Stay With Me (She's With Me #2) - Jessica Cunsolo Page 0,23

the fifth time since we started eating, and like every time before, she looks at the caller ID, scowls, then ignores the call. If it wasn’t for the hard set of her jaw, I’m sure someone would’ve asked her about it.

“What was the timeline they established for you, Aiden? Do you remember anything suspicious?” She sets the phone down on her lap under the table.

“Nothing. I dropped off the twins at their friend Tyler’s, got to Mason’s around four thirty, we left to pick up the pizza, and got to Amelia’s around seven. Just a normal night,” Aiden says.

“Until you got arrested,” Chase adds.

Annalisa’s phone vibrates, and again, she ignores the call, but whoever the caller was leaves a sour expression on her face.

“Anna? Maybe you should just get the phone. It seems important,” Charlotte suggests, pulling the open ends of her knit sweater together.

Annalisa huffs and turns her phone off. “This caller hasn’t been important to me since he ran off when my mom died and chose heroin over his own sister.”

We look at her in stunned silence. She’s talking about her older brother—or half brother—Luke. It was just a few days ago when Luke approached Annalisa at the Tracks, begging to talk to her for a moment, wanting back into her life. That had left her raw, him showing up, clean for the first time in years, wanting to be a part of her life. She’s kept quiet about it, and after yelling that he had killed her mother and storming off, she hasn’t mentioned him since, and we haven’t pushed.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mason asks gently as Julian pulls out his own vibrating phone.

Julian looks at the caller ID and sighs, a look of resignation on his face paired with a clenching of his jaw. He holds up his phone to show Annalisa who’s calling, and her kohl-lined eyes narrow into slits.

She grabs the phone from Julian and answers it, not giving the caller the chance to speak. Her voice is hard and threatening. “Leave me the fuck alone.”

She immediately hangs up, stopping herself seconds before slamming her boyfriend’s phone onto the table.

Noah bites his lip as if to stop himself from talking, trying to take a cue from the rest of us, who remain deathly quiet, and fails. “I’m sorry, Anna. We’ve been trying to ignore the fact that you’re very pissed off at someone, but it’s hard. Like, you’re angrier than my mom when she’s just home from work and I forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer like she asked me to do hours before.”

The only indication Annalisa gives to show that she finds Noah amusing is that she doesn’t roll her eyes as forcefully as she normally would.

“It’s Luke,” she says.

We look at her expectantly, having already pieced that information together ourselves. When she doesn’t elaborate, Julian continues for her.

“He’s been calling her all day. We haven’t really heard from him since that night at the Tracks.”

“And you’re not going to answer? What if it’s an emergency?” Chase squirms in his seat under Annalisa’s intense stare.

“The only reason I haven’t blocked his number yet is in case I need blood or an organ or something. But even then, we don’t have the same father, so maybe we won’t even be a match,” Annalisa deadpans, no hint of joking in her voice.

Poor Annalisa. Other than Luke, the only family she really has are the people sitting in front of her right now. I can relate to that. My mother is absent the majority of the time and even when she is around, I still feel like we’re miles away. The people crowding my kitchen table right now are the ones I feel I can call when I need help; the ones I can depend on.

I’ve never asked Aiden about Annalisa’s past because like her, I also have things I’d rather keep a secret, things that I don’t want anyone knowing. I understand secrets and messy pasts, and this is one that Annalisa should have the right to tell me and Charlotte about or not, since we’re the only people at the table who don’t really know her story.

“I mean, who does he think he is? Just calling me up like nothing ever happened?” Annalisa rants.

“He’s sober now, Anna. Maybe he wants to make amends,” Mason says softly.

Annalisa looks at Mason like she’s trying to use her brain to make his head explode. “You’re supposed to be on my side,