by Penny Reid
I scoffed, shaking my head in disgust. “You should win the Brother of the Year Award, really. Nice job.”
Leo glared, lowering his voice. “What do you want me to do? I mean, I could talk to him, but then I’ll sound like an overprotective older brother and he’ll assume I don’t like him. I don’t want to lose an old friend, I’ve known Charlie forever. So have you.”
“You’re an asshole, Leo. And you make no sense.”
“Fuck off, Abram. What’s the big deal? She should just shut him down now so he’s not hoping later. She’s going to do it eventually.”
Seething at my friend, I walked through the door into the mudroom, too pissed off to say anything else. Charlie was his friend. Leo should be the one to step in and set him straight. It shouldn’t be Mona’s job. Leo, we, all of us weren’t even supposed to fucking be here.
At first, I was so frustrated, I didn’t notice the other people in the room. I moved to the far wall and set down the pulley, trying to get control of my temper. But as I calmed down—or forced myself to calm down—I glanced around. The women were pulling on their gloves, talking animatedly, laughing. Unsurprisingly, my attention immediately sought and found Mona. Or more correctly, Mona’s ass.
She was bent at the waist, adjusting her boot, the coiled rope was next to her on the floor, and her pants were definitely not baggy. They looked like yoga pants, just thicker, and fit her perfectly, though they changed the fit of mine.
I didn’t have to use my imagination at all. But I did. Just a little.
Tearing my eyes away before Leo—or anyone else—noticed me staring at the curve of her perfect and gorgeous rounded bottom, I left the pulley by the wall and crossed to the closet to retrieve my coat, gloves, and hat. While I was pulling them on and trying to get control of my blood pressure, Charlie burst through the door.
Upon spotting Mona, who was now standing, her long shirt falling to her thighs, he grinned that grin again and slowly swaggered toward her. I glanced at Leo and found him glaring at me.
On the one hand, I understood his dilemma. Charlie was a good friend, they’d been through a lot together, and Charlie always had his back. On the other hand, just because setting Charlie straight was inconvenient and might be uncomfortable, Leo owed it to Mona, not just because she was his sister, but because it was the right thing to do.
Not thinking about the instinct too much, I crossed to where Mona was standing, not missing how Allyn was glaring at me. This wasn’t a surprise. She’d been sending me unfriendly looks since the second day they’d arrived.
Mona’s head lifted, her eyes connecting with mine just as I said, “Thanks for letting me share your sled. I’m sure Charlie won’t mind using Jenny’s.”
Mona started, her lashes fluttering, her eyes wide, and she nodded. “No—no problem.”
Giving her a flat smile, I nodded, sparing a glance for Allyn. She was still giving me a dirty look.
Sucking in a deep breath, I turned to face Charlie, who was now scowling at me.
Great.
“What’s this for?” Charlie, who was still sending me annoyed side-eyes—which I ignored, he’d get over it—tugged on the rope Mona had just finished threading through the pulley on the top of the hill.
The other pulley had been set in its place at the bottom of the hill. They both hung from sturdy, six-foot poles.
“It’s a pulley system. You attach your sled to the rope here, using the hooks welded to the sleds. And then you can pull the rope to send them back up to the top of the hill.” She pointed out two metal hooks that had been added unobtrusively to the underside of the five sleds. Apparently, she hadn’t just made one of the sleds. She’d made them all.
The hooks were encased in a small tube of the same metal and were retractable. Since the sleds were on ski rails and the platform sat off the ground, the hooks and their tubes wouldn’t interfere with sliding down the hill. The tubes also kept the hooks from inadvertently catching a person or their clothes. The design was smart.
“Huh. Smart.” Charlie grinned at her. “So you don’t have to carry the sled back up the hill.”
“Nice.” Nicole said, inspecting her sled.
We were at the crest of a hill overlooking the house, the slope and length were just the right for sledding. Not too steep where going ass over ankles was a concern, not too long where walking back up the hill would make repeated rides not worth the effort.
