“I’m hanging up.”
“You never hang up on me. You always have time to talk to me,” she whined. She wasn’t wrong.
“When you’re not interrogating me.”
“I always interrogate you.”
“Goodbye.”
“Hunter, wait?—”
“We’ll talk tomorrow.” I hung up and tossed the phone onto the couch before it could betray me again.
Catherine was laughing so hard her shoulders moved up and down.
“Your sister is funny,” Catherine noted.
“She’s a terrorist.”
“She loves you.”
“She loves being in my business,” I corrected.
“Same thing.”
I glared. She smiled sweetly. Then she yawned. Not a fake one. A real, full-body yawn she tried to hide behind her hand.
“You’re tired,” I said.
“I’m fine.”
I gave her a look.
She sighed. “Okay, I’m tired.”
Her phone buzzed on the coffee table. She picked it up and read the screen.
“My mom,” she said. “They’re at a restaurant and asking if I want takeout.”
My chest tightened. Reality, right on schedule.
“You should head back before they get home,” I said.
She looked at me. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Probably.”
She stood, and I stood too. Neither of us moved for a second.
“Thank you for dinner,” she said.
“Any time.”
“And the cards.”
She was standing close enough that I could smell her again. Vanilla. Clean skin. Something that made my brain go blank. I wanted to kiss her badly. Because now I had fed her, talked to her, listened to her laugh in my living room, watched her soften when she talked about Isla and her family and how scared she was of not being enough. I knew more about her than I had this morning, and somehow that made wanting her feel less like a bad impulse and more like a disaster with roots. Her eyes dropped to my mouth. She wanted it too.
“We shouldn’t,” I said.
“I know.”