Page 110 of The Statistically Unlikely Reunion

“The other day, when I asked if she wanted a hug, she said in like a totally deadpan serial killer voice: ‘Do you love me?’ Sometimes, even when she tells me she loves me, it sounds a little like I could end you.”

Lucas laughs. “That’s oddly specific.”

“I think it’s my fault?”

Lucas moves my necklace to one side. “You think everything is your fault.”

“She was forced to understand so much, from a very young age, and then—” After Lucas, after all three of my sisters transferred to private schools, Aurora is justified in saying I checked out a little, let myself wallow in post-Lucas life, letting Aurora and the girls fend for themselves, which really meant handing too many reins into Aurora’s too-young hands.

“She got an internship as a high schooler, did I tell you?”

“You did not.”

“At Algan Tech.” In truth, I know almost nothing about the company beyond the fact that it’s a small, local startup, and Aurora shared no details about her day-to-day duties. At the time, I was in the midst of finalizing diagnoses, drowning under emails and recommendations from Dr. Grier. But that’s not really an excuse, is it?

“She used to share everything, but at some point, I stopped asking and she stopped trying.”

Except, of course, the most recent and trickiest one: What will happen to Wren and Harper once Aurora leaves for college? Even if I don’t know how I’ll work through the details yet, I owe Aurora the chance to set off on her own, make her own mistakes, far away from the familiar responsibilities I hadn’t meant to saddle her with.

“My opinion?”

“Please.”

Lucas stops massaging and stretches out next to me on the bed, as if this conversation demands his full focus. “Aurora always looked up to you as a sister. Circumstances forced you into a more parental role. Those identities can be difficult to blend.”

I sit up next to him, my leg touching his through the robe in a way that is casual and familiar, soothing in a completely different way. “I think we had a similar conversation about the twins.”

“Yes.” Lucas tilts his head toward me, reaching forward to pinch my chin lightly. “Only I actually took your advice.”

The way he’s holding my head, there’s no way to not make eye contact, particularly given I’m no longer wearing my fake glasses around him, another layer peeled away. “I’ve always been controlling. That’s one of the main complaints against me, right?”

A knock saves Lucas from answering, though I can see the answer in the slight wrinkling at the corners of his eyes, the small micro-tilt of his full lips that seems to say, You need to ask? There’s no need to look through the peephole. Lucas is already here, and only one other person I know does that “Shave and a Haircut” pattern that obnoxiously loudly.

“Six minutes until the poker tournament,” Brody tells Lucas, arching an eyebrow at the fact that I’m in a robe. “I could try to delay it a little, if you both need more time, but this is one of the few activities that already had real press scheduled.”

“Charity poker, right?” It’s an annual event of some sort. There was always at least one fluff article about it, but because I only let myself read my program’s aggregated Lucas stories once a year, twice at most, I almost always glossed over this one.

“We all donate money to the pot, and the winner gets to dictate which nonprofit gets the winnings. If there weren’t so many successful poker sharks involved, it never would have been a newsworthy story. But the pot’s grown each year. Ben Affleck even showed up one year to challenge the STEM nerds. Lucas, of course, usually wins. Last year he even—” Brody cuts himself off suddenly, squeezing at the back of his neck. “In my defense, how was I supposed to know Lucas drinks now?”

I narrow my eyes. “Lucas drinks now?”

Brody reddens a little, the tops of his cheeks flushing. “Truthfully, Lucas has been winning the event for years now⁠—”

“Lucas is good at poker?” Maybe I should have read the articles in more detail.

Lucas leans into the doorjamb, crowding me. “I don’t think I’d be good against you, if it helps.”

“Basically.” Brody looks at his watch and grimaces, pulling Lucas into the hallway. “Last year, I tried to get Lucas drunk. Seemed like a good strategy at the time, but apparently, our boy’s got a tolerance now. He never drinks when we’re out, so I had no way of knowing.”

“Lucas can hold his liquor now.”

“Yes, I bought him at least six shots. He shouldn’t have been able to tell a heart from a spade, but . . . he could.”

Lucas looks at me, his hazel eyes twinkling with mischief, as clear of an admission as I’m likely to get. “Can I come back tonight?”

Brody rolls his eyes, making another show of checking his watch.

“I’m pretty tired.”