Page 10 of Sigma
“Just you.” Not touching that one with a fifty-foot pole.
“Huh. Okay, well, gotta go. Love you, sis. Have fun while I’m gone.”
“Duke and Temple are coming over, so you know it’s gonna be fun.”
He frowns. “I’m missing Uncle Duke? Sucks, he’s so much fun.”
I give Cal a quick hug and then back away as Mercedes fires up the jet engines. Cal climbs in first, followed by Dad. The last I see of them is Dad giving me a big smile and a wave as the door closes.
There’s a weird, heavy feeling in my stomach as they slide away from the dock and away from the island into open water, where, far enough from the docked and moored boats, Mercedes can finally gun the throttle.
I look at Layla, and she too has a speculative look on her face. Then, she brightens, and claps her hands. “All right, kids. I’ve got one more shop to hit, then lunch, and then back to the island.”
Killian is with us, now, still clad in his board shorts and flip-flops, shirtless. He’s darker complected than Bryn is, with thicker and more tightly coiled black hair. His eyes are striking, being exact copies of Uncle Harry’s vivid green. I’d never admit this to Bryn, especially not after my outburst about her drooling over Cal, but I do find Killian unbearably attractive. He’s off-limits, of course—even if Bryn and I aren’t actually related, she’s at very least my best friend, and everyone knows your best friend’s little brother is the most off-limits a guy can get.
But like Bryn said about Cal, Killy is just…hot.
He hates being called Killy. He went on a years-long campaign to get himself called Kill, but no one cooperated and he stopped speaking to us all for at least a month. Eventually, he acquiesced to the fact that to us, his family, he’s Killy. But if anyone else tries to call him that, he’ll go ape-shit. Like me and being called Rinny.
Killy is like his father, in that he’s quiet and laid-back, and often rather serious and intense. He makes a counterpoint to Cal, who’s outgoing, loud, energetic, rarely serious, and lackadaisical about just about everything.
When Auntie Layla says “one more shop,” what she actually means is five or six more. I love shopping. I mean, Ireallylove shopping. But Auntie Lay-Lay? The woman is a shopping goddess. She’s tireless and has an absolutely uncanny knack for finding the best deals. Which is funny, because Uncle Harry and Aunt Layla have a ton of money—not as much as Mom and Dad, but few people on the planet do, a fact of which I am acutely aware—so she really doesn’t have to look for deals, since she can afford anything she wants. I asked her about this once, and she told me a new purse is great, but a purse you got for thirty percent off is even better, and despite being wealthy, she’s never lost that mentality.
Once she’s finally done shopping and a porter has been hired to transport the mountain of bags back to the plane, we hit up our favorite lunch, the Side Street Pub.
Killy is unusually quiet throughout lunch, even for him, prompting Bryn to elbow him in the belly. “What’s eating you, bro-ski?”
He ignores the elbow jab, simply rolling a shoulder in a quintessentially teenage male gesture. “Nothin’.”
Layla snorts. “Yeah, okay, buddy. We believe you.”
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” he says, dragging a French fry through ketchup.
Layla tosses some bills on the table. “I wasn’t asking.”
“C’mon, Mom.”
“Killian.”
He huffs. “I’ve never gotten to do anything like that with Dad. That’s all. And I’m a little pissed off that Cal just…ditched us like a rotten egg to go with Uncle Val. I mean, I get it, but we had a whole thing planned, and he just ditched us without so much as a second thought. It’s just kinda shitty.”
Layla wrinkles her nose. “Well, second point first—if Rin and Cal were up in the Keys with us, and Dad asked you last minute if you wanted to go to HQ in Montana with him, would you or would you not go without a second thought?”
Killian shrugs again. “Yeah, I guess I would.”
“I know you would.” She pats his forearm. “So just look at it that way. Cal ditched you, and I get that it stings a little. But just remember what you’d do in his place.” She pokes him in the forehead, so he has to look at her. “As for your first point…have you expressed an interest in helping Dad with work?”
Killian squirms uncomfortably. “Um. No?”
“Right. Exactly. So no whining. You want to help? We’ll give you a job and you can help. But Dad’s work can be dangerous, so don’t think we’re gonna, like, put you in the field with the guys or anything.”
He rolls his eyes. “I’m not a hundred feet tall with a billion muscles, capable of shooting the wings off a fly with a bazooka from a mile away. So no. I wouldn’t think so.”
Layla cackles. “That’s just Bubba Thresh, honey. And there ain’t no one on the planet like him.”
I snicker. “I can’t believe Thresh lets you call him that.”
“Oh, he doesn’t. He hates it. But what is he gonna do about it?” She nudges Killian. “Sorta like you and being called Killy.” She nuzzles his cheek with her nose, adopting the simpering tone you’d use with an especially adorable puppy. “Don’t you hate it, Killy-willy-dilly bear?”