Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood

“Don’t say UT engineering, please.”

“Okay. I won’t.”

“Well, shit.” Eli turned to Hark. They exchanged an uneasy look.

“Tisha and Rue, they might have better access to Florence than most other people at Kline,” Minami continued. “We might want to keep an eye on them. See if they know anything.”

Eli pinched the bridge of his nose. “Let me guess. ‘We’ means ‘me’?”

“You know her already. Just saying.”

“Going by what I walked into earlier today, I’m not sure it’s an advantage,” Hark pointed out.

Minami only smiled in a curious, secretive way. “Why don’t you go to her lab tomorrow, Eli? See what she’s working on. Snoop.”

Eli’s “ fuck” was soft. “Is this some abortive attempt at match-making?”

“Who? Me?” She slapped her chest. “Never.”

“Minami. Her work is not even related to biofuels. She’s beyond irrelevant.”

“What do we have to lose?”

Eli opened his mouth to protest—then closed it when he realized how unhinged his response would sound. He couldn’t say it out loud, that he felt like he’d already lost something, or at least the possibility of it. That he needed distance from Rue. It was bullshit, since they were distant, miles apart on parallel streets, and inserting himself in her life was not going to bring them any closer. “You’re so generous with my time.”

“Give it two days, and she’ll have you sleep with her for info,” Hark muttered. Eli’s hand, which had been patting his pockets in search of car keys, briefly stuttered.

“Poor Eli.” Minami smiled, sly. “He’s so put off by the idea. What hardship.”

Eli flipped them all off half-heartedly and headed home, resigned. Minami always thought she knew best. Unfortunately, she tended to be right.

When he stepped into his kitchen, Maya was sitting at the counter, frowning into her tablet at something that could have been a physics article or Wattpad fan fiction. She was that eclectic.

“I made dinner,” she said distractedly. “You hungry?”

He dropped his keys on the counter and tilted his head skeptically. “You made dinner.”

She looked up. “I ordered Chinese on Grubhub—with your money—and I put it on one of the paper plates I bought—also with your money—because I’m sick of loading and unloading the dishwasher. Would you like some?”

He nodded, smiling faintly while she spooned rice and chicken out of the containers for him. His gaze wandered to the table, where she’d made a move in their ongoing chess game. He made a mental note to study it later and accepted his plate.

The home where they’d been raised had been foreclosed a decade earlier, but Eli had bought this one about six years ago, after Harkness had taken off, after he’d paid off his sizable debt, after he’d become financially stable enough to cover Maya’s undergrad tuition wherever she chose to go. At the time, he’d figured Allandale would be a nice neighborhood to settle down in, with its well-kept parks and quiet atmosphere and good food. He and McKenzie had been talking about marriage, maybe not enthusiastically, but often enough that he’d taken for granted they’d eventually get around to it. They’d live here, and . . . hire a photographer for bucolic family photos, argue over the thermostat, grill every night. Whatever the fuck it was that happy, well-adjusted people did. They’d soak in the peace of the place, since their relationship was all about calm and harmony and restraint.

But here he was, living with his sister. His sister, who used to accuse him of crimes against humanity and couldn’t get away from him soon enough at eighteen, had decided to “come back home” for her master’s, her magnetic poetry stuck on his fridge and the syrupy scent of her candles cozy in the too-hot evening. As for McKenzie . . . Before today, Eli couldn’t remember the last time he’d thought about her.

That was telling enough.

“Where’s Tiny?” he asked.

“Not sure. Tiny? ” Summoned, Tiny barged in through the garden doggy door and threw all of his one hundred and eighty pounds of mutt delight at Eli, who was just as happy to see him. Maya rolled her eyes. “He was busy pining for his one true love to return from the war. I just walked him, by the way. The ingrate. How was work?”

Eli just grunted, vigorously scratching the backs of Tiny’s ears to his exact specifications. The reward was as close to a smile as a canine could physically achieve. “How was school?”

She grunted just the same, and they exchanged an amused look.

Look at us. Related, after all.

“Did you see Hark today?” Maya’s tone was the personification of casual disinterest. Eli swallowed a snort and sat on the stool next to hers. “How is he?”

“Still not age appropriate for you.”

“I think he’s into me.”

“I think it’s a felony.”

“Hasn’t been for a while, since I am almost twenty-two years old.” Tiny whimpered softly at Eli’s feet, as though in agreement. Traitor.

“Yes. Fair point. Until you remember that when Hark was twenty-two years old, you had yet to achieve full control of your bowels.”

She shot him a baffled look. “Do you think nine-year-olds use diapers?”