Page 56 of Boyfriend of the Hour

Okay, so that was a bit of a lie. But maybe not so much, given what he’d told me last night.

“He found out I was in a jam, had an extra room, and offered it to me while I get my shit together enough to take care of myself,” I finished. “He is beyond generous. And he deserves your respect and gratitude since none of you have to deal with me anymore.”

Both my sisters seemed to look at everything in the room but me.

Take that, I thought.

I knew it wasn’t fair to be angry at them for leaving me to figure this out on my own. But I couldn’t help it. Not completely.

“Anyway, it’s just until I’m back on my feet,” I said, reaching up to Nathan’s shoulder. Surprisingly, he leaned into my touch. “Then Nathan gets his apartment back, and you can stop making up conspiracy theories, okay?”

His shoulder was warm through the soft cotton. I wanted to slide my hand down. Maybe slip it under his sleeve. Find out if his skin was smooth there or not.

Eventually, though, I had to remove it.

“The truck is double parked,” I said as I turned toward the door. “If we all help, I bet we can make it in two loads.”

Two hours later,the truck that Mike had borrowed from one of his mechanics was empty. He and Nathan had brought up the battered, mismatched furniture left over from my room at Nonna’s while my sisters and I had handled my clothes and boxes.

Kate and Lea seemed content to put the room together for me, and I wasn’t going to argue with them about that, too. The room would probably be a mess in a week anyway, so if they wanted to fold my laundry for me, I wouldn’t fight it.

The only thing I felt strongly enough about was a framed print of a painting called “The Star” that Nonno had given to me before he died. It was a picture of a dancer in arabesque on stage, with other dancers peeking through curtains behind her and a man in a tuxedo watching beside them. He’d given it to me when I first started dancing, and it had always had the place of honor just over my bed.

It was by the same painter whose actual art hung in Nathan’s living room. In a funny way, it made me feel like I could belong here. Just a little.

While my sisters argued over the way to organize my closet, I slid out of the room in search of water. We’d been at it for hours, and I was parched. Just before I reached the kitchen, however, the voices of Mike and Nathan stopped me outside the door.

“I’d apologize for my wife’s behavior earlier, but she is who she is,” Mike was saying just before I heard the telltale crack of an opening can.

I snorted to myself. That was putting it lightly.

“Lea’s protective. She practically raised Joni and Marie herself.”

“Marie is the other sister who isn’t here?” Nathan wondered.

I smiled. He had a good memory. Most people just remembered I had a giant family and that was it.

“Yeah, Marie’s in France, learning to be a chef,” Mike said. “She and Joni are only ten months apart. Basically twins. But the kind that are complete opposites. They fought like cats and dogs when she was around, but we all know Joni misses her. She hasn’t been the same since Marie left.”

There was a familiar twinge in my heart. It happened whenever I thought of my wallflower sister, off and living her best life in Paris. Maybe it was jealousy, like everyone thought. I was always the one who was supposed to shine brightest, but nowshewas out there like a moonbeam while I adjusted to life as a drudge.

But it wasn’t jealousy.

Well, it wasn’tjustjealousy.

It was more missing the fact that we used to share everything. Marie and I didn’t always get along. Okay, webarelygot along. But she also knew me better than anyone. Even when she chimed in with the rest of the family’s “shit on Joni” times, it wasn’t the same. There were other moments, usually at night when we were falling asleep, where we would trade stories from our days. And she’d listen to my stories about the dumb comment I’d made to a teacher, the boy I’d let feel me up in the custodial closet, the newest dance move I was going to try. Sometimes, she’d tell me I was being dumb, but it was never without listening to thewholestory. Maybe because, until recently, she didn’t have that many of her own.

Marie always wanted to know the truth, not just some version that fit into the flighty, silly screw-up everyone elsethoughtI had to be. Which meant that, in the end, she knew me better than anyone and accepted me for exactly who and what I was.

I didn’t have that anymore. And when I’d lost dancing, the other part of my life that made sense, I’d realized just how badly I needed it.

I wished she were here right now. I would have given anything to know what she thought of Nathan and this whole setup. Oddly, I thought she would have liked him. They were a lot alike, now that I thought about it. Both were kind of shy, socially awkward, and fundamentally kind. They even both wore glasses.

Weird.

“Between you and me, I don’t think it’s all Joni’s fault if she’s a little immature,” Michael was saying once I tuned back into their conversation.

I frowned. What the hell did that mean?