Trials and Tiaras (Untouchable #7) - Heather Long Page 0,53

and I grabbed chips and queso. She filled our sodas and got diet for herself. I grimaced. When had she started drinking diet?

Adding it to the mental list of things we needed to talk about, I let her choose the table since I’d chosen the restaurant. She picked one of the quieter booths on the side where the tall backs gave us an illusion of privacy. Once we were seated, I dug in while she moved the food on her plate more than actually ate it.

True to my word, I waited her out.

“You’re really going to sit and stare at me while I eat?”

“I’m staring, but you’re not actually eating.” I pointed to her plate with my fork. “You keep moving your rice from one side of the plate to the other.”

The baleful look in her hazel eyes made me shrug.

“I notice things, Sis.”

“When you want to,” she muttered.

“Okay, what have I not noticed that you’re clearly pissed at me about?”

“If I have to tell you, then clearly you haven’t noticed things.” She made a face, and I leaned back in the booth and kept staring at her.

It took fifteen minutes, but she cracked.

“Stop,” she said with some force. “Now you’re just being creepy. How does Frankie put up with you?”

“You should see what she does when I won’t tell her what’s wrong,” I pointed out. “All I do is stare. She’ll start singing.”

“You like her singing.”

“The worst, drunken and repetitive songs ever over and over… It’s definitely a form of torture.” I grinned. “We could try that if you want.”

“Don’t. You. Dare.”

I chuckled. “You’re lucky I’m not Archie, or I’d take that challenge. Now, eat and tell me what’s going on with you.”

She scowled at her food, then stuck a fork full in her mouth. Two more bites later, and she tried to wash the food down with a sip of her diet crap. The grimace on her face had me grabbing her drink and mine.

“Hey…”

“I’ll be right back.”

I dumped her soda and got her a regular one, even as I refilled mine, and then I carried them back and set hers in front of her. “I’m trying to lose some weight.”

“Right, well, run more or something if you want to burn a few more calories, not that you have a lot spare there, Sis. But don’t drink the diet stuff if you hate it.”

“Run more? That’s your suggestion?” She glared at me. “Not all of us are Frankie. We can’t all be human garbage compactors.”

Not an unfair assessment. Still… “Be nice. She isn’t the one you’re pissed at.” And after that scene in the parking lot, I had zero tolerance for letting her vent in Frankie’s direction. “You’re scapegoating onto her to avoid whatever it is you don’t want to talk about. If it’s a weight thing, I’ll listen, but you’re adorable, Sis. And you’re not fat. Not even close.”

“I barely have any tits or ass.” The rise of her eyebrows dared me to contradict her. “In fact, I don’t have a shape at all unless square is a shape.”

“Square is a shape, and you’re not a square.” I skipped right past the rest of it. “You’ll get there. Every girl is different, but starving yourself is not going to give you curves.”

“I’m eating for fuck’s sake,” she snarled and then stuffed another couple of bites in her mouth. I dipped a chip in some of the lukewarm queso. Her scowl deepened and then vanished as she slumped in the booth. “You are such a pain in the ass sometimes.”

“Only sometimes?” I mused aloud. “I must be falling down on the job.”

She snorted and then sighed. “You guys are really going to move, aren’t you?”

At the abrupt subject change, I paused with the chip halfway to my mouth. “Yeah, we’re going to for college, but it’s not like we won’t come back to visit.”

“So a couple of weeks here and there? And will you come back if Frankie cuts all ties with her mom?”

“Frankie still loves you too,” I reminded her. “And Bubba and Jake both have families here too. Besides, even if they didn’t, I’m not going to not be here.”

“You weren’t here for Christmas,” she stated, glaring at me. “This is like Dad all over again, only in slow motion.”

I stuffed the chip in my mouth to chew rather than answer her right away. The therapy sessions had been peeling the scabs off a lot of emotional wounds, most of them infected and refusing to heal.