She points at the restroom door.

“Why?”

She crosses her legs and pantomimes a bad need to urinate, complete with a nervous little dance. I’m sure several of the finely dressed diners at nearby tables are staring.

“I know exactly what you’re doing, Bridge. Don’t.”

She shrugs as if to say, I have no idea what you’re saying. Dumbass.

I watch my sister closely. I may be looking at her with only one eye, with that eyebrow raised. This feels like that sort of assessing moment, and the kind of look Bridget would give me if our roles were reversed.

She repeats her peeing pantomime for emphasis.

But my head is back in the truck on the way over. And on the short walk from the city parking lot to the restaurant because I didn’t want it valeted. I’d begun those discussions as discussions, not seeing them as monologues until later. Not quite remembering all the little knowing looks Bridget gave me through my speech, as if she was plotting something devious.

I know I told her about Mason. I might have told her how much I like the guy now that I’m getting to know him a bit. I doubt I told her that he feels a bit like a father because that’s surely my damage, having grown up without one. I know I told her how important it was to me that Mason liked us both. I didn’t tell her how dire my situation was because her surgery caused it and I don’t want her to feel guilty, but I’m sure I told her how badly I wanted the promotion and all it might do for me. For us, because Bridget and I have been the Two Musketeers since we were twelve. She’s the only one I’ve ever been able to count on, and I’m the only person she’s ever fully trusted.

And I know I told her about Riley — but right now, in front of the bathrooms with a dozen highbrow diners eyeing us, I can’t recall exactly what I said. Between the two of us, Bridget is usually the motormouth. But I must have cracked like a dam in her silence. I’m not used to doing that.

I told her Riley was the boss’s daughter. I told her that the company was named after her, and that the big man seems to dote on her more than Riley might want him to.

And I told her about our morning together. I told her that Riley was sent to pick me up. And dammit, I told her about the dress Riley had been wearing. In my mind, the point had been that she’s inappropriate and not ready for any big chairs, but I think Bridget took it wrong.

Just like she misinterpreted my explanations of our trip to the creek.

Just like, if I mentioned my dreams like I probably had, she’d have taken that wrong, too.

When we’d been walking here from the lot, I’d summed it up by saying, Don’t say anything stupid to Mason. Or to Riley. Bridget had whispered, “I won’t say a thing.”

She’d put emphasis on “say.”

And she’d smiled when I’d said “Riley.”

“It’s not your job to fix me up, Bridget.”

Bridget stabs her finger at the restroom, still crossing her legs theatrically beneath the long and elegant dress bought for her by a grateful client last month in Seattle. She crosses her eyes. Bugs out her tongue. It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.

“I’m serious.”

“I just have to pee,” she whispers.

Dammit. Bridget is a master at this. I came over here 99 percent sure she was trying to take the truck and run so I’d be forced to hang out with Riley alone. By the time I realized she’d arrived at the restrooms, I’d dropped to 90 percent sure, but this time that she was simply trying to force us to sit at the table alone while Mason was chatting, which would surely be a while. A minute ago, I was 70 percent sure that this was all a ruse, and that she was setting me up now for a long con intended to pair me with Riley later.

And now I’m only 50 percent sure. She’s making me feel stupid for waylaying her. She’s just going to the goddamned bathroom, after all.

Except that this is Bridget, and she’s always trying to force me into uncomfortable situations “for my own good.”  It’s not the first time she’s played innocent before blindsiding me. She says I’m broken inside and that while I shouldn’t expect a relationship to heal me all at once, having a girlfriend for more than a night would shove me in the right direction and heal me a bit at a time.

“You don’t get to make my decisions.”

Bridget starts hopping on one leg.

“She’s my boss’s daughter. And no matter what you seem to think, I’m not the least bit interested. She’s not my type. She’s a spoiled little girl. The kind we always used to make fun of.”

Bridget gives me a final condescending look and hops into the restroom like she’s crippled. She almost topples an old woman who’s on her way out, but she never breaks character. Bridget keeps hopping until the door is closed, and then it’s just me and the old woman, her glaring at me like I’m a pervert.

I head back to the table. Mason is still sitting with Ebon Shale and his date. I realize that Ebon also has a stone word in his name, like Mason. I’d been sitting between Bridget and Riley, but with the other two gone we look like a couple. There’s even a candle on the table and a concerto in the air.

I glance at Riley. She gives me an awkward smile and looks away.

Her hand, however, is there on the table.

I want to take it, and disobey every molecule of common sense.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Brandon

MY PHONE BUZZES WITH A text from Bridget.

I’m trying to be covert, but Riley is looking right at me. She can’t see the screen, thank God. I find I don’t want to leave her eyes to look down, but this is something I can’t let stand.

The message says, She sure is pretty.

I sense a digital slapfight approaching. Bridget and I didn’t have a typical parenting experience, but there were times when our mutual foster parents drove us somewhere or other. It was the scene we all know: Bridget would poke me. I’d complain that she wouldn’t stop touching me. Our foster father, Sam, would bellow that he’d turn this car around if we didn’t knock it the hell off.

I text back, What’s taking you so long? She’s been gone for over five minutes. That shouldn’t seem like a lot, but it is.

I had chili for lunch. 

She’s such a delicate flower. Men are always drooling over my sister, but it’s not hard to knock the losers away. They’re infatuated because of how she looks, but they don’t know her. It takes a resilient man to take Bridget’s intense sarcasm and general grossness. Unfortunately, Keith was one such man. I should have known he was trouble when Bridget stopped making fun of me, stopped jabbing me, stopped trying to get me a decent woman so that I’d stop being “a total bachelor asshole.” But I was busy and kept justifying Keith’s behavior — and Bridget’s. But she got quiet. Subservient. She folded his goddamned socks. Then he started hitting her, and still it continued for months until she finally called me from the hospital.

I slip the phone back in my pocket. I put my hands on the table, near Riley’s, and actually begin twiddling my thumbs before realizing that I should really knock it off.

My phone buzzes again.

She’s into the same music as you and likes to hang out at that Overlook place.

Before I can put the phone away again, she sends another: Oh, wow. She fucking does krav maga.