Page 102 of Like You Want It

Then I look at Susie, who has her hands on her cheeks, her eyebrows in her hairline, and the biggest fucking smile I’ve seen on her face in a long, long time.

“Oh my god!” she cries out, covering her mouth and bending over with laughter. “That was so scary but so amazing!”

Once she stands straight again, Carly flies towards her.

“Happy birthday, Susie Q!” she shouts out, lifting Susie up slightly in her arms. “You’re so oollllddddddd.”

Susie giggles and closes her eyes, snuggling in to Carly’s hug. Then she turns and starts hugging everyone, reveling in the attention.

I watch, enraptured, as Carly takes Susie around the backyard, telling her about all of the amazing stuff thatIcame up with for her birthday. She literally hands all of the credit over to me.

And the tightness in my chest continues to squeeze.

“You did all this?” Susie asks, her eyes wide, looking over at me from next to the Rob Lowe cutout.

I shake my head. “That’s bullshit. Carly did a lot.”

“And Dina got the cutout,” Dina shouts out, giving her hair a pat.

The girls all cackle.

“Thank you, everyone. Seriously. This is…” Susie stops, looks at the small but loyal group that has come to celebrate her birthday. Possibly her first birthday party in years. She weeps a little bit as she finishes up. “This is perfect.”

We all sit around my fire pit eating pizza, and then we putThe Outsiderson and I crank on the popcorn machine that sits next to the Robe Lowe cutout.

My sister looks fucking blissed out for the entire night, all smiles and happiness and thankful heart. It threatens to choke me. That simple, small gestures like this one can strike her so deeply.

How fucking alone has she felt to have something like this beeverythingto her?

And how could I have missed it?

I watch Carly and Susie, snuggled up next to each other on the bench seat that she borrowed from The Steam Room’s front patio area.

It makes me so happy to see Susie building a real friendship with someone who truly cares about her. Someone who wants the best for her. Who jumps through the fucking roof with excitement about throwing her a birthday party.

Because that’s what Carly does for my sister. Makes her feel valued. In a way I’ve never been able to do.

It makes me feel rotten inside. Because there’s a jealous part of me that wishes I could have been the one to do that for her. And there’s a selfish part of me that wants Carly all to myself.

And if I really want to open up that box in my mind, it feels like I’ll be shoving my sister to the side,again, to focus on a woman.

“Looks like you’re in a tough spot,” I hear from my right as I pour myself a whiskey.

I glance over my shoulder at Noah, who sips from his own glass of brown liquor, and all I can do is shake my head.

“Don’t start shit,” I grit out. “This is Susie’s birthday.”

Noah crosses his arms, dangling his glass precariously from the fingers of his left hand, and just gives me a slightly wounded expression that he’s mastered over the years.

“Me? Start shit?”

I roll my eyes at him and start to walk away. But don’t get very far before he grips my arm to stop me.

“Look. I’m fucking with you, okay?” he says. And when I look at his eyes, I see that he’s serious.

But that doesn’t mean I want to talk to him about Carly. Or Susie. So I yank my arm out of his grip and shake my head.

“We aren’t the types of brothers who can talk about shit like this anymore. You lost that right a long time ago. So don’tfuckwith me.”