Mona started back down the hill, stomping her feet as she went and bending over every so often to pack down the snow.
“What are you doing?” Jenny asked. “Do you need help?”
“Making snow stairs, for people to climb instead of struggling with the slope. Even without having to carry the sled back up, as you experienced on the way up here, it can be difficult.”
I watched her work for a moment, knowing I’d be down there to help her whether she liked it or not. But first . . . I turned to glance at the pulley system she’d set up. Reaching for the rope, I tugged, hard. The poles holding the pulley and rope were extremely sturdy. They didn’t budge.
“Why do you need the stairs?” I asked. “Couldn’t you use the rope to pull yourself up?”
I felt unfriendly eyes on me, so I looked around. Sure enough, Allyn was watching me through near slits, arms crossed, her mouth pinched.
Glancing at the sky briefly, I decided to ignore her, too.
Keeping her focus on the snow, Mona sighed. “Well, not really. Because if you pull on the up rope, the other side—the down rope—moves in the pulley and you’d end up staying where you are.”
“Yeah. True. But if you held on to both ropes, both sides, neither would move. And you could pull yourself up the hill, which would be easier, less energy, and faster than either taking snow stairs or climbing.”
Mona glanced up and our eyes met. As I’d come to expect, my next breath was difficult.
I wonder when that’s going to stop.
She just looked. Her face blank as she seemed to consider me. Everyone else glanced between us.
“And,” I added as another option occurred to me, “if you didn’t want to use both ropes like that, you could use the pulley. Someone could stand up here and pull people up using the ‘down’ side of the rope, while the other person holds onto the ‘up’ rope.”
Mona inhaled slowly, straightening fully, her eyes still holding mine, a glimmer of something behind them. The barest of smiles curved her lips. I countered the compulsion to return her smile by scowling, needing a defensive barrier against the admiring look in her eyes and the faint—but no less impactful—curve of her lips.
She nodded. “You’re right. Those are both better options—smarter, simpler options, less time-consuming—than the snow stairs.” Dusting the white flakes from her hands, she walked back to where we stood. Specifically, she walked back to where I stood, holding the sled we would share. “We should do one or both of those.”
The others agreed and made their way to the set-off point in the center of the hill, lining up to take turns. Jenny made some joke about snow in the pants that had Connie and Nicole jogging ahead.
Mona and I didn’t move.
She stood about four feet away. It was still snowing, and a snowflake landed on her cheekbone, melting almost as quickly as it touched her skin. I knew how it felt.
“Thank you.”
Steadying myself, keeping my features clear of expression, I gave my eyes back to her. “For what?”
“For being so civil.”
“Civil.” I tested the word on my tongue and decided I didn’t like it. “Civil as in civilized? You think just because people aren’t as smart as you, they’re incapable of civility?”
Her eyebrows pulled together, and she flinched. “I never—I never thought, nor do I think, that I’m smarter than you.”
“Then you’re an idiot.” I glanced over her head at nothing and I chuckled humorlessly. “What does that make me?”
She made a sound of frustratio
n, taking another half step forward, drawing my eyes back to hers. I was surprised to see a bit of fire behind her gaze, like I’d made her angry.
“Then I rescind my appreciation for your civility, and I thank you instead—and in specific—for sharing my sled. Or, I guess, offering to.” Her eyes were whiskey colored today and slightly narrowed, staring at me with what looked like simmering annoyance.
Perversely, I liked that I could get any reaction out of her. I’d been thinking constantly about our conversation in the study two days ago and I’d decided it had been one-sided. She’d barely said anything. She’d made a brave face, let me say my piece, and admitted only that she’d regretted it. But she hadn’t apologized.
And that fucking note . . .
Just thinking about her admission of regret and that note had me grinding my teeth. I shoved my hands into my coat pockets, a crescendo of anger making me speak without thinking, “Leo should tell Charlie to back off, but I don’t think he will.”
