Page 70 of Always Been His

She looks at me.

Her eyes widen, and then narrow, and then widen again, moving over every inch of my face slowly, like she is checking each feature individually for the lie, pressing into the corners of my expression the way she has always pressed because she has always been able to tell.

“Swear to me, this isn’t just a—” she starts.

“It isn’t,” I cut in, before she can finish the sentence.

“Swear it,” she demands, baring her teeth at me.

I cross my arms over my chest. “I swear on my parents, on us, on my voice.”

It’s the biggest thing I have, and she knows it. My voice is the only thing I have never gambled with, the one non-negotiable, the thing I’ve protected even when I let them take everything else. My ability to sing is everything to me, even when it has cost me friendship, and time. I have always loved to sing more than anything else.

“We’re in love,” I add. “Both of us. It is real.”

Iris holds my gaze.

Then something moves through her all at once, starting in her chest and working its way out, her shoulders dropping, and her arms loosening from around her waist, and her breath leaving her in one long exhale through her nose. Her head tips back toward the ceiling. Both hands come up and press flat against her face. The groan that comes out of her is long and deep and muffled against her palms.

I wait.

She drops her hands. Points one finger directly at my face. “I fucking knew it.”

“What?” I scoff.

“You two were so weird all of junior year,” she says, her voice climbing. “Like weird-weird. You were both so awkward around each other. I almost asked you about it like four times, but every time I said his name you jumped out of your skin, so I told him to leave you alone.”

“He kissed me the night of your seventeenth birthday,” I mumble, studying the flour dusted across the toe of my sneaker. “I told him to never talk about it again.”

Iris’s mouth opens. Closes. Her hand, which has been absentmindedly smoothing the front of her apron, stops moving entirely. “My seventeenth birthday,” she breathes.

“In the oak tree,” I wince. “After the Lionel thing.”

Color rises in her cheeks, remembering.

“That’s why you weren’t upset about Lionel,” she gasps, pointing at me. “You told me first kisses don’t count if you don’t like them.”

“In my defense⁠—”

“There is no defense,” she cuts in. “Sienna, you spun me a line my brother probably told you. Gross.”

“I mean, Lionel was a bad kisser, especially compared to your brother,” I offer.

“Oh my god. I’m going to barf.” She turns away from me, steps towards the prep counter, then turns back. “Wait. That’s why he was so weird at breakfast the next morning? I thought he was hungover or something, but he was just pining over you. And you didn’t spend the night like we were supposed to. I thought it was because of Lionel!”

“I mean it was partly because of Lionel, but yeah, I was nervous.”

“That was like ten years ago.” She studies me from across the kitchen with her hands pressed to her face. “Ten years you’ve been in love with my brother, while I was oblivious.”

“I mean, we’re pretty good at sneaking around,” I murmur.

“Your entire first album is probably about him,” she continues, lowering her hands, and I nod sheepishly. “You told me it was about some California boy! It’s like I don’t know you at all!”

“But I’ll tell you everything now, anything you want to know.”

She turns to the prep station, lifts an apron off the hook on the wall, and places it on the counter. With her other hand she fishes a spare hair tie out of her apron pocket and sets that beside it.

“On,” she instructs.