Twisted Love (Modern Romance #3) - Piper Lawson Page 0,32

already gone.

I slide the key off the coffee table, drop it into the trash. And I’m left feeling more alone than before and it has nothing to do with being an ocean from home.

Sunday morning, I'm back in New York. Daisy and I need to get some things straightened out, which is why I'm at her door with donuts. Our arguments over the years have been few and far between, but I can’t find one that hasn’t been resolved by the crullers from this little shop.

Our phone call Friday night left me seriously questioning her commitment, and the rest of my time in London and on the flight home, I was distracted by it.

“Just a sec!” comes a voice, but then there’s nothing.

I use my key to open the door. I go through the apartment to find Lily standing on her bed, trying to change an overhead light in the center of the room.

“Daisy’s not here. She went for breakfast.”

"With?”

Lily teeters precariously on the edge of the mattress, one foot pointed out into space as she gets a hand on the light fixture. “She didn’t say.”

The hairs on my neck lift. “A man.”

“Wow. Down, boy.” Lily’s foot slips and she falls off the bed, looking up at me with a mixture of irritation and amusement.

I glance at the fixture. “I’ll replace the light."

"No. My sister thinks I’m a fuckup.”

“You’re the most important thing to her.”

Lily gets up unassisted, brushing off her shorts. “Only since Vi left. They used to be best friends. But after they went to school, something changed.” She cocks her head. "She still writes, you know."

“Vi?"

Lil looks back up at the light. "Vi sends postcards a couple of times a year. Daisy writes back, but she never sends them."

My chest contracts. "Because she doesn't know where Vi is."

"No. I think Daisy's not over the fact that she left. She walked away from college, our family, to live out random adventures abroad. Sometimes I think that’s worse. When someone chooses to leave. At least when they die, you can tell yourself they didn’t want to go.” Lily nods toward the doorway. “I think she has a stool in her bedroom.”

I try not to think about Vi as I go retrieve the stool and set it under the light for Lily.

She stands on it, unscrews the fixture, and passes me the glass bowl. "Did she tell you about the Vane wedding? She’s trying to pay for my school. That’s why she took this gig on top of everything else.”

“You’re in honors economics at Columbia. That’s hard work.”

Lily grunts as she untwists the lightbulb, holding out a hand for the other one. She finishes replacing the bulb before stepping off the stool and back to the carpeted floor, setting the burnt-out bulb on her desk. “But my sister got through school without help. She started a company. She’s tough. Relentless.”

I turn that over. “When I was going through school, I wanted to pay my own way too. If there aren’t any scholarships, you need to go another route. The profs need to know you.”

“I don’t want to network. Networking is for assholes.” The alarm on her face has me smiling.

“Most of them have funding for research assistant positions, or they can get it without much trouble.”

“Enough to cover tuition?”

“Not entirely. But it’ll also help you with grad school recommendations. Give you more control of where you go, and save money down the road.”

“How do you know so much about getting by?”

“We didn’t always have money. We were poor until I was four. My early memories are of stretching dollars. Until I was nine or ten, we did, because we had no clue how long my mom’s gig would last. It could be the last job for her.”

“You didn’t handle that alone, though. You have a brother right?”

I nod. “Tris’s younger. He had it easy."

Lil’s face scrunches up. "Being younger isn't easier. By the time you come into the world, you have all your older siblings' shit to deal with too." She shakes her head. “Speaking of. I'm not the only one in the doghouse. What did my sister's fake boyfriend do to piss her off?"

Surprise slams into me. “Daisy told you about our agreement?”

“‘Agreement.’” Lily uses air quotes. She brushes past me, heading for the kitchen.

"Then you get why she shouldn’t be out with Marc."

Lily goes to the freezer until she spots the donuts. She abandons her plans and instead lifts the lid, nodding in approval. "What I get is