“Do they not care or…?”
“They care about me,” I say into a laugh, thinking about the big Italian-American brood I grew up around. “They probably care too much. They’ll be gossiping at every Sunday meal—hell, centuries from now, my aunts will be clanking skeleton teeth in their graves, not able to shut up about my relationship.”
Sulli laughs.
Christ, I love the sound of her laugh. Bright but smoky.
I tell her, “My family is like yours in a lot of ways. They’d drop everything if I needed them.” We both stare out at the glittering pool while we talk. “But I didn’t come from much. They don’t expect a lot out of me, other than to be a good person and to be happy. Add in the fact that my ma sees me as the ‘free-spirited’ one”—I use air-quotes—“and I doubt she ever really saw me settling down. I’m the son who’ll go fuck off wherever my soul takes me.” I raise a shoulder. “Just so happens it’s taken me to you.”
Sulli catches my eyes on those last words and breathes in. Her hand rests on my thigh, and I place my hand atop hers.
Our fingers thread, and she says, “I think I’ve put more pressure on myself than my parents have ever put on me.”
I nod a few times. “You know, I’ve been around your families long enough to know the world expects different things from you. Some want you to be like your parents—to have the same love story as them.”
She snorts. “That’s fucking impossible.”
I tilt my head gently. “You knew Akara when you were sixteen like your dad knew your mom.”
“Akara is barely like my dad,” Sulli says adamantly. “Not that I don’t love my dad or my parents’ love story—it’s epic, unable to be replicated—but I just know now, today, as I sit here with you, that I want to go my own way. Ever since Yellowstone, it’s been the most freeing I’ve ever felt.”
I skate a hand across her soft, bare back, and she leans more of her weight into me. “Other people out there are gonna want you to be their ideal version of Sulli or the Sulli they think they know. But the only person who knows if they’re capable to handle this kind of romance is you. Not Big Sal down Passyunk or Joey Junior in the row house next door.”
Sulli looks up, squinting. “Are those real fucking people?”
“Yeah,” I say, using my hand to block the light from her eyes. “Though, you’re never meeting Joey Junior. He’s a fucking prick and stole my boots in third grade.”
She makes an angry face. “If I was better at writing, I’d write him a fucking letter.”
“Yeah? What would it say?”
“Fuck off, Joey Junior. Sincerely, Banks’ mermaid.”
I laugh, one that rumbles deep in my chest, and as our eyes meet again, I tell Sulli, “I wish your family gave you more credit. I know you can do this without their safety nets.”
Sulli rocks into me, “I wish your brother gave you more credit too.”
I bob my head, both of us exchanging a deeper look, deeper breath together, because we’re going through similar issues with similar families who love us too fucking much. No one wants to see us hurt.
I can’t look at her for long.
Pulling my gaze to the sky, I scan for drones.
Sulli wrings out her wet hair, wearing a sporty bikini that shows off her abs and tanned skin. Beads of water dry on her collarbones, the longer she’s two-thirds out of the pool. “Have you talked to your dad since Akara hired him?”
“No, and I’m hoping it stays that way.”
No drones.
Sulli lifts one foot out and holds onto her ankle. “What’d he do, Banks?”
It’s always been too easy to talk to Sulli. Shutting her out sounds like hell, and I’m not my brother.
Thatcher loves descending into that kind of self-torment like it’s Saturday tee time on a fucking golf course.
I swallow a pit in my throat. “You can’t tell Akara if I tell you. He’d fire my dad out of loyalty to me, and he can’t do that. Kitsuwon Securities needs him.” I take a beat. “I know it might not be fair to put that on you, but he can’t know.”
And I want you to know, Sulli. I force myself not to add that and put more pressure on her, but maybe she can read those words all over me.
She touches her lips, focused. “It should be alright if I keep some things private between you and me, and vice versa, between Akara and me.” She drops her hand. “And even if I can’t lie all that fucking well, I’m not that terrible at keeping secrets. I haven’t spilled Luna’s yet to either of you.”
She’s not wrong about that.
In the next second, Sulli rotates more to face me. “I want to know about you and your dad, if that’s not crystal.”