It was stuff like this that made me return to my family theory, which was that Austin had inherited my mother’s ability to live without consequence and charm her way through tricky circumstances. My little brother was always so good with people. He could be thrust into any situation and people would flock to him. What’s that saying, like bees to honey? He had all the honey. Me—I was the opposite. I fluttered around people like Austin, easily charmed, like my father.

“Speak for yourself.”

“How do you even know enough people here to have a party? I mean—”

“Look, I gotta go. See you sometime tomorrow. Stop worrying. You should come over. Love you.”

He hung up before I could get in another word.

Oh, Austin. I love you, but sometimes you make some really shitty life choices.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I was surprised to find my front door locked. I dug for my key and let myself in, grabbing my mail from the box on the way. My little mailbox was falling off my house. Another thing to fix. As I flipped through envelopes, a realtor’s brochure of fancy, expensive houses in Atlanta was on top. I searched for the smiley realtor—Sandra Deen, was her name. The price for a house in Buckhead, with a sparkling swimming pool, was three million dollars. Yeah, I freaking wish, Sandra.

Until I hit the lottery or my random idea of opening up a chain of high-end spas takes off, it’s the little white house with the dangling red mailbox for me. When I got inside, the house was heavy with silence. I went through the rest of my mail—nothing interesting, mainly bills and flyers—and because the entire house smelled of Elodie’s popcorn and it made my stomach growl, I grabbed some pretzels from the pantry.

My house felt different with no sound. It felt strange not hearing the name Olivia Pope every few minutes. I was completely alone. No Elodie. No Kael. We didn’t agree on a time or anything, but I guess I’d assumed that he would be at my house when I got off work.

Where else would he go?

I microwaved the last of the leftovers from Mali. I washed a load of dishes. Sat at my kitchen table. Grabbed the paperback I was reading to pick up where I had left off. I tried to focus on the story, but I kept thinking about Kael, wondering how he would be when he got here. If he was still coming. Would he be more talkative than before?

I loved to torture myself with second thoughts, so now I wondered if I had misconstrued the whole situation. Did Kael want to come over? Was he under the impression that I wanted him to come over? I started to convince myself that he might be thinking I was weird or pushy. Or both.