“I’m hurting over here and you think it’s funny!”

On an amused chuckle Gabriel’s forehead crinkles up. “The ice queen has melted.”

There’s a small, spiky succulent plant we keep in the center of our table. I grab it and hurl it at his head. “It’s not funny!”

Gabriel ducks and glances back as the clay pot explodes against a wall, soil flying. “And you used to play softball?”

Emma reminds him, “She only played for one year. And she wasn’t very good,” running her hand through her hair and debating whether or not to go clean that mess.

I glare at her. “It wasn’t my sport.”

“I liked that plant, Hannah.”

“Just stop,” I mumble, scrolling through my phone again as they talk about Ethan’s new house, because that’s where Gabriel just came from.

Emma’s younger brother Ethan just bought a house bigger than our grandparents’ because as of this year he is a millionaire, quickly rising to billionaire status after his software invention got snatched up. Highly intelligent guy that he is, he kept the patent. But I can’t even think of Ethan and his brilliant mind right now.

I can’t think of anything except someone has Casper’d me in a not-so-friendly way after I gave him all of my trust. I let the guy into my body and that’s no small thing. Especially since he needed a fucking breath mint!

I’m the one who’s supposed to do the ghosting in this scenario. Only thing is I wasn’t going to because I was trying to date a nice guy for once, and I wasn’t giving up that easy.

And look where that got me.

Staring at my social media and wondering if there’s anything I’ve posted that could have freaked him to the point of running. His disappearing act makes as much sense as…it doesn’t make any sense at all!

“Did you see his mansion?” Emma asks my brother with a knowing smile since she’s the one who brokered the real estate deal.

“It’s fucking amazing,” Gabriel says.

“When’s the party?” she grins the notoriously mischievous Cocker Family smile.

He mirrors it. “We all need to bug him to have one. I think he wants to keep it clean.”

Emma makes a noise at that impossibility. “Does he know this family?”

“Right?” Gabriel agrees on a snort, crossing to grab a forgotten potato chip off her plate. Before he pops it in his mouth he says, “I told him the cousins would make damn sure we christened that place into our own personal den of iniquity.”

“We’ll get a DJ, hire some bartenders.”

“Make sure they’re not too hot.”

“Why?”

“Because if they are, one of us will put them to work in other ways. Then who will pour the booze?”

Emma chuckles under her breath that it’s no lie. “Worth the risk. And people can get their own booze if it comes to that.” She leans back and tucks one fuzzy foot under her butt. “Ever since I showed him that home I have pictured this house warming party. It is our destiny. Oh my God! With that black-bottom pool? Just imagine the insanity.”

“Watch out or he’ll make you use your commission to fund it.”

Emma throws my brother a look. “You’re crazy. This time next year Ethan could have three more houses just like it. I’m lucky if I sell three tiny ones a year. Although that may change now. Cora might give me more slack. Or she might just write this off as nepotism. But fuck her. She needs to give me more credit.”

“What’s her deal?”

“Thinks I’m too soft,” Emma confesses, looking her usual sweet self. She’s got these beautiful chestnut brown eyes that resemble Bambi except when she’s into mischief or seducing some guy.

“Show her you’re not,” Gabriel shrugs, then mutters to himself, always including his twin, “If we have this party Elijah has to be here. We’ve gotta plan for a weekend when he can make it down from Yale.”

“Of course!” she says.

Out of conversation about the party that Ethan probably won’t allow, Gabriel and Emma turn to find me still staring at my damn phone.

She shouts, grabbing at it, “HANNAH!”

I clutch it to me like a druggie would his pipe. “No! Mine!”

Gabriel’s smile vanishes. “Sis, come on, let it go.”

“No.” I turn my body so he can’t take it from me.

“Not the phone. The guy. What the fuck!”

Emma confesses in a quiet voice as though I’m not in the room, “This one got to her.”

I’m too sad to argue, so I go back to scanning social media. “Maybe I posted something terrible that scared him off!”

Gabriel coughs, “Bullshit.” My eyelashes rise up and our eyes lock. “Hann, you toss guys off you like popcorn dropped in a movie. This one just did it first. That’s all.”

I shock everyone in the room, myself the most, when tears spring up and I leap off the chair, trying to hide them, mumbling in my wake, “You don’t understand! He was so nice I let my guard down. And now he’s turned out to be a liar! Another fucking liar!”

They’re dumbfounded as I rush into my bedroom and lock the door, sliding down onto the carpet and pulling my knees to my chest as sobs overtake me.

A quiet knock is at my back, but I don’t want to let them in.

I was duped.

Joe tricked me.

He fucked me, made me dinner, and tricked me.

Why does it feel so dirty when you realize sex wasn’t what you thought it was at the time? The aftermath awakening is one of the most painfully disgusting feelings.

“Go away you guys! I don’t want to be made fun of!”

“Hannah, it’s just me. I sent Gabriel home.” After a few moments, she scratches her nails on the door and begs, “Open the door. Come on. Please? Let me in.”

“I’m sitting against the door,” I gurgle through tears.

“Can you move a little so I can open it?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No!”

“You want me to kick it down?” Gabriel asks.

I jump up, whip it open. “Are you fucking kidding me, Emma? You lied about sending him home just so I’d open the door?”

“I’m sorry. It was his