I nod and help her to her feet. She picks up her bag and goes into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. I flop back onto the couch and cover my face with my hands. This girl will shred me. I already know she will. And I’m jumping in with everything I am despite the fact that I know it.

“Want to talk about it?” Paul asks. Matt comes into the living room and drops down on the sofa beside me.

You too? I sign and then throw my hands up in surrender.

Matt grins and shrugs his shoulders.

You guys like her, right? I ask. Their opinions do matter to me.

Paul nods, while Matt shakes his head. What the fuck? It’s like they’re at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Matt lays a hand on my knee so I’ll look at him. “I like her,” he says. He’s talking while he signs, which makes it easier to listen. “But how much do you know about her?” His eyebrows draw together.

I don’t know anything about her. Nothing, I admit. I don’t know a damn thing about her. I lean forward so I can prop my elbows on my knees. I feel like I can’t breathe. She won’t tell me anything. Not even her name.

“What’s she hiding?” Matt asks.

I wish I knew. I flop back against the couch again.

“She looks so familiar to me,” Paul says, looking toward the closed bathroom door. He shakes his head. “I wish I could place her.”

She busks in the subway tunnels every day, I sign with a shrug.

“It’s more than that,” Paul says. He shakes his head, like he’s shaking his crazy thoughts away. There’s no way he could know her from anywhere else.

“She staying over again?” Matt asks.

I nod.

“Don’t fall in love with her,” Matt warns.

Paul nods his head in agreement. “Fuck her and be done with her,” he says.

She’s not like that.

Paul exhales heavily. “You haven’t slept with her yet, have you?”

I slept with her. I hang my head. But all we did was sleep.

“You’ve never slept with anyone, dumbass,” Paul says.

I haven’t. Not since my mom died. I used to crawl in bed with her when I was young. Her bed was always warm and smelled like her. After she died, I used to crawl in her empty bed just so I could smell her, until Paul changed the sheets and took that room as his own.

I know. I’ve had plenty of women in my bed. But none of them stayed.

“Stay smart,” Paul says, tapping his temple.

“He’d have to be smart to stay smart,” Matt says, bumping my knee with his. “He’s already half in love with her.” He looks down at his fee and then glares at me. “If you don’t want her, can I ask her out?”

She’s mine! I sign.

He holds his hands up to fend me off. “I know! I know! I said if, asshole. I just wanted to see where your head is.” He heaves a sigh. “Apparently, you really like this one.” He shakes his head. “I don’t think she has bad intentions. But I’m worried about you. Be careful.”

Matt’s in love with April. But she dumped him when she found out he was sick. Self-serving bitch.

“She brought me a bucket when I was sick last night,” Matt admits. “It was nice of her.”

Paul’s eyebrows draw together. “That was you, puking your guts out?” Paul asks.

This is Matt’s second round of chemo. The first didn’t work. This is his last chance. He nods.

Why didn’t you tell us? I ask.

He scrubs a hand down his face. “I’m scared,” he admits. He looks me in the eye and then his gaze moves to meet Paul’s. “I’m going to f**king die,” he says. He grins but there’s nothing funny about it. “So you don’t have to worry about me asking her out.”

“Don’t joke about that shit,” Paul bites out.

“I’m not joking,” Matt says. He’s serious.

Paul leans forward and squeezes Matt’s knee in his hand. “You have to believe it’s going to work. If you don’t, you don’t stand a chance.”

Matt pushes forward to perch on the edge of the sofa. “You guys believe for me, ok?” he says. “Because I’m too f**king tired to do it.” He gets up and goes to his room, closing the door behind him.

“When did he start admitting he’s afraid?” Paul asks.

I shrug. It’s the first time I’ve heard him say it. I look up at Paul. Fear clutches my heart in a death grip. He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?

“I don’t know,” he admits. He swipes a hand down his face.

I pat my shirt pocket, reaching for my cigarettes.

