Page 7 of The Do-Over

“That’s what I’m here for, to remind you of your vertical deficiencies.”

“I mean, thank you for, you know, being my friend.”

“Like I said, that’s what I’m here for.” He started pulling open cabinets to get what he’d need to make sangria. “Now, we have some drinking to do.”

By the time the knock on the door came an hour and a half later, Mathias and I were delightfully buzzed and well on the way to regretting it in the morning.

I glanced through the peephole. My sister was wearing a long mauve dress with lacy three-quarter sleeves. Her shiny blonde hair was twisted into a sophisticated bun—a picture of elegance.

I pulled open the door. “Hey, what are you doing here?”

Phee brushed past me. “Are you kidding? I called you fourteen times after that stupid radio stunt Brent pulled.”

She rested her hip on the counter and turned the full strength of her bright blue eyes on me. People always did stupid things like assume my sister must be only slightly smarter than a piece of cheese because she was a pageant girl. But they were very wrong.

“Are you okay?” She squeezed my shoulder gently.

“It’s… fine,” I said, and tugged at the t-shirt I’d thrown on. It had a chocolate stain on the front already and the night was young.

“It is most certainly not fine.”

Mathias breezed into the kitchen. Reaching between us, he grabbed his cup from the counter. “Nice outfit, Phee. You going to a dance at the senior center or something?”

I had to admit the outfit would have been more appropriate if my sister was a sixty-five-year-old grandmother and not a twenty-four-year-old woman. But in the last year, Phee had changed a lot. Mostly it had to do with her new boyfriend—the Joel Allen, news anchor at KKRE and all-around jerk. Phee worked there too, as the weekday traffic reporter for the morning news. She woke up at 3 a.m. every day, got to the station and spent five hours wearing impossibly tight dresses while pointing at squiggly lines on a street map and flashing her winning pageant smile. Her fancy-schmancy journalism degree hard at work.

Phee never complained about her job but sometimes I thought she hated it, just a little bit. It was hard to tell with Phee. She’d learned early on to smile and act the part.

“For your information, Joel picked out this dress.”

“Oh, right, Joel. Say, did he ever get those butt implants he was thinking about?”

“Shut up, Mathias.”

He grinned. “Ouch, the kitten has claws.”

“Whatever. It’s New Year’s Eve. Those of us with dates…” I sucked in a breath. Phee startled and turned to me. “Oh, geez. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. I just meant, um, I’m going to the New Year’s Eve party.”

“Nice save,” Mathias said, grinning as he adjusted his glasses. The dark frames gave him the air of a debauched professor, which was probably what he was going for.

Phee refused to take the bait, keeping her eyes on me. “I’m meeting Joel there. I just wanted to check on you. I was worried.”

Joel, Mathias mouthed behind her back and pretended to gag. “Nothing to worry about, she’s in good hands,” he said.

She gestured toward the various snacks and alcoholic beverages lined up on the counter. “I can see that.”

The strange tension between Mathias and Phee hadn’t always been this way. When they’d first met, Mathias had been fresh out of college and hadn’t yet discovered the delights of highlights and manscaping, but he had discovered Phee. According to Mathias, the feeling had been mutual. Then Phee had ghosted him without explanation. Sometimes, I thought all his primping since was for the sole purpose of catching my sister’s attention. If that was the case, so far, it hadn’t worked.

“I should get going,” Phee said.

Mathias shrugged and ruffled his dirty blond hair. “You don’t want to keep the ladies at the junior league waiting, right?”

Phee rolled her eyes but refused to acknowledge him. “I’m glad you’re okay and that you aren’t alone. If you want to talk or anything…”

Her voice trailed off and the look she gave me was almost hopeful. My relationship with Phee was complicated. Three years younger than me, I’d fallen in love with her like everyone else. As a child, I’d claimed her for my own and carted her everywhere. She’d look at me with those giant blue eyes, and I’d vow to do anything to keep her happy. I was her protector, her champion, but I wasn’t sure we’d ever been sisters. Not in the “we-tell-each-other-everything-while-braiding-each-other’s-hair” kind of sisters. The bigger she’d grown, the less she’d needed me, until it was safe to say she’d far surpassed me in all areas.

What good was an older sister a girl couldn’t look up to?

“Thanks,” I whispered, feeling tears prick the backs of my eyes.