Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood

Eyes. On. The. Road.

“It’s for your safety,” he added.

“It’s complicated.”

“I don’t doubt it. But even if you two have kids together, or you’re married, it doesn’t change that he could be very dangerous—”

“He’s my brother,” she said.

Eli winced. “Shit.”

“Yeah.” She turned toward the passing streetlights. “Shit.”

The resemblance was there, now that he knew to look for it. The height. The near-black hair. The eye color was different, but not the shape. “Shit,” he repeated.

“He’s not always like this. But when he drinks . . . well. You saw.”

“I did.”

“I don’t think he would actually hurt me.”

“You don’t think? Not good enough.”

“No.” She bit the inside of her cheek. “My . . . our father, our estranged father, died a few months ago. He left us a small cabin in Indiana, of all places—we didn’t even know he lived there. We disagree on what to do with it.” Her head rolled toward Eli. They were all alone, and it was disarming, how at ease she seemed. “Are you bored yet?”

“No.”

Her smile was dim. “It’s not easy to say no to someone who shares fifty percent of your genes.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

He nodded once.

“Brother?”

“Sister. No public harassment, but she’s always found highly creative ways to drive me nuts.”

“Such as?”

Eli thought about teenage Maya, screaming at him that he was ruining her life and she wished he’d been the one to die. Grabbing fistfuls of his shirt and soaking the cotton after being stood up for homecoming. Poking her nose through his things because she was “looking for batteries,” then following him around the kitchen to criticize his choice of condoms and lube. Bitching at him on the phone that he always left her alone, that he might as well have let her go into foster care—and then lashing out whenever he’d tried to spend time with her. “Siblings can be hard.”

“I’m sure Vincent would agree.”

“I’m not sure Vincent has any right to agree.”

She was silent for a long beat. But when Eli thought that was the end of the conversation, she said dully, “One day, when we were still kids, he was late coming home from a friend’s place. I waited for him, worried out of my mind, for one, two, three hours. Wondered if he’d been run over, or something. Eventually he did return home, but instead of being relieved, when I saw him in the entryway, I thought, ‘My life would be so much easier if he’d just disappeared.’”

He turned to meet her eyes. Found a bemused expression in them, as though she’d surprised herself by divulging something that was clearly a source of deep shame. And he surprised himself by saying, “When my sister was born, my parents kept saying how perfect she was, and I was so resentful, I refused to even look at her for weeks.”

There were no platitudes, no raised eyebrows, no attempts to soften what he’d just said. She just studied him with the same lack of judgment he’d reserved for her, as though he hadn’t just shared the most fucked up of stories, until he glanced away. He didn’t even know her name, and he’d spilled about something he’d never acknowledged before, not even to his closest friends.

Probably because he didn’t know her name.

“How do you think your brother found out your address?” he asked, mostly to shut down whatever that exchange had been. An anomaly. Had to be.

“Online?”

“Well, fuck.” He turned right, heading for North Austin—the same road he’d take tomorrow morning. He was going to drive it thinking about her instead of the day ahead, he just knew it. This girl, she was going to stick around, even if only in his head.

“Right. Fuck.” She did it again—leaned back against the seat, closed her eyes—and this time he took advantage and let his gaze roam over her. Her long, long legs. Her full chest. The beautiful, rounded curve of her ear. There was something jagged, sharpedged about her personality, but her body was soft. His type, really, if he even had one.

If it hadn’t been for her brother, he could have known for sure. What a fucking pity.

“How old are you?” he asked to distract himself.

“Six years, two months, and five days younger than you,” she said without missing a beat.

“Nice. Did you also memorize my social security number?”

“You should invest in some identity theft protection before you find out.”

“I will, if you take out a restraining order against your brother.” There he was again. Glaringly overstepping. “If you believe he won’t hurt you to get what he wants, you are too trusting.”

“I think you are too trusting.”

“Me?”

“Yes. Has it occurred to you that I could be the serial killer? Right here, in your car.”

Eli looked at her again. Her smile was faint, her eyes still closed. He wanted to run his knuckles against her cheekbones. “I’ll take my chances.”

“With some girl who’s luring you to a second location and never even told you her name.”