“Matt has f**king cancer, dumbass,” he snarls at me, his hands flying wildly. “And you want to smoke?”

I jerk the pack from my pocket and toss it across the room, into the waste basket.

Paul nods. “Thank you,” he signs dramatically. He sags back into the lazy chair.

He’s going to make it, right? I ask.

He nods. “Of course he is.”

I believe him. Because I can’t imagine a life without Matt in it. I won’t allow myself to think he’s going to die. I just won’t. If Matt can’t believe he’s going to live right now, I’ll believe enough for the two of us.

Paul stands up and ruffles my hair, and it quickly changes into a noogie. I brush his hand away. “Don’t worry,” he says.

The starts down the hallway, and I clap my hands to get his attention. He turns back to me, scratching his stomach. “What?” he asks.

“I want to talk to her,” I admit.

His eyebrows draw together. “Yeah?” He shrugs. “So talk.”

I want to tell him about her dyslexia, so he won’t feel like I’ve been holding out all these years, but that’s not my story to tell. It’s hers. I shake my head. It’s just too hard to explain. She’s making me feel things I’ve never felt before. She makes me want things.

“I wish you’d just f**k her and get it out of your system. Then you can be done with her. And stop wishing for things you can’t have.”

She gasps behind him. Her mouth falls open and her eyes fly open wide. I can imagine her gasp, even if I can’t hear it. But Paul must hear it. His eyes clench shut. “She’s right behind me, isn’t she?” he asks. He opens one eye and looks at me.

Kit’s wrapped in a towel with another turbaned around her head. Paul turns to her, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. It had better be a profuse apology.

She glares at him for no more than a moment, and then she ducks into my bedroom and closes the door behind her.

“Shit,” Paul signs. “I f**ked that up.”

He knocks on the bedroom door. He knocks again. His hand wraps around the doorknob, and he starts to turn it, but she’s wrapped in a towel. I can’t let him in there. I leap over the back of the couch, and put myself between him and the door. I push his chest back and point toward his bedroom door.

“I need to apologize,” he says. He’s grimacing, and his face is flushed. He didn’t mean it. Well, he did mean it. But he didn’t. “I didn’t know she was there.”

I sign the word tomorrow. I place my hands on his chest and push him back gently. I couldn’t manhandle Paul even if I wanted to. He’s a great big son of a bitch. Even bigger than me. And twice as mean. Tomorrow I say again. I got this. I’ll talk to her. I’ll tell her you didn’t mean to hurt her feelings.

He nods and runs a frustrated hand across the stubble he calls hair. “Sorry,” he says.

I nod, and let myself into my bedroom. I lean back against the door. I expect to see her angry and throwing things. Or crying. I really don’t know what to expect. I don’t know her well enough to have a clue. She’s doing neither. She’s standing there looking at me. She unrolls the towel from her hair and her locks spill down over her shoulders. Her hair is all wet and tangled and she fluffs it with the towel, blotting it dry. She looks at me, but she hasn’t said anything yet.

“He didn’t mean that,” I start.

“I think he’s right,” she says. Then she raises her arms, pulls the towel free of where it’s tucked between her tits, and drops it to the floor. She kicks it across the room with her delicate little na**d toe. She’s starkly, completely, beautifully, perfectly, delectably na**d. “I think you should f**k me and get it out of your system. Then you can be done with me.”

Emily

I’m shaking like a leaf, and I desperately want to cross my arms over my chest. But I force myself to stand there. He looks at my pointed toe as I kick the towel to the side. My heart leaps in my chest, kicking like an angry mule. I expect his eyes to drag up my leg, and then to the rest of me, and my body heats in anticipation of his gaze. But he doesn’t. Instead, he rushes to the closet, yanks a t-shirt from a hanger and hands it to me.

I finally do cross my arms, but it’s so that I can more effectively glare at him. He looks everywhere but at me, and then bunches the shirt up in his hands, rucking it up until he can slide it over my head. He tugs it down until my h*ps are covered. Then he steps back, falls against the door and takes a breath.