Mona was quiet for a second, and I heard her take a deep breath. “Okay.”
“Charlie isn’t a bad guy.”
“I didn’t think he was.”
Returning my attention to her lovely face, I studied the dark circles beneath her eyes, the paleness of her lips. But her cheeks were now pink, probably from the cold. Has she been eating? I didn’t think so.
Stop wondering about her.
“It’s none of my business. . .” I said, unsure what I was talking about. Charlie? Or if she’d been eating? Swallowing the impulse to ask how she was, if she was okay, I worked hard to keep my concern for her buried, shielding it behind the anger I was having trouble holding on to.
“Abram.” Mona had also stuck one of her hands in her coat pocket, seemed to be fiddling with something inside. “I’m not interested in Charlie,” she said gently.
She’d taken another step forward and it felt too close. Her eyes had turned soft, but also restrained. She looked like she wanted to say more. She didn’t.
Kaitlyn had been right. Mona DaVinci was a D minor kind of gal. She was all of those adjectives the interviewers used. Cold, brilliant, calculating, aloof. She was not the sunny, funny girl from Chicago that made me laugh, who was so easy to tease, who made me hot with her brains and body and wit. She was not brave. She was not honest, maybe not even with herself.
“Then you should tell him. Tell him, so he doesn’t waste time hoping for more,” I said, my voice rough, allowing the cold within me to join the cold without and embracing the numbness of disenchantment. “Try being honest for once. You might like it.”
9
Particle Physics
*Mona*
Try being honest for once.
I couldn’t get his parting shot out of my head. Try being honest . . . For once.
Even as I checked Leo’s temperature and pressed a cold cloth to his forehead, Abram’s voice chanted in my head, be honest, be honest, be honest.
“That bad?” My brother’s unsteady question pulled me out of my musings. He shivered under his covers and his jaw was clamped shut, like he was trying to stop his teeth from reflexively clacking together.
Poor Leo. He’d finally succumbed to his cold about two hours into our sledding adventure and would soon be in a medicine haze. I’d administered a hefty dose of everything we had in hopes it would help him sleep.
Glancing at the readout on the thermometer, I read, “102.4.”
“Ugh. This sucks. I just want to die.”
Rolling my lips between my teeth to stop my smile, I rolled my eyes at his dramatics. “You’re not dying.”
“No. But it feels like I am.”
Now I did smile, setting aside his thermometer to the side table. On a whim, I placed a kiss on his forehead. “You need to sleep.”
As I leaned away, he caught my eyes, ensnared them. Even in his hazy state, my small action seemed to shock the hell out of him.
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked, looking truly alarmed.
“Better than you are.” I pressed my cool hand to his cheek. “I’m sorry you’re sick, but I’m happy you’re not alone and sick.”
He coughed, covering his mouth. “I always have friends around, Mona. I’m rarely alone.” He had sore-throat voice.
“It’s not the same though, is it?” I watched my hand brush hair off my sweet brother’s forehead. “It’s better with family, I think. You know I’ll always love you, no matter what.”
Leo frowned, his glassy eyes turning thoughtful. “You love me, huh?”
I smirked at his ridiculous question. “Of course I do.”
He shook his head, his frown intensifying, and blurted, “Why don’t you like me touching you?”
I stiffened and held perfectly still.
But Leo had more questions. “Was it something I did? I know Lisa had her issues with me, and boarding school. We worked it out and I think we’re fine now. But what did I do to you?”
“Nothing,” I whispered, straightening to sit upright in my chair, but I didn’t completely withdraw. I covered his hand with mine. “You should sleep.”
Try being honest for once.
Leo might’ve been the one who was sick, but Abram’s words plagued me.
“There’s got to be something, Mona.” My brother’s eyes, the same color as mine and Lisa’s, as my mom’s, searched my face. “I’m really sorry, whatever it was.”
“It wasn’t you,” I said without meaning to, wanting to calm him.
It had the opposite effect.
Leo’s fingers tightened over mine, his eyes growing wider, suddenly fierce. “Then who was it?”
Try being honest for once.
Swallowing around a knot in my throat that threatened to bring with it a flood of memories, I glanced at the headboard behind him. I told myself for the billionth time that I’d given a meaningless and stupid incident too much power over me, over my relationships with my family, and my friends.
Nothing had happened. I wasn’t hurt. I was fine then and I was fine now.
Abram’s voice sounded between my ears, demanding, Try being honest for once.
I felt my lips curve downward in a frown. “Can we talk about this later?” I slipped my fingers from Leo’s, but didn’t remove my hand, covering his once again. “When your fever is below 100?”
Leo’s forehead twitched, he blinked his eyes, obviously having trouble keeping them open. “If someone hurt you—”
“No one hurt me,” I soothed, which I reminded myself was the truth. “But you’re going to hurt yourself if you don’t sleep.”
He didn’t believe me, it was written all over his face. “Mona—”
“Go to sleep.” I stood, reached for the light on his side table and switched it off. “I’ll be back to check on you later.”
“Mona.”
“Leo. Sleep. Now.” I backed away toward the door, punctuating each word with a finger point even though he probably couldn’t see me. “And I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
The shiver of disquiet raced down my spine, causing me to wince, and making me grateful I’d turned off the light. “Sweet dreams, big brother.”
He grunted in response and shifted on the bed.
Reaching the door, I stepped backward to close it, and heard him say, “I love you, Mona.”
Smiling into the darkness, I answered, “I love you too, Leonardo DaVinci.”
He chuckled. I closed the door. I took a deep breath. And, after washing my hands of residual flu-like symptom causing germs, I forced my feet to carry me to the dining room where I knew dinner had already been served.
I craved quiet, but I didn’t know if that was because silence had become habitual, or if I actually wished for it. Regardless, I refused to remove myself to my room again, or use Leo’s sickness as an excuse to be absent. I could’ve stayed with him and avoided the crowd under the guise of watching my brother sleep. That would’ve made me a coward.
After years of wanting to see him, Abram was here, now. At best, he hated me. At worst, he was indifferent toward me. I thought maybe his true feelings fell someplace in between. Everything between us was officially over. Any possibility of a future between us was an asymptote of a curve, approaching zero reaching to infinity but never touching the axis. I was clear on all of that.
But I also recognized these next few days would be my last chance to be near him in any meaningful way. I could avoid him and all the uncomfortable, painful, breath-snatching feelings, or I could experience him and the feelings. Even if he hated me, even if I didn’t understand why I continued to feel so strongly about him, even if the only memories I made during this time were agonizing ones, I’d take agonizing over another black hole of nothingness.
And that was honestly the truth.
Walking into the dining room, I scanned the table, my chest seized when I spotted Abram sitting at the head. Next to him were Charlie on the left, and, on his right, the woman Connie Will (from sledding this afternoon) had referred to as Kaitlyn. She’d said they made music together, and they were very, very close—whatever that meant. Just thinking about it made my heart beat faster and darkness edge into the corners of my vision.
Indulging myself for a long moment, I let myself devour the image of Abram, tucking it away later for quiet moments, because he was smiling. Sure, he wasn’t smiling at me, but that didn’t matter. Seeing him happy, smiling, no matter the reason, did wonderful things to my heart. For some reason, his smile made me think of delicious ice cream—rocky road—in a cookie cone, a delectable, decadent, rare treat, best when savored, licked . . .
“Mona! I saved you a seat.”
Abram looked up at the sound of Allyn calling my name and our gazes collided, a crash of cymbals between my ears paired with a buzzing, static feedback loop. His smile fell precipitously, but he didn’t look away. Peripherally, I was aware of she-called-Kaitlyn turning to look, obviously checking to see what or who had darkened his mood.
