Sophia laughed humorlessly. “I hear that a lot.”
Xander nodded before saying, “So when you say your little brother, is that like…” He gestured between Sophia and me.
I suddenly realized if Cody were my brother, he should be hers too, a fact Sophia had clearly picked up on after Aniyah’s comment. I was so slow on the uptake sometimes.
“How does that work that he’s your brother but not Sophia’s?” he asked.
My heart picked up its pace as my fight-or-flight instinct kicked in, and I felt adrenaline rush through my body. It was one of those moments where you feel your stomach tense instantly and you wonder if you’re going to shit yourself.
I wasn’t sure what I actually looked like in the moment, but when my eyes went to Sophia, I had a pretty good guess. She looked pale—well, as pale as her complexion would allow—and almost sick.
I hadn’t been kidding about being a bad actor. The fact that we’d been able to keep all of this going for this long had been a miracle even Mother Teresa would have been impressed by.
Neither of us seemed able to speak, and I felt the light closing in around me like I was about to faint in front of a roomful of people I barely knew. Maybe if I did, they’d have to call for help and they’d forget about Xander’s question completely.
How had we been so careless? How had I been so careless? I’d held up the phone so everyone could see it said Mom when she’d called. Had I said it was my mom? Had I said anything at all? My life—or rather Brody’s life—was flashing before my eyes in a moment that seemed to drag on endlessly. Until suddenly from the depths of my mind, I pulled out an explanation that made complete sense.
“We have different moms,” I said, feeling the color come back to my face and my breathing settle.
I looked to Sophia, and her shoulders seemed to relax a bit. I wondered if anyone in my group noticed the change in our appearance.
“Right, brothers from another mother,” she said at the same time I told them, “Sophia and I share a dad.”
Had she just said Cody and I had different moms? I felt like I was trying to solve a calculus question under water. Nothing made sense, time was running out, and I was in desperate need of rescue.
After a few more seconds, Toby was the first to speak. “Wait, you and Cody have different mothers, and you and Sophia have different mothers? So you two have the same dad, but it’s not the same dad Cody has because he’s not Sophia’s brother.”
His words were slow, deliberate, but that didn’t change the fact that none of the pieces were going to fit into a complete puzzle.
“But wasn’t it your mom who called about Cody’s party?” he continued. “Why does she care about Cody’s party if he’s not her son?” He seemed to be talking out loud as he pointed between us, as if hearing the words would cause them to make more sense.
Prepare to be disappointed, Toby.
I looked to Sophia, hoping like hell she could fabricate some sort of explanation that would magically make all of this believable. Unfortunately, she was staring at me with a look that said the same.
I’d nearly gotten us out of this mess when she’d thrown us back into it. There was no way I was capable of delivering two plausible explanations when I’d barely come up with one. We muttered some “yeahs” and then a few “nos,” trying to buy ourselves more time, but it only made the story more convoluted.
“It’s a funny story, actually.”
It was Taylor who’d spoken. I looked to her with hope. She was coming to save us—running down the beach in her red swimsuit, her blond hair waving in the breeze as she jogged in slow motion.
“When we were all kids,” she continued, “Brody used to tell people Sophia was his little brother because he’d always wanted one, and Soph was a huge tomboy.”
There it was. The rescue tube we’d been waiting for.
“I was?” Sophia said as more of a question, and I looked over to the kitchen counter to see if there was any tape around so I could put it over her mouth.
“I mean I was,” she said, more confidently this time. “Short hair, polo shirts, baseball caps, these really saggy pants with boxers showing. It wasn’t a good look.”
I was tempted to shift my focus from