I swallowed and took in a deep breath. “He was seventeen.”
“Sounds like he was an incredible brother, and so lucky to have a sister like you.” She smiled again. “Speaking of amazing brothers,” she said, turning to look at Riot. “Thank you for taking the third degree from everyone last night. They were so focused on your rising stardom, they forgot all about the fact that I’m single and leading the life of a goalless vagabond.”
He leaned away from me at her words, but still left his arm draped around me, his large hand gripping my shoulder. I appreciated his touch, needed him to keep me grounded, even if we were all going to pretend I didn’t just have a panic attack over lunch. I reached for my glass again and took another sip of my water.
“You’re not a goalless vagabond,” he replied, exasperated. “They wouldn’t be so curious about your life if you called and talked to them once in a while. Honestly, what do you expect them to do besides use their imaginations and create the worst scenarios in their heads?”
“That’s not as easy as it sounds. We don’t always have cell service.”
“So when people board your ship, and when you drop them off, it’s in the middle of nowhere? It’s not at some major port?” He asked the question with obvious sarcasm, his voice dripping with it.
Halah shrugged. “Being in port is my time to relax. I don’t really want to explain my messy love life to my parents if I have time to explore a new country.”
“Is your love life messy, Hal?” Riot’s eyebrow rose and even I could sense his big-brother hackles going up.
“No,” she cried, clearly exasperated as she brought her hands to her face, resting her elbows against the table.
“Do you call your parents as much as you should?” I asked Riot, not even sure where the question came from, really. It just came out. He quickly turned his head to look at me, confusion painted over his face. “I mean,” I said, trying to find a way to defend Halah without making Riot feel like I was ganging up on him. “It’s different for girls in our twenties. There’s a lot more pressure to get married and have babies, to find Mr. Right. But for guys, no one really cares. Like, no one looks at a thirty-year-old single guy and wonders what’s wrong with him, but if a girl is single at thirty, she’s a spinster.”
“Thank you,” Halah said, slapping her hand on the table in a show of sisterly solidarity.
“What does that have to do with calling our parents?”
“When Halah calls she probably gets a lot more crap from them about being single than you ever did.” I brought a piece of bread to my mouth, took a bite, and then let my eyes bounce between the brother and sister as if I were watching a tennis match.
Riot’s eyes moved to his sister and he was silent for a moment. “Is that true? Do they bug you about being single?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes, yeah.”
“You know Ma and Pops just want you to be happy. And they worry about you, because you’re always in a different country. It bothers them that they don’t always know for sure that you’re okay.”
“I know,” she said meekly. “There’s just been a lot of stuff going on lately, and I haven’t wanted to talk much. And Mom always knows when something’s wrong.”
“Is something wrong?” he asked, his voice sounding panicky now. I reached my hand over to his thigh and tried to calm him with my touch.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. He exhaled loudly, running the back of his hand under his chin, but I kept my eyes on Halah. Something about her tone of voice, the way she let her eyes drift to the tabletop instead of looking at Riot, made me feel as though she wasn’t being truthful. Her eyes crept up to meet mine and I knew from the way she looked at me she was begging me to let it go. She didn’t want to talk about whatever was bothering her with her brother.
“Listen, there’s no rush to get married. Ma and Pops just want to hear from you. They worry. I’ll tell them to give it a rest about the boyfriend stuff.”
“You don’t have to do that, Ri.”
“Hal, I got it,” he said firmly, and damn if I didn’t feel the heat spreading through my core at his firm, protective, older-brother tone. “You promise me you’ll call them more often, and I’ll make sure they back off the boyfriend talk.”
“Okay,” she said, giving him a weak smile.
Just then, the waitress brought our lunches and we all fell into polite conversation as we ate.
After lunch, Halah excused herself to the bathroom again, this time looking as though she wasn’t feeling well, but I didn’t mention it. Instead, I turned to Riot.
“You’re pretty sexy when you’re trying to protect your little sister.”
He smirked at me. “Oh, yeah?”