“I know, Kota,” she says, her body deflating just a bit. “I don’t like any of this either, but you know what?”
“What?” I lie back on the bed, staring up at the screen and wishing my sister were here to wrap her arms around me the way she used to do when I was little. That’s my very first memory, of Maxine smiling at me and stroking my hair back while I sobbed. I don’t remember anything about my life with Tess before that, when I was named Mia Patterson. Not a damn thing. Not surprising, considering my age at the time.
And still, the scent of her perfume lingers. I choke a little on the thought.
“This doesn’t make us sisters any less, you know that, right?”
“Blood is thicker than water,” I spit out, and then cringe. There I go, being bitter again. But maybe I’m just not giving myself enough credit? This is a lot harder than I thought it would be.
“Wrong. That’s one of the most misused quotes in the entire world. The real quote is: the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. What it really means is that the family you choose is stronger than the family you’re born to.” Maxine pauses for a moment as my eyes water, and I blink back the tears I promised I wouldn’t shed. “Hey, how about I come and visit you next weekend? I’d come sooner, but I have a paper due.”
“The lawyers …” I start, and Maxine snorts, tossing her auburn curls. We always used to say she took after grandma while Mom and I took after grandpa with his espresso-colored hair. Irony, at its finest.
“Fuck lawyers, Kota. I’m not about to let some suit-wearing bigwigs tell me I can’t see my little sister. Besides …” She pauses and gives me such a goofy grin that I just know I’m about to hear about a boy. Maxine is so predictable. I smile.
“This is about Maxx—the boy with two X’s in his name, right?” I ask with a roll of my eyes. Leave it to Maxine to find a boy with virtually the same name and fall in love with him. Maxx Wright is a fellow student at the U of O, some motocross superstar, and the exact opposite of any boy Maxine has ever gone out with. I have yet to meet him, but I hear good things.
“I’m going to bring him with me,” Maxine declares, grinning. “You can just call him X, like I do. That way we don’t have to worry about any confusion.” She leans back on her bed, so that our positions are mirrored. Four and a half hours away, but just alike, as always. “You’ll like him, Kota, I know you will.”
“I don’t doubt that,” I say, my thoughts straying to my new stepbrother, Parrish. “Speaking of boys, I just met one of my new brothers.”
“Oh?” Maxine asks, her voice tightening just a little. She’s jealous of my newfound siblings; since she was five, and I came home clinging to Mom’s neck—I mean Saffron’s neck—it’s just been us. Me and Maxine. “Well, did you like him?” I snort, and my sister raises her brown brows. “I take it that’s a no?”
“My stepbrother,” I correct with a sigh. “Tess’ husband’s son. He’s a year older than me and a total asshole.” I can feel my face contorting with irritation, remembering his expression as he glanced over his shoulder and caught me checking him out.
“As if, little sister. In your dreams.”
I want to throw something.
“Whoa. So … he’s hot as fuck then?” she asks, and I choke out a caustic laugh.
“If you like rude, lazy assholes covered in tattoos and bulging with lean, stupid muscles,” I growl, and Maxine howls with laughter.
“Um, yes, please. Sign yourself up for that, Dakota. You need something to focus on, something to distract you from … well, everything. Lean, inked, and stupid is just about right.”
“He’s my brother, Maxine,” I say, but really, he’s not. First off, I just met him. Second, he’s not Tess’s bio-kid anyway. And that’s all that matters in this family, right? Biology. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Because I came out of Tess once upon a time. That’s the only thing connecting us anymore, just that thin strand of DNA.
I know it’s there, too, because Tess made me take three DNA tests to prove it.
“What’s his name? I wanna social media stalk him,” Maxine says, but I just roll my eyes.
“Parrish Vanguard,” I admit, and then we both pause for a minute as we minimize our video-chat windows into the corners of our phones and start stalking. She starts with Insta; I go for TikTok.
“Oh dear sweet baby Jesus,” Maxine groans as I click on a short video that Parrish posted all of ten minutes ago. “Get on his Insta, stat. This boy is fire, Dakota. You need this. You need a sexy, sordid stepbrother affair.”
