. He was barefoot and wearing a pair of shorts that reached his knees.

“I know. I wanted to seeyou.”

He didn’t move an inch, but I wasn’t going to let myself be intimidated.

“Can I come in?”

He silently stepped to the side, just enough to let me slip past.For a second, I was distracted by all the shrink-wrapped mattresses stacked up in the entrance.

“So, I wanted…”

To my dismay, he left me standing there on my own and walked off into the house.

“Um…hello?” I said at the exact same moment he called back, “I’ve got pasta on the stove.”

I followed him into the kitchen where there was indeed water boiling away in a pot. With his back to me, he lifted the lid, stirred, and closed it back up. Then he turned around, leaned back against the counter, and crossed his arms.

“You wanted…?”

It took me a moment to understand he was taking up our conversation again.

“To apologize to you. It was stupid of me to distance myself without explaining why.”

He didn’t respond, which suggested he wasn’t all that happy with my apology.

“I should have spoken to you before coming to any conclusions. And I’m sorry that you were worried about…what happened between us in your Jeep.”

Behind him the lid began to rattle, and he wheeled around to reduce the heat. Turning back to face me, his face was somewhat softer than before.

“You hungry?”