She was probably used to living in huge places, and this apartment was a far cry from the mansion she shared with Jace, Elliot, and Ensley.
I knew I guessed right when she said, “You know you can come live with me. There’s plenty of room at the house.”
Ethan nodded, obviously agreeing with her.
I rolled my eyes. “And watch you and Jace try to sneak away every hour of the day to have sex? Yeah, no thanks.”
“Gross,” Ethan muttered.
Evelyn snorted, though she was blushing a little. “Why are we talking about my sex life? And you.” She pointed to Ethan. “Don’t talk like we didn’t catch you sneaking girls into the house when we were growing up.”
“He still does it,” I added. I lost count of how many times I caught Ethan bringing girls back to his apartment over the two years. It was one of the many reasons I decided to move back to New York.
My brother needed to get his own life.
Now it was Ethan’s turn to blush. He looked off to the side and muttered, “I didn’t know you knew about that.”
I snorted out the beer I had been drinking and turned away, coughing in my arm.
“Seriously? You’re not very good at hiding it. It’s no wonder you always got caught by Dad when you were a teenager,” I said when I got myself under control.
“Whatever,” he said under his breath, still not looking at us. He was now hyper-focused on his pepperoni pizza. Evelyn and I shared a smile.
Poor Ethan.
I always wondered if he ever felt left out in our sibling group. Being the only boy couldn’t have been easy. While Evelyn and Ethan were closer in age than I was to any of my siblings, Evelyn and I had always been closer to each other than we were to Ethan.
I took in my older sibling, a soft smile on my face. We hadn’t all hung out like this in a long time—I’d moved to London for school for six years after my high school graduation, and then Evelyn moved to New York shortly after I returned. Even in the past three years, when Evelyn visited us for the holiday, it was with her family.
“What?” Ethan asked me with a bemused smile on his face. I realized I had been staring at them for way too long.
I shook my head. “I love you guys so much,” I said, wrapping each arm around them and pulling them in close.
Evelyn laughed, snuggling in closer to me before pulling away.
“How long are you here?” she asked Ethan, who turned to look at me. I glared at him, and he put his hands out as if to say he surrendered.
“Am I missing something?” Evelyn asked.
I huffed. “Ethan is leaving as soon as I settle down and don’t need his muscles anymore.”
“That could take months,” Ethan replied. “I should probably look for a temporary place to stay until then.”
“No, you are not. At most, it’ll take a few weeks.”
“You don’t know that. You might need me.”
I scoffed. “I am long past the age where I need my older brother nearby. Or my older sister,” I added, shooting Evelyn a pointed glare.
“What? I didn’t say anything,” she said, looking way too innocent for my liking.
“Uh-huh.” I was sure my siblings and my dad all talked about me. I was not an invalid. And I didn’t want to be treated like I was a fragile thing, just on the edge of losing it completely.
I needed this independence.
“What about your tattoo parlor?” I asked. “Don’t you have a business to run?”
“I hire competent people,” Ethan said. “I’m not worried. And what’s the point of being the boss if I can’t take some time off to take care of my baby sister?”