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26.
Ryan
She didn’t mean to tell me. I can see it in her eyes. Alex is as surprised as I am.
“What the hell do you mean?”
“I mean he vanished,” she says. “We got separated, and now he’s gone.” She takes a deep breath.
“Try again.”
“I’ve been trying to find him,” she says. “I’ve been searching for years. Like, fifteen years.”
Since she was what? Thirteen?
“That’s why you wanted to work for me,” I say, realizing the truth. “That’s why you needed money.”
“I thought having a master’s degree would help me get a better paying job,” she says. “I forgot the part where you need to actually work in a specific field. After I went to college, I worked for a few years before going back and getting my master’s degree. There are always teaching jobs, supposedly. I thought it would be a good chance for me to stay close to home. I wanted something where I wouldn’t have to go far.”
Because she’s worried about her brother. She doesn’t want to go far because she thinks he’s close. If she’s anything like me, she feels a connection with her sibling that is unbreakable. She would know if he was gone. I’m sure of it.
“Getting a master’s degree is supposed to help,” I agree. I don’t mention that I’ve got three. It’s a silly thing to bring up at this point. I may be highly educated, but I’m also self-aware enough to know that I’m only where I am because of my father.
“Well, apparently, there isn’t as much of a demand for teachers as I thought,” she says. “And even if there were, those jobs honestly don’t pay as well as what you pay me.”
“And here I thought I was lowballing you.”
“You weren’t,” she says.
“You hired someone, then?”
She nods. “A private investigator.”
“I’ll hire a second one,” I tell her. “We’ll double up on resources and find him twice as fast.”
“I can’t...I can’t afford two PIs.”
I take a step toward her, reach for her chin, and tilt her face up toward me.
“Did I say anything about you hiring the other one?”
“No.”
“I’ve got you, baby.”
I’m honored she chose to trust me with her secret. I don’t even want to think about how much she must be missing this brother of hers. I can’t fathom living without Phoenix or Oscar. She must be fighting twice as hard, honestly. How long has she been bearing this burden alone?
“I’ve got you,” I say once more, and this time, I kiss her. I expect that kissing Alex after she’s shared this huge secret with me might feel awkward or forced, but it doesn’t. Instead, kissing her feels as natural as singing.
Kissing her feels like everything is right in the world.
“You shouldn’t do this,” she says.
“Shouldn’t do what?”
“Kiss me like you mean it.”
“I mean every taste,” I tell her. And I do. I’m not promising her forever. I’m not promising her anything at all except for a good time, but damn if the world isn’t just a little bit better with her in it.
