After losing his parents as a teen, he doesn’t have a family of his own—my family is his, and he’s protective of them, which is fine, but he doesn’t see my perspective. He doesn’t understand that I feel like an outsider in my own family, that I know I’m loved but don’t often feel loved the way I need to. He doesn’t get how much easier it is for me to feel close to those I love from a distance, that only my love would bring me home, because that’s what it took for things to be okay.

Finally he glances down, once again frowning at the arm I hold against my side. My shoulder’s healed—despite what I told my family—but it’s still tender enough that ramming into the brick wall of Christopher’s chest has it throbbing.

A notch forms in his brow as he examines how I’m clutching it.

“You do realize,” he says, his voice low and rough, “that you don’t actually have nine lives to burn through.”

Before I can answer with some stinging reply, his thumb slips along the inside of my arm, making my breath hitch. My voice dies in my throat.

Releasing me abruptly, he steps back. “I’ll walk you home.”

My mouth drops open. The audacity!

“Thanks for the daily dose of patriarchal manhandling, but I don’t need an escort home. And I’m headed there”—I point toward Nanette’s over his shoulder—“to pick up buy-one-get-one-half-off pumpkin pies. I did not suffer a head-on collision with you only to be turned around by your high-handed nonsense and sent home without them, so piss off and let me by.”

His jaw’s twitching again. “Fine. Get your pies. I’ll wait.”

“Christopher.” I stomp my foot. “I’m twenty-seven. I don’t need to be babysat.”

“Trust me, I’m relieved we’ve outgrown that. You were a holy terror to keep an eye on.”

“Oh, har-har.” There’s six years between us, but for how condescendingly superior he’s always acted, you’d think it was sixteen.

Brushing by him, I storm into Nanette’s. The friendliness of the folks behind the counter, the soothing sweet scents of pumpkin and vanilla, chocolate and buttercream that wrap around me as I wait for my pies to be packed up, take the edge off my irritation, but not for long. When I walk back outside, clutching both pie boxes, he’s still there.

Plucking the pies from my hand, Christopher nods his chin toward my sister’s—now also my—apartment. “After you.”

I try to snatch the pies from him, but he lifts them out of reach.

I glare up at him. “I can walk six blocks to the apartment alone, thank you very much.”

“Congratulations. So could the woman who was mugged right here the other night.”