“And you must be the sister, Julia,” I say.
“What gave it away?” She hooks an arm around Miles’s neck and shoves the side of her face against his. “We look nothing alike.”
“Total stab in the dark,” I agree.
She pulls away from him, scratching her jaw. “You need to scrape that roadkill off your face,” she says, beelining toward the fridge. “I think I just got fleas.”
She opens the door and looks over her shoulder at me, though not in time to catch Miles mouthing something along the lines of Told you. “Have you seen my brother without a beard?” Julia asks me. “He’s adorable. Like a fifteen percent less hot version of me.”
“I don’t know, I kind of like the beard,” I say.
She narrows her gaze on me. Then she straightens, lips pursing sourly as she considers me, like I’m a particularly tricky poker opponent. But I’m not. I’m terrible at lying, except when that one unhinged demon possessed me to make up a whole-ass boyfriend.
Suddenly, Julia spins toward Miles, pointing a finger in his face. “You fucking told her to say that!” she shouts, victorious.
He swats her hand out of the way. “Jules, inside voice. Our crotchety neighbor is going to come yell at us.”
“Admit it,” she cries, swatting his hand.
She spins toward me, face alight, a more extreme version of Miles’s lit-from-within, delighted-by-everything grin. “I’ll give you twenty bucks if you tell me the truth, Daphne.”
“Daphne,” Miles warns, trying to get past her. Julia puts her arms out to her sides, stance wide, a defensive guard keeping us from passing the deceit between us.
“Daphne!” she shrieks through laughter as Miles tries to push past. “Tell me the truth!”
“I already did!” I cry, running past both of them to the far side of the counter. “I like the beard! It’s grown on me!”
“Daphne.” Julia straightens up, hands on her hips. “We’re supposed to be a team here.”
“You just met,” Miles says, rounding the counter to stand beside me. “We’ve been living together for over two months.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Julia says, turning to resume digging through the fridge. “Holy shit, you have food in here. Like, not leftovers, I mean.”
“We do?” Miles says right as I say, “We do.”
He glances at me. “Thanks.”
Julia snatches a grapefruit sparkling water and faces us as she pops the tab. “So how long have you guys been together?”
I choke on air. “What.”
“We’re not,” Miles says, clearly a little embarrassed.
Julia’s dark brows flick upward as she sips, then slams her can on the counter. If he’s a Labrador, she’s more of a clumsy pit bull, thwacking into corners and swinging her head into coffee tables without batting an eye, completely unselfconscious. I like her immediately.
Julia’s head tilts. “That’s not what Petra said.”
“You talked to Petra?” Miles says.
“Not in a Judas Iscariot way,” she blurts. “I chewed her ass out over text a few weeks ago, and I never heard back. Then last week, she messaged me out of the blue, to say she’s happy for you.”
“How thoughtful,” I grumble.
Julia’s gaze wanders back to me. “Is there any particular reason she thinks you guys are sleeping together?”
I wonder if I have hives visibly forming on my neck.
I also wonder if I have bruises where Miles bit me.
“That’s my fault,” I tell Julia. “Long story, but Peter—my ex—called me, and I accidentally just . . .”
Her brow rises as she waits for me to go on. It’s an exact Miles Nowak expression, but somehow it’s so much sharper on her.
“I straight-up lied,” I finish.
She stares at me for a second, then bursts into laughter, hinging over her hips and resting her whole face and arms on the counter as she shakes with giggles. When she finally peels her face off the granite, she says, “That’s fucking amazing.”
Miles smiles faintly. “That was my reaction too.”
Julia drums her hands on the counter for a second. “So. Should we get drunk?”
I laugh.
“Daphne works in the morning,” Miles says. “She hosts Story Hour at the library on Saturdays. Does all the voices.”
I don’t think he’s trying to embarrass me; I think he genuinely believes this is an interesting and maybe even impressive tidbit to share with his ultrahip, ultraconfident little sister.
“Oh, hell yeah, we should go see that,” she says.
