I rubbed a reassuring hand over Jules’s back as we stepped off the elevator and straight into an apartment that looked like it’d been lifted from the pages of Architectural Digest.
Light gray walls, black marble floors, gold fixtures. It screamed bachelor pad, but unlike two years ago, feminine accents now added a softer touch: a bouquet of white lilies here, a watercolor painting there.
“We’ll be fine,” I whispered to Jules.
We’d both fucked up in our own ways, but we could finally move on from the past together…after we cleared our last hurdle.
“Easy for you to say,” she whispered back. “You’re a blood relation. I’m not.”
“She loves you more than me.”
“Hmm. That’s true.”
My laugh died when Ava met us at the private elevator entrance to the apartment she shared with Alex. I quickly dropped my hand from Jules’s back.
We’d finally scrounged up the courage to tell Ava the truth a week after we made up, but all that courage died in the face of my sister’s expectant smile, which melted into suspicion when she saw Jules standing by my side.
I’d called to tell her I was coming, but I’d left out the part about bringing Jules. I didn’t want her piecing two and two together before we told her ourselves.
Then again, that might’ve been a smarter move. Let her get the shock out of her system before we saw her.
Dammit, Chen.
Well, it was too late now. We had to face the music as it came.
I pasted on my most charming grin. “Hey, sis. You look absolutely ravishing today. Here.” I shoved a box containing her favorite Crumble & Bake red velvet cake at her. “I brought you a gift.”
Ava didn’t take the cake. Instead, her eyes roved between me and Jules, who stood next to me with an overly bright smile of her own.
“What are you doing here together?” Her suspicion visibly deepened. “You’re not going to ask me to mediate another argument, are you? Because you’re both grown adults.”
Jules and I exchanged a quick look.
Maybe we should’ve come up with a better plan than bring Ava cake to butter her up.
Alex came up behind Ava and notched an eyebrow when he saw the Crumble & Bake box.
Really? That’s your plan? He didn’t have to say the words for me to hear them, loud and clear.
I glared at him. Shut up.
He replied with a smirk.
Asshole.
He seemed to have forgotten that he once snuck around my back to date my sister.
“Let’s talk about this over cake,” Jules chirped. “Nothing like red velvet to start the night right.”
Ava crossed her arms over her chest. “I need to sit down for whatever you’re about to tell me, don’t I?”
“Maybe. Probably.” I cleared my throat. “Definitely.”
The four of us settled in the living room—Ava and Alex on one couch, me and Jules opposite them. It was near sunset, and the dying rays of light streaming through the windows spliced the room into half shadow, half golden warmth.
The cake box sat on the coffee table between us, unopened.
“So, the reason we’re here together is because, uh, we came together,” Jules said.
Alex sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.
“And the reason we came together is because…” C’mon man, it’s a Band-Aid. Rip that fucker off and deal with the consequences later. “We’re dating,” I finished.
Ava stared at us with a blank expression.
“Romantically,” Jules clarified.
“Boyfriend and girlfriend,” I added.
More silence.
Ava hadn’t moved since we started talking, which wasn’t good.
A bead of sweat trickled down my spine.
It was crazy. I shouldn’t be scared of my little sister. But chatty Ava was normal; silent Ava was kinda terrifying.
Then, she did the last thing I expected. She burst into laughter. She covered her face, her shoulders shaking, while Jules and I exchanged another, worried glance.
Fuck, did we break my sister?
“Good one,” Ava gasped in between breaths. “You almost had me.” She tried to straighten her face only to collapse into laughter again a second later.
“Uh…” Of all the ways I pictured this conversation going, Ava losing her marbles wasn’t one of them.
Jules knocked her knee against mine. “She thinks we’re joking,” she hissed.
“I know.” I cleared my throat. “Ave…”
“Honestly, I’m impressed you guys put aside your differences long enough to come up with this plan.” Some of Ava’s mirth had finally subsided, though her grin remained.
“Ave…”
“Is this payback for Vermont? Because that was months ago, and I had no idea there’d only be one bed.”
“Ava, we’re not joking!”
My declaration rang through the room, followed by thick, stunned silence.
My sister’s grin disappeared. “You’re not…” Her eyes darted between us again, taking in our tense expressions and the way our thighs touched. Horror dawned on her face. “You’re actually dating? How is that possible? You hate each other!”
“Welllll…” I dragged the word out. “Not anymore.”
Jules chimed in. “We’ve been working together at the clinic—”
“It started as a no strings attached kinda thing—”
“We didn’t plan for this to happen—”
Our voices overlapped in a rushed explanation before Ava held up a hand and cut us off. “How long have you been dating?”
I winced. “Er, a week this time around.”
“What do you mean, this time around?”
Goddammit. We definitely should’ve come up with a script for this.
Since it was too late, Jules and I forged ahead and told Ava everything, starting with our sex-only arrangement and ending with our reconciliation last week. We left out the ugly details about Max and chalked our breakup up to a misunderstanding, but otherwise, it was a pretty comprehensive summary.
