Everything goes off without a hitch. No nursing staff, no Oliver and miraculously no black car. It isn’t even parked outside the coffee place anymore, which makes me feel kind of foolish. Maybe whoever it was this morning just happened to be going the same way as us and felt like stopping off quickly for a coffee on the way to work. Both Lacey and I watch carefully all the way home, though, just to make sure.
I park the car and we head inside. I make sure all the windows and doors are triple locked just as a precautionary measure. The action brings to mind Zeth snooping around the place, inspecting every square inch to make sure it measured up to his idea of secure. He probably already knew he was bringing Lacey here to dump her on my doorstep, and wanted to make sure she would be safe. The thought plummets me into an irrationally sour mood.
“I’m too tired to cook. You’re just gonna have to make do with takeout.” I clip out the words sharply, hurling them over my shoulder at the girl following behind me, and I immediately regret it. A shutter comes down across her already wary features.
“It’s okay,” she says mechanically. “I can cook.”
“No. Shit, no, I’m—I’m sorry, Lace. I’ve just had a really long day.” I blow out a long breath, scratching at my forehead. I haven’t had a roommate since college and even then I didn’t do all that well living with other people. This situation is especially awkward because of Lacey’s fragility. I’m terrible for being shitty with her because of him, though. Because, if I’m startlingly honest with myself, I am jealous of the bizarre relationship they share.
“I don’t want you to cook. I really do just want takeout. Is that okay?”
She nods, hanging her head and making her way to the breakfast bar where she seems to have found a place for herself where she feels inconspicuous. I rifle out the vast array of home delivery menus—I eat crap most nights—and I let her pick. She chooses Chinese food, selects what she wants and to my amazement orders the meals for us, too, providing my address without even having to ask for it. I crack open a bottle of wine, much needed, and offer her a glass. She shrugs her shoulders in a why the hell not? kind of motion and we settle on the couch, the TV playing quietly in the background while we wait for our dinner to arrive.
I’m still struggling with the bitter taste in my mouth despite the delicious red wine, though. I decide to get it the hell over with and find out once and for all what on earth is going on with them. “So…” I begin. The best place to start when broaching a topic without a decent segue. “I know you told Pippa you didn’t know why you liked being with Zeth so much, but I thought—”
Lacey quickly brings the wine glass up to hide most of her face, holding it with two hands. She chugs at the wine, way too fast. Her eyes are watering considerably when she lowers the vessel. With a guarded look in her eye, she peers at me sideways. From her reaction, I was actually going to let the matter drop, but she chooses to speak of her own accord. “I found him,” she says simply. “I was looking for him for a long time, and I found him.”
Well that’s a confusing statement if ever I’ve heard one. “Found him, like you were looking for ‘the one?’ Like, your soul mate?” I say the words so awkwardly I almost roll my eyes at myself. I sound like an online dating site. Hell. Maybe they met on an online dating website.
Lacey’s face becomes a picture of puzzlement. “What? No. No.” She shakes her head violently from side to side. “My first foster family told me about him. Told me that he was living north of Los Angeles with his uncle. They said when I was old enough, I could go and live with him.”
“Why the hell would they say that?”
Lacey puckers her mouth, clearly considering what to tell me. How much she should reveal. Her pale eyes narrow, roving from my eyes to my mouth to my nose and then back to my eyes again. She draws her arms tight to her body, apparently having made up her mind. “He’s older than me. My older brother. I traveled all over Los Angeles trying to find him when I finally…when I finally got away from Gregory. But he wasn’t there.” She absently chews her thumbnail, staring into space. Meanwhile, I sit with my hand over my mouth once more, trying to let the information sink in. Sister. She’s his sister? “I found his uncle, though.” She carries on, ignoring my stupefied look. “My uncle, too, I suppose. He said Zeth had moved to New York, so I went there. Turned out Zeth hadn’t actually moved to New York so much as been arrested and put away there. I didn’t know what to do then, so I left and came here. I’d found out his boss lived in Seattle and Zeth would come back here at some point, so I decided to wait. And then there he was one day.”
I can’t really believe it. They are like night and day, one so tall and dark, the other tiny and colorless, like a soft gust of wind. Lacey drinks more wine, while I run my finger back and forth across the rim, trying to make the pieces fit. “And so you approached him and told him you were his sister?” I ask.
She looks at me, surprised. “No.”
“He already knew?”
Another shake of the head. “He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know we’re related.”
“So how did you end up living with him, then?” This is getting more confusing by the second. The small girl gives me a careful smile.
“It was raining. I’d been trying to figure out how to introduce myself for hours, sitting outside his place. It was raining and I was soaked through. I thought he’d probably let me come in and dry off at least once he found out we were brother and sister, but I just couldn’t find a way to word it right in my head. I passed out from the cold. He found me on his doorstep, nearly tripped over me as he was going out somewhere. He was dressed in this smart tux. He still picked me up and took me inside, getting soaked in the process. He asked what the fuck I was doing outside his place. Did I know him? I said yes. Yeah, I did. But then I was stuck again. I still couldn’t figure out what to say to make it make sense. He asked me if I’d fucked him and I said no. He asked if I was gonna tell him how the fuck I knew him then, and I said, yeah. At some point. When I’d worked up to it. And then that was that.”