Page 73 of More For Me

Her eyes widen. “Bodhi—”

“So you don’t remember sleeping next to me and kissing me last night?” The words feel like acid in my mouth. I had no idea Everly was capable of hurting me like this. “What else is hazy for you, Lele? The stuff I told you about my brother?”

Her face goes ashen so quickly I wonder if she’s going to pass out. “Bodhi—I didn’t...I didn’t mean—”

“Because the kiss happened about ten seconds after I told you a lot of really personal, really painful shit about my family. So if you hardly remember anything, I’m assuming that means you don’t remember our conversation, either.”

She reaches out to me, her hands shaking, but I take a step back. I don’t want her to touch me right now.

“I get that you’re freaked out. I know you, Everly. I was sure it was going to require a lot of patience while you wrap your head around what happened. But this?” I swallow hard, taking another step toward the door. “You’re so afraid to fucking talk to me about a kiss that you’re going tolie?You’re going to say you don’t remember?” I shake my head. “You know what, maybe I was wrong. Maybe I don’t know you as well as I thought I did.”

She looks stricken, close to tears. “Bodhi, please, I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have said—”

I don’t wait for her to finish before I storm out of the office. I’ve heard more than enough.

* * *

I spendthe next half hour driving aimlessly. The thought of going back to the house makes me feel queasy. I consider heading to Leo’s place, but that would be pretty pathetic. When my sister’s ringtone sounds from my phone, I fumble to answer, extremely relieved by the distraction.

“Hey, Nisha.”

“Hey, little brother. How’s it going?”

Oh, just swell. The girl I’m in love with shot me down in the most epic way, I have a terrible hangover, and I’m pretty sure I need to find a new place to live. Other than that, everything is peachy.

“I’m fine,” I say, in the brightest voice I can muster. “How about you? How are the little monsters?”

“Monstrous,” she says, laughing. The sound puts a little relief into my bloodstream. When she said goodbye to me last night, her voice was doing that awful pinched thing it does when she’s trying not to let on that she’s upset. I’ve hated that strain in her voice since we were kids, back when I heard it all too often.

“How was the zoo?”

“As insane as you can imagine with those two,” she says drily. “But I think it made Ammi happy.”

And there comes the guilt again. “I should go see her.”

“She’s going out with Devi and Kaira tonight,” she says, referring to Mom’s two closest friends. “They’re taking her to the movies.”

“Good. She needs that.” I try not to let my relief sound in my voice. The idea of being back at my mom’s house tonight made it hard to breathe for a second.

“So you don’t have plans tonight?” she asks and I laugh. My sister is so transparent. “What do you need, Nish?”

“I was hoping you could come over and watch them for a few hours tonight,” she says. “I have a parent’s meeting for Ravi’s soccer league and Dev just got called into a client dinner he can’t get out of.”

“They have parent’s meetings for a preschooler’s soccer league?”

I can practically hear her eye roll in her voice. “These parents are insane but I don’t want them to think I’m the lame mom who doesn’t care.”

“I’ll come hang out with the monsters.” I make it a point to always be there when my nephews need me. Besides, maybe their sheer insanity will get my mind off things for a while.

“Awesome,” Nisha says. “Do you think Everly will want to join you? Ravi has been talking about playing videogames with her all day. Apparently, she agreed to a Mario Cart show-down last night.”

I close my eyes. So much for that distraction. “I think she has plans tonight, but I’ll ask her.” I will most definitely not ask her, but Nisha doesn’t need to know that.

She’s quiet for a moment, just long enough for me to get nervous. “Everything okay, Bodhi?”

“Of course. I’ll be over in a few.”

The second I step through the door I’m assaulted by noise. One of the boys is crying loudly while the other appears to be making as much noise as humanly possible by flinging himself from the wall to the floor to the couch and back to the wall, bouncing around the room like a human pinball for some inexplicable reason. Their dog, Tiny, a three-year-old mastiff who’s bigger than the couch, seems to think this is the most fun game ever, judging by his excited barks every time Zayne makes contact with another surface.