Not in love

“I know.”

“You do?”

He nodded once.

“Brother?”

“Sister. No public harassment, but she’s always found highly creative ways to drive me nuts.”

“Such as?”

Eli thought about teenage Maya, screaming at him that he was ruining her life and she wished he’d been the one to die. Grabbing fistfuls of his shirt and soaking the cotton after being stood up for homecoming. Poking her nose through his things because she was “looking for batteries,” then following him around the kitchen to criticize his choice of condoms and lube. Bitching at him on the phone that he always left her alone, that he might as well have let her go into foster care—and then lashing out whenever he’d tried to spend time with her. “Siblings can be hard.”

“I’m sure Vincent would agree.”

“I’m not sure Vincent has any right to agree.”

She was silent for a long beat. But when Eli thought that was the end of the conversation, she said dully, “One day, when we were still kids, he was late coming home from a friend’s place. I waited for him, worried out of my mind, for one, two, three hours. Wondered if he’d been run over, or something. Eventually he did return home, but instead of being relieved, when I saw him in the entryway, I thought, ‘My life would be so much easier if he’d just disappeared.’”

He turned to meet her eyes. Found a bemused expression in them, as though she’d surprised herself by divulging something that was clearly a source of deep shame. And he surprised himself by saying, “When my sister was born, my parents kept saying how perfect she was, and I was so resentful, I refused to even look at her for weeks.”

There were no platitudes, no raised eyebrows, no attempts to soften what he’d just said. She just studied him with the same lack of judgment he’d reserved for her, as though he hadn’t just shared the most fucked up of stories, until he glanced away. He didn’t even know her name, and he’d spilled about something he’d never acknowledged before, not even to his closest friends.

Probably because he didn’t know her name.

“How do you think your brother found out your address?” he asked, mostly to shut down whatever that exchange had been. An anomaly. Had to be.

“Online?”

“Well, fuck.” He turned right, heading for North Austin—the same road he’d take tomorrow morning. He was going to drive it thinking about her instead of the day ahead, he just knew it. This girl, she was going to stick around, even if only in his head.

“Right. Fuck.” She did it again—leaned back against the seat, closed her eyes—and this time he took advantage and let his gaze roam over her. Her long, long legs. Her full chest. The beautiful, rounded curve of her ear. There was something jagged, sharpedged about her personality, but her body was soft. His type, really, if he even had one.

If it hadn’t been for her brother, he could have known for sure. What a fucking pity.

“How old are you?” he asked to distract himself.

“Six years, two months, and five days younger than you,” she said without missing a beat.

“Nice. Did you also memorize my social security number?”

“You should invest in some identity theft protection before you find out.”

“I will, if you take out a restraining order against your brother.” There he was again. Glaringly overstepping. “If you believe he won’t hurt you to get what he wants, you are too trusting.”

“I think you are too trusting.”

“Me?”

“Yes. Has it occurred to you that I could be the serial killer? Right here, in your car.”

Eli looked at her again. Her smile was faint, her eyes still closed. He wanted to run his knuckles against her cheekbones. “I’ll take my chances.”

“With some girl who’s luring you to a second location and never even told you her name.”

Robin? No, didn’t suit her. And Eli was starting to wonder if ignorance was best. The less he knew, the vaguer and fuzzier she remained in his imagination, the quicker he’d stop thinking about her. And yet: “Tell me, then.”

“It’s the third time you asked.”

“It’s the third time you didn’t answer. Do you think the two things might be co

She pressed her lips together—really, he might just have conjured them. They were something out of some extremely lurid dreams he’d had when he was very young and very hormonal. “I think it would have been fun,” she said, a little melancholic.

“What?”

“Tonight. You and me.”

Eli’s blood thudded in his veins—once, loud, violent. When he glanced at the GPS, their destination was three minutes away. He slowed down to well below the limit, suddenly a scrupulous driver. “Yeah?”

“You seem like you’d know what you’re doing.”

Oh, you have no fucking idea. We still have time. I can be gentle. Or not. I could be lots of things if you—

Jesus. She’d just been manhandled by her brother. He was disgusting. “Maybe you’re overestimating me.” Even though, no. He’d have made sure she had fun. And had fun himself in the process.

“I think I’m just estimating myself correctly.” A small smile. “I’m the one who messaged you, after all.”

He was starting to wish she hadn’t. It was destabilizing, all of this—at a time when all he needed was his feet firmly on the ground. “Why did you do that, anyway?”

“I appreciated that your photo wasn’t a gym selfie, or you doing the peace sign next to a sedated tiger.”

“I see the bar is underground.” He tried to remember what his picture was. Something from Minami, probably. She was always taking candids of him and Hark. For the website. So much better than the smarmy suits-and-ties shit in our current photos.

“Your profile said you hadn’t been active for a while. I figured you’d either settled down and found someone, or you were overdue. Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Find someone?” She sounded . . . not pruriently curious, but at least interested, and Eli had to remind himself not to squeeze any hope out of it. Hope for what, anyway? It wasn’t like he was in the market for a girlfriend. He’d failed abysmally at that.

Not everyone has the capacity for love, Eli.

“No. What about you? You wrote ‘no repeats’ on your profile.”

“I did,” she confirmed, and damn her for this habit of hers not to offer any explanations. Damn her for not living farther away. There it was, her apartment complex. He gripped the steering wheel, aware that he couldn’t go any slower without getting pulled over.

“Is it a rule of yours?”

She nodded, unperturbed.

“Seems arbitrary,” he said casually while parking. Seems like what’s standing between me and you having a fucking spectacular time.

“All rules exist for a reason.”

He killed the engine and ordered himself to let it go. It wasn’t good for either of them, talking about something that wasn’t going to happen. “Come on. I’ll walk you inside, just in case your brother’s waiting around.”

But Vincent had given up on her, at least for the night. No car had followed them.

It was late May and it was Texas, which meant instant, oppressive heat, even at night. Eli was pleased to see a doorman in the lobby, one who didn’t look just burly and alert, but also highly suspicious of Eli. That’s the attitude, he thought, nodding at him, making a mental note to let him know the situation on his way back.

“You know I’m not going to invite you inside, right?” she asked when they stopped in front of her apartment.

Eli had had a myriad of highly inappropriate thoughts in the past twenty minutes, but this specific one hadn’t even grazed his brain. “I’ll leave once you’re inside and I hear you lock your door. And you should put your phone in rice,” he added, wondering what the fuck had come over him. Among his friends, he was famous for being the easygoing one. Laid back. Never like this, intrusive, commanding—not even with his sister. Probably because Maya would have guillotined him.

But this woman only seemed faintly amused. She regarded him with that placid, sphinxlike expression that Eli was already getting used to, and took a step closer—one that had his heart pumping louder and faster for no reason, since all she said was “Thank you. I really appreciate what you did for me tonight.”

“It was the bare minimum.” Not a good time to tell her he was considering sleeping outside in his car just to intercept her idiot brother.

Fucking nuts. Was he developing a crush? He hadn’t even known he was capable of it.

“It was not.” Her key chains jingled in her palm. A sparkly ice skate shoe, one of those flashlight and pen combinations, a supermarket loyalty card with H-E-B printed on the back. He had the very same one. “You are kind. And I find you very attractive.”

Eli’s brain blanked for a split second. He wasn’t shy, not by any means, but he couldn’t remember the last time someone had complimented him that matter-of-factly. She had that somber look in her eyes and no guile whatsoever, and he was half-smitten.

He needed to get the hell home.

“That seems beside the point,” he said, not liking the gravel of his voice.

“Does it?”

“Since you never do repeats. Isn’t that your rule?”

She was pensive for a moment. “You’re right. Then, it’s farewell.”

It was. Unavoidably. But before Eli could remind her once more to be safe, she did something as simple as it was unexpected: she took another step in to him, rose on tiptoes, and placed a soft kiss on his cheek.

Of its own volition, Eli’s hand rose to hold her waist, and that near imperceptible touch blossomed into something exponential.

Possibilities.

Current.

Warmth.

Her scent enveloped him. The world shrank to them and nothing else. Eli turned his head, curious to see what he’d find on her face in response to all this electricity. She briefly held his eyes, then closed the distance between their mouths.

It barely constituted a kiss. Her lips pressed against his in the slightest of contacts, but his body was aflame. A surge of heat coursed through him, violent and sudden. Eli tried to remember the last time he’d felt anything approaching this, and came up empty handed. But it didn’t matter, because her fingers found his, and he was dizzy, lightheaded with all the things he was imagining.

He could take her. Abscond with her. Press her back against the door of her home, tucked under his bigger body. He could show her how beautiful she was to him and—

“Although, it occurs to me,” she murmured against his mouth, breaking the spiral of his thoughts, “that rules exist for a reason.”