Page 74 of More For Me

This probably wasn’t the best idea for my hangover.

Nisha walks in from the kitchen, barely batting an eye at the chaos—or my sudden appearance in her living room. She gestures at the kids. “Good to see you, Bhai. So I’m just gonna leave this to you and head out.”

“Very funny.” I grab Zayne before he can bounce anywhere else, while Nisha picks up Ravi, gets him to stop crying, turns off the ear-splitting cartoon, and orders Tiny to stop barking, all at once.

“Bodhi Uncle,” Zayne shouts, wrapping his arms around my neck. “Mom said you’re babysitting us and we’re going to have so much fun.”

“Your mother is a liar,” I tell him. “I plan to put you both to bed with no supper and then eat all your candy and watch whatever I want on TV without you.”

“No!” they both yell, laughing. Ravi squirms to be let out of his mother’s arms. The second she sets him on the floor, he launches himself at me, trying to climb my legs like a jungle gym, whatever he was crying about a second ago long forgotten.

“You owe me so big,” I tell my sister.

She just rolls her eyes. “Please. You’re basically the same developmental age as both of them, so this should be a fun night for you.”

Zayne chooses that moment to stick his disgustingly wet finger in my ear, laughing uproariously at my grimace. I narrow my eyes at my sister. “You owe me so. Freaking. Big.”

She laughs. “You love it.” Then she fixes her stern mummy look on her face and turns to the boys. “Let Bodhi Uncle go for a minute so he and I can talk.”

“She needs to show me where she keeps the liver and onions,” I whisper into Zayne’s ear and he shrieks then laughs as I bounce him down onto the couch.

I start to follow Nisha into the kitchen but Ravi calls after me. “I thought Everly was coming to watch us too. She promised we’d play Mario Kart.”

Kid might as well have punched me in the guts. I manage to keep a smile on my face. “Not today, buddy. She’s busy with work.”

“Work is stupid!” he shouts, then his brother barrels into him and they start wrestling, apparently forgetting all about me.

“It’s amazing your house is still standing,” I tell Nisha as we head to the kitchen.

“I’m considering putting up a tent in the backyard and just moving them out there permanently.”

“Who needs a tent? Have your worthless husband install a pig pen.”

She sighs as she reaches for the teapot. “They’d just figure out a way to climb out of it.”

I sit at her kitchen table while she makes us tea. “There are leftovers in the fridge,” she says. “Or you can make mac and cheese.”

I throw up my hands. “Score!”

She rolls her eyes. “Like I said, same developmental level.” She places a mug in front of me and takes a seat. “Now, tell me what’s wrong.”

I blink up at her. “What are you talking about?”

She circles her pointer finger around my face. “This whole…thing.”

“This whole thing being my face?”

“You’re upset about something.”

I shift in my seat. Having a big sister sucks sometimes. “It’s a rough time of year.”

“Mmm,” she agrees, still studying me. “But that’s not what this is.”

In an attempt to avoid the inevitable, I reach for my mug and take a sip, cursing when it burns the shit out of my tongue.

“You could continue to attempt to maim yourself as an avoidance tactic,” she says. “Or you could just tell me what’s wrong.” When I don’t say anything, she sighs. “Is it Everly?”

My eyes snap up to hers. “What makes you think that?”