My body tingled with energy, waiting for her response.

Finally, she let out a sigh and said in a small voice, “Why would you want to help me? You don’t even know me.”

It was the same point she’d made at the bar the other day. But as I stared into her eyes that seemed to hold one million thoughts, I couldn’t help but think that she was wrong. Or at the very least, that she would be wrong. Knowing her seemed inevitable. I could feel it in my bones.

“But I want to know you,” I said.

Before I had my answer, Mattie and Giles returned to the table, pulling out their seats.

“Sorry about that,” Mattie said, sitting down. “They were, in fact, the wrong glasses. Took a minute to sort it out with the delivery driver.”

“All good now?” Frankie asked, her eyes still glued to mine.

“It’s all sorted,” Giles said. “We interrupt something?”

I grinned. “Nope, just talking about how Frankie and I should hang out more, since we’re both new in town, after all.”

The way her eyes lit up made me want to tug her seat closer to mine.

Mattie let out a small laugh. “What are you planning to do?”

“I don’t know. Snowboard? Hike? The possibilities are endless,” I said.

“Good luck with that.” Mattie pointed at me. “Frankie isn’t exactly the most athletically inclined.”

“Neither are you,” Frankie shot back.

Giles chuckled. “Mattie has come a long way.”

“I’m not unathletic,” Frankie insisted.

“Remember track and field? Sophomore year of high school.”

Frankie tossed her head back and groaned at that. “That happened over ten years ago. I was doing fine until I sprained my ankle.”

“Allegedly.” Mattie raised her eyebrows before taking a sip of wine. “I still think you faked it so you could quit.”

“Okay, first of all, you weren’t even there when I fell, and second off—” Frankie held up another finger and launched into a prepared argument I had a feeling the two had already gone through many times in the past.

Their dynamic made me smile. I glanced over at Giles to see if he was enjoying the sibling spar as much as I was, but he ran a hand down his face. He caught my eye and gave a small shake of his head. Maybe he didn’t know what to make of the two of them. He was an only child, after all. Mattie and Frankie weren’t much like Nathan and me, but I could still recognize the intricacies of a sibling relationship when I saw one.

Nathan and I hadn’t fought much growing up, but at the same time, we also never got along. There was an unspoken rivalry there, something put in place by our parents that we never quite understood but accepted all the same. Except it wasn’t the two of us battling for the best grades or being the football star or some crap like that. We were battling lifestyles—our parents’ lifestyles to be more specific. Dad had Nathan working like a dog in school, while my mother worked on crafting me to be her upbeat sidekick. Sounded fun in theory. In reality, it fucked with all of our heads.