By the time we finished, Ava’s skin had taken on a faint green tint. She glared at me. “You’re telling me you’ve been sleeping with my best friend for months?” She pointed at Jules. “And you’ve been sleeping with my brother for months? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me earlier!”
Jules gave a helpless shrug. “I never found the right time to tell you I was banging your brother.”
The green tint on Ava’s skin deepened.
“You did the same with him!” I gestured toward Alex, who watched the scene unfold with a bored expression. He didn’t even try to help. Traitor. “You guys were dating for months before I found out. Don’t be a hypocrite.”
“That was different,” Ava growled. “We didn’t loathe each other with a burning passion, then turn around and start making out.”
“I know this is a shock, considering my past…differences with Josh.” Jules’s bottom lip disappeared between her teeth. “But with us working together at the clinic and seeing each other so much, it just sort of happened. We really hadn’t planned to keep it from you for so long. We just weren’t sure it was even going anywhere, and we didn’t want to tell you until we were. It would make things too awkward.”
“Right.” Ava closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Alex, bring me a knife.”
I paled. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I held up one hand and drew Jules closer to me with the other. “I’m your only brother. You love me. Remember when I gave you the last of my Milk Duds at the movie theater? Good times.”
Ava ignored me until Alex returned with the requested knife.
I scowled at him. So this was how I was going to die. Betrayed by my best friend again and stabbed to death by my sister. Julius Caesar had nothing on me in terms of a shitty death.
My heart pounded as Ava grasped the knife, leaned forward…and opened the dessert box. She sliced off a piece of cake and took a bite.
Silence descended.
“Should we say something else?” Jules whispered.
“She still has a knife in her hand,” I whispered back. “Let’s wait.”
We watched while Ava finished eating with an unreadable expression. But when she spoke again, her voice had lost some of its hard edge. “How serious is this?”
Relief loosened the knot of anxiety in my chest. I recognized that voice. She was coming around.
I wasn’t worried about her cutting us off forever because we snuck around behind her back, but I also didn’t want to spend weeks on the outs with my sister.
“I no longer want to kill her every time I set eyes on her, so pretty serious,” I joked before sobering. “Listen, I know this must be weird as fuck for you, but I promise, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t serious. You know what I asked you when I found out about you and Alex? What you said?” I flicked my gaze to Alex, whose bored expression gave way to one with more interest. “I feel the same about Jules.”
“Ava.” I stared at her in shock, trying to make sense of a world that had turned upside down. My sister and my best friend. My best friend and my sister. Together. “Do you…love him?”
There was a short pause.
When Ava finally answered, her voice was soft but steady. “Yes. I do.”
Present Ava stared at me a second longer before she stood and tilted her head toward the kitchen. “Let’s talk. Alone.”
Jules gave me a semi-nervous glance as I stood. I responded with what I hoped was a reassuring smile before I joined my sister in the kitchen.
“Did you mean what you said?” Ava asked once we were out of the others’ earshot. “About what you feel for her?”
“Yeah.” My face softened. “I love her, Ave. We may still fight and argue sometimes, but at the end of the day…she’s it.”
I would take a thousand fights with Jules over a thousand easy days with anyone else.
Because I didn’t want easy. I wanted her.
“Right.” Ava sighed. Her shoulders finally relaxed, and a smidge of guilt passed over her face. “I didn’t mean to give you such a hard time, especially since you were so understanding when I told you about Alex. But I know how you are with women, and I know how Jules is with guys. You both hate commitment. I just don’t want you breaking each other’s hearts. I love you both, and I can’t choose a side if that happens. That being said…” She jabbed the blunt edge of her knife into my chest. “If you hurt her, I will murder you.”
“What makes you think I’d be the one doing the hurting? I could very easily be the hurtee.”
Was that a word? If it wasn’t, it was now.
“Murder. You,” Ava emphasized with additional jabs.
“Fine.” I grinned. “So, does that mean you’re okay with us dating?”
“I guess,” she grumbled through a burgeoning smile. “My brother brought to his knees by my best friend. Good job, Jules.”
Another scowl replaced my grin. “She did not bring me to my knees. At least, not figuratively.”
This time, Ava’s smile was the one that disappeared. “Okay, one rule. Don’t talk or make innuendos about your sex life. Ever.” She mimed gagging.
I laughed and pulled her into my chest for a hug. I ruffled her hair the way I did when we were kids, earning myself a muffled protest. “I won’t, but the rule applies to you, too.”
“Fine.” Ava batted my hand away and smoothed her hair with another grumble, but her annoyed expression soon melted into something softer. “Seriously, I’m happy you’re happy. I know things have been hard with…everything. I’ll always be here for you, but I’m glad you have someone like Jules by your side. She can be a bit…dramatic sometimes”—we both let out knowing laughs—“but she has one of the biggest hearts I know.”
A ball of emotion formed in my throat. “I know.” I squeezed Ava tighter and dropped a small kiss on the top of her head. “Thanks, sis.”
Even though we annoyed the hell out of each other sometimes, I was lucky to have her as my sister. Before I met Alex, she was my sounding board for all my problems and vice versa. We didn’t confide in each other as often now that we were all grown up with our own lives, but there would never be a day when we didn’t have each other’s backs.
