Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 163209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 816(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 816(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
“See anything you like?” Cat asked.
Jean turned the painting toward them, earning a soft, “Oh,” from Cat. Laila crossed the aisle in record time with her hands out. Jean passed the frame to her and watched her trace the field of daffodils with a slow fingertip.
Jean held up his hand in case she wanted him to put it back. “It is not the same.”
“No,” Laila agreed as she hugged it to her chest, “but it’s a start.”
Cat came over to kiss her, and Jean watched Laila’s shoulders slowly relax as she leaned into it. They stood forehead to forehead for a minute after as Laila tended her thoughts, and finally Laila said, “Okay. Let’s go back for those shelves.”
“You sure?” Cat said. “I didn’t think you liked them.”
“We’ll make it work,” Laila said, so Jean went in search of a cart.
They were only out a few more hours, but they made more progress that afternoon than they had the day before. Laila committed herself to filling the apartment with grim determination and made overdue concessions on most of the basic furniture. They came home with boxes of things that needed assembly and spent the early evening swimming in Styrofoam and ripped cardboard. Cat volunteered to take the truck back so she could pick up dinner, and Laila went out to the balcony for some fresh air.
Jean surveyed the room with a slow gaze. It was offensive, still, bare of the personal touches that would make it feel homey, but the daffodil painting on the wall was a silent promise they’d get there eventually. He filled two glasses with water and took them out to where Laila was leaning against the railing. She looked tired but not as defeated as she had these last few days, and she watched strangers go by as she worked her fingers through her hair. Now and then she winced as she snagged on tangles.
“Thank you,” she said, giving up in favor of taking her drink from him.
He meant to leave her to her thoughts, but he set his glass by his feet and reached for her. Aware that he might be crossing one too many lines, he slipped his fingers into her dark curls and took over where she’d left off. How often he’d seen Cat and Laila brush each other’s hair as a sign of affection; how readily she’d tried to extend that same comfort to him while Andrew’s trial was underway. He didn’t know what else to offer her that would help her now. Four and a half months later she was still a bit of a mystery, half of Jeremy’s whole and a little too smart.
“You weren’t born here,” he said when she didn’t shrug him off.
Laila hummed confirmation into her water. “Capetown. Mom called me a happy accident. They’d been talking about having kids for years but weren’t sure it was a good idea considering my father’s career. I came along anyway.”
Jean could hear the smile in her voice. “But only you.”
“No siblings by blood, but Jeremy’s my brother in every way that matters,” she said, quiet and warm. “I love him more than life itself. I would do anything for him.”
Jean’s hands slowed as he turned her words inside out. He thought about Lucas and Grayson, Jeremy and Bryson, and Kevin and Riko. He thought of Derrick and Derek’s shameless affection and of Tanner following him around like a little duckling of his own. He thought of Kevin calling him brother on Hannah’s show, and the sour sting it’d evoked then was a dull and lingering ache now. He thought of Noah and Elodie, and he had to close his eyes against his grief.
“A brother is a complicated thing,” he said.
Laila turned her head to say, “You were a brother.”
It wasn’t a question, but Jean said, “Yes.”
He slowly separated her hair into sections. It’d been years since he’d done this for Elodie; he could barely remember how it was supposed to go. He tried and failed and tried again, until he got far enough to understand what he was doing. He worked Laila’s hair loose before starting over, and this time he managed to get a loose braid to stay. He had nothing to hold it together at the end, so he pinched the tail between his fingers.
Laila reached up and felt the plait with careful fingers. “Will you tell me about her?”
I can’t, he thought. It’s too big; it’s too much. He’d buried her so deep he’d surely fall in if he looked a little too long. But the braid in his hand was a rope back to sunlight and solid ground, so Jean said, “She liked blackberries and sandcastles and ladybugs, but faerie tales most of all.” He’d read them so many times he didn’t even need the books anymore, but Elodie loved staring wide-eyed at the pictures as he spoke. “She prayed for a dragon to save her.”