A million questions race through my head. I want to sit Harper down and quiz her. To ask her more about Charlotte. But Harper elbows me. She licks her lips and stares salaciously at Nick. “He’s so fucking hot.”
I drop my bat. It hits my toes before I can jump out of the way. “Did aliens just take over your brain?”
“Look. At. Him.” She’s ogling my buddy, who’s wearing gym shorts and a T-shirt. “His arms. Oh my God. They are the definition of arm porn. I’m going to take some pictures to stare at later.”
She starts snapping photos on her phone.
“I’m calling the psych hospital. We’re checking you in,” I say, wincing because my stupid toe smarts now.
Nick catches her gaze and sets his bat on the ground, leaning casually onto it, like he’s some kind of star ball player. “Hey, Harper. You’re looking foxy.”
Foxy? What the hell? Down is up and right is wrong, and New York is falling into the ocean instead of California, because why the hell is my best guy friend hitting on my sister?
Harper juts out a hip coquettishly. She waves at Nick with her fingers and bats her eyelashes. “So are you, hot stuff,” she says, then winks at him before she points at his shirt. “Can you take it off? So I can get another shot.”
“Oh yeah,” he says, sounding like a stripper as he yanks off his T-shirt.
“Yum.” She smacks her lips and mimes making a cat claw. She leans into me and whispers, “I am so going to be visiting him one-handed tonight in my fantasies.”
My eyes pop out of my head, and I clasp her shoulders.
“You have to stop now. We can get you help. There are treatment centers for temporary insanity.”
“There’s no stopping this train,” she says, tossing her glove on the ground. Shoving her cone into my hand, she struts over to Nick, who’s shirtless, his chest and abs on full display. Harper runs her fingernails down his pecs, then locks her arms around his neck.
My fists clench, not because I want to hit Nick, but because some primal brotherly protective instinct is curling through me.
“Dude. Hands off. That’s my sister.”
Harper swivels around. “Gotcha! That’s for ruining Santa Claus for me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
It takes a while to erase the image of my sister and Nick wrapped up in each other, even if it was just a prank, but I manage.
Thanks to my new obsession.
This photo. I can’t stop thinking about what Harper said about Charlotte, and I can’t stop looking at that picture on Page Six like it holds all the clues to the universe in it.
I stare at it as I head into the Columbus Circle station, having dropped my bat and glove at Nick’s apartment near the park. My head is bent over my phone as I trot down the stairs, then slip inside the downtown train. I wrap my hand around a pole while a hipster girl in green skinny pants shoves her way onto the car, sliding past the doors just before they close. She carries bags on each arm.
“Whew,” she says, relieved to have made it. But the edge of a cloth bag is caught in the door, so she yanks it free and turns in a tangle, spinning around.
Something whacks my funny bone, and I cringe. “Ow.”
Her hand flies to her mouth. “Are you okay? Is it my mayonnaise?”
“Mayonnaise?” I ask, as I rub my palm over my elbow while the train slaloms around a curve in the tunnel. What is it about funny bones that hurt so damn much?
“I have jars of pesto mayonnaise in this bag. I made it myself. I’m giving it to friends. Is it okay?” There’s terror in her eyes as she roots around in the straw bag on her shoulder.
Pain radiates through my lower arm while she ascertains the state of her condiments. “Don’t worry about me. Your mayo just attacked me, but I won’t file charges,” I mumble under my breath as I wince.
She looks up, realization dawning on her. “Are you okay?”
I nod. “Yes. Elbow matches my toe now.”
“You got hit with mayo on your toe?”
“No. A baseball bat attacked my foot earlier. Apparently, inanimate objects are out to get me today,” I say as the sharpness subsides. “Is your mayonnaise going to make it?”
She nods and beams as we chug into the next stop. “It will live. Sorry I hit you.”
“It’s okay. Hazard of big city living.”
She peers at my hand. I’m clutching my phone still. The picture is splashed across the screen. “Cute couple.”
“Oh. Right,” I say, raising my phone.
“They look really happy together,” Mayo Girl adds.
“Do they?”
She nods. “Definitely.”
“What do you think he should tell her?”
She cocks her head. “What do you mean?”
“So she knows how he feels?”
She shrugs and smiles wide. “He should just tell her how he feels. If he likes her as much as pesto mayo, he should let her know that.”
“I’ll tell him to consider that,” I say when the train reaches its midtown stop.
As I climb up the steps and exit into the early evening, I know this situation with Charlotte isn’t as simple as mayonnaise, and that’s not only because mayonnaise is my least favorite food.
* * *
The Lucky Spot is a zoo. There’s no time to think. No time to plan. And certainly no time to figure out what to do with the strange new notions that are implanting themselves in my head.