Page 78 of Not Mine to Rescue

She squeezed me tighter. “I got you.”

I wished she’d let go—just…let me go. She should do her own thing and leave me out of her life. Then, maybe I could take off and… I didn’t know where my head was going with that. It fluttered away in so many directions like dreams that couldn’t face the dawn. The fact was, I needed my sister. She was all I had left.

I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed back. “It’s cold out. The kittens are probably hungry.”

She laughed quietly. “They’re fed. Walt sent Fly here to, and I quote, do butt detail.”

“No shit?”

Her face twisted into a half-grin. “More like all the shit.” A twitch of her shoulders was all it took before the joke jumped to my chest.

“When did Fly get here?” I asked, curious about the timing.

“An hour ago.”

Which meant I’d stewed longer than Walt had. He’d sent Fly as a peace offering.

My sister must have caught onto some of the tension because she knocked her shoulder into my arm and silently urged me to get out of my funk. “Call Honor back. Maybe take a shower, get laid. You’ll feel better.”

“Ew. My little sister just told me to get laid. Disgusting.” I was teasing her.

She laughed. “Maybe with you gone I can finally seduce Fly.”

Over my dead body. “Don’t you dare fucking go there. He’s… No. Off-limits, understand?”

Lemon made a face at me. “I was kidding.”

“I hope so. And it wasn’t funny.”

“Why wasn’t it?”

“Didn’t you learn your lesson from Tom the Tinder Turd?”

“His name was Tim.”

“Tom, Tim, whatever. He was a dick.” I pointed at the house. “And Fly? He’s a bigger dick. He hates this place. Tim only didn’t like it because it was competing with him for your attention. Neither of them deserve you.”

She stared at me as if she saw through me. It was kind of creepy.

“What?”

“Honoria.”

I took a step back, flinching.

“Huh.”

“What kind of woo-woo shit are you thinking?” I knew it had to be that. She wasn’t exactly focused on me.

“When I say her name, you flash red. Usually that indicates anger, but it isn’t quite red. More pink.”

No way I was going there. I remember Mom teaching her about the colors. Maybe she was too little to understand, but it was one of the oddball lessons from her that I’d committed to memory. Pink meant love. She claimed she and Dad were constantly pink.

Lemon told me in confidence that they were rainbows.

Whatever. It was strange shit. All of it.

Chapter Twenty