Lucky threw her hands up in surrender. “Okay.”
Less than thirty seconds and they were already arguing. Avery’s face softened suddenly and she stretched out her arms.
“Sorry. Let’s do this properly. Hello, you.”
Lucky bounded down the stairs and stood before her. She bowed her head and pressed her forehead to Avery’s. They rolled their brows slowly against each other, the way lions in a pride show affection to one another. That was how it felt reuniting with her eldest sister, Lucky thought, like two wild animals yielding to each other.
“It’s good to see you, Aves,” murmured Lucky.
“You too,” said Avery. “Now, let me have a proper look at you.”
She held Lucky at arm’s length, taking in her tiny cropped T-shirt and lace-up leather trousers, the dark roots and darker circles around her eyes.
“You’re too thin,” she said.
Lucky shrugged.
“That’s what they pay me for.”
“Don’t be glib. I love your hair like this.”
“I love you,” said Lucky quickly, before she could think to say something else.
Avery’s face split open into a radiant smile. Their family had always been good at hellos and goodbyes, moments ending even as they began. It was easy to love someone in the beginnings and endings; it was all the time in between that was so hard.
“I love you too,” Avery said. “Without the too.”
Lucky smiled. It was something Nicky used to say. No too. Just love.
“I can’t believe it’s been a year,” continued Avery. “And you’ve been just a train ride away this whole time.”
“I know,” said Lucky, feeling giddy. “What’s wrong with us?”
“Too much to catalog in this moment.”
“Let’s never let it go this long again.”
“Never.” Avery linked arms with her to walk up the steps to the house. “Did you have a sixth sense I was arriving and rush out to meet me?”
“No, um, I was actually just leaving,” Lucky said, disentangling herself awkwardly.
Avery’s face fell with disappointment. Lucky hated being the one to cause that expression for the second time in the past few minutes.
“I’ve been waiting for over an hour for you,” she said defensively. “The food was getting cold, so we ate.”
“I’m sorry,” said Avery. “I got caught up fellowshipping. I should have called.”
“What’s fellowshipping?”
“Oh, it’s what we call hanging out after the meeting.”
“So why don’t you just call it hanging out?”
“I don’t know,” said Avery with an impatient flick of her head. “It’s just how we say it.”
That we bristled Lucky. She simultaneously hated feeling excluded from her sister’s sober world and relieved not to be part of it.
“You can’t come in and talk to me for a little?” asked Avery. “We need to discuss what to do about the New York apartment.”
Lucky gave a desperate shrug.
“I made plans, Aves.”
“So you don’t care that they’re selling it?” Avery asked, her voice hardening with indignation. “We can’t let that happen!”
Lucky frowned. Selling it? The email their mother sent yesterday flashed, unopened, across her mind. So that’s what it had been about. On Nicky’s anniversary, no less. The timing was cold, even for their mother, though she’d come to expect as much from their ice queen of a matriarch. Avery was staring at her expectantly, waiting for an answer. Lucky rearranged her face to convey thoughtful consideration, as opposed to complete obliviousness. Did she care that their parents were selling it? She had no great nostalgia for the home she had stopped living in full-time at fifteen. Ever since she started modeling, New York had always meant Nicky to her, and without her sister there, she had no real reason to return. Also, she couldn’t help feeling Avery’s desire to hold on to the place was also her way of keeping the family dependent on her. As long as she paid for that apartment, they all had a reason to owe her. But mostly, what Lucky felt right now was a desire to leave.
“I don’t know,” she settled on noncommittally. “I trust you to do what’s best.”
Avery looked momentarily taken aback by this unusual display of diplomacy, then immediately annoyed again.
“Where are you even going at this hour?” she demanded.
“Just to this thing with a friend,” said Lucky.
Friend was a generous term for how well she knew this stylist. Why couldn’t she just go back inside and be with Avery? Because there was nothing to drink in there and she needed a drink more than she needed anything right now, including her sister.
“I waited for you,” she said again.