“Damn,” he breathes. Then he grins.

I shove my arms through the armholes of the shirt, and glare at him. He’s laughing. Seriously? I arch my brows at him. “Beg your pardon?”

He chuckles into his closed fist, and then shakes his head. “He didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” He bends over at the waist, trying to catch his breath, he’s laughing that hard. I pick up a pillow and throw it at him, then sit down on the end of the bed and cross my legs. I still don’t have any panties on. And I’m too angry to care.

I just stood na**d in front of this man and he’s laughing. Tears prick the backs of my lashes. “This isn’t funny,” I say.

He sits down beside me on the bed and turns my chin so that I have to face him. “I didn’t see what you said,” he tells me. His thumb touches the corner of my eye, and his brows come together in confusion. “Did Paul hurt your feelings?”

I shake my head, pinching my lips together.

He reaches over and lifts my wet hair from the collar of his shirt. “Your hair’s still wet,” he says, as he picks up a towel. I brush his hand away as he tries to dry my hair.

“It’s fine,” I say. “Stop,” I warn.

“He didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” he says.

He thinks Paul hurt my feelings. What crap. Paul didn’t hurt my feelings. Logan did, when he completely ignored my offer. And he laughed.

I reach into my bag and pick up my panties, then shimmy into them. Logan looks away, and I roll my eyes. I was na**d in front of him. Does he really think I care if he sees me put my panties on? I tug the blanket from the bed and glare at him for a moment, and then I open the door and head for the couch. I’ll sleep out there. It’s better than sleeping in here with a man who doesn’t want me.

Matt’s at the kitchen table with his head in his hands when I come out of the hallway. I falter and tug on the length of Logan’s shirt. He looks down at my legs and smiles. “I’ve seen more skin at the club,” he says. “You might as well be a nun.”

I sigh heavily and throw the blanket onto the edge of the couch. Then I walk into the kitchen for a cup of water. “Can I get you anything?” I ask.

He looks better today. But he still doesn’t look good. “No thanks.”

“Did you eat anything today?” I ask. Now I sound like Logan, but I can’t help it.

“I did,” he says with a nod.

“Did you keep it down?” I tilt my head and look at him.

“Some of it,” he admits.

Logan walks out of the bedroom and skids to a halt in the kitchen. He looks from Matt to me and back again. He signs something to Matt.

“Dude, you can’t talk around her unless you want me to interpret,” Matt warns.

Logan clenches his hands together and bites his lips just as hard. He looks like he wants to say something. But he can’t. Not with Matt there. “Go to bed, Logan,” I say.

Logan shakes his head. He starts to sign, and Matt starts to talk. “He doesn’t want you to sleep on the couch,” Matt says. Matt sighs heavily. He gets to his feet. “How do you two communicate normally?” he asks, exasperated.

I can’t tell him that Logan talks to me. So, I just shrug. Everyone else in this family shrugs all the time. I might as well take up the habit. Become a master at evasion. “He can go f**k himself,” I say. “I’m sleeping on the couch.”

“Shit, man, what did you do?” Matt asks.

Logan signs something quickly.

“Damn. You should make Paul sleep on the couch.” He chuckles. “Seems like he deserves it.”

Logan stalks back into his room. Matt looks at me, grinning. “You’re turning him inside out,” he says.

Apparently not. He didn’t even look at me when I was na**d.

“What are your intentions with Logan?” he asks. His voice is quiet. He’s not threatening me. I think he’s genuinely curious.

“I don’t have any intentions. He tossed me over his shoulder both times I’ve been here. It’s not like I had much choice in the matter.”

“You could have said no,” Matt clarifies. He holds up a hand to stop me when I open my mouth to talk. “Paul was just trying to protect him. He’s never brought a girl home before. Not one he really likes.”

“I’m the first one he won’t sleep with, I guess,” I murmur, more to myself than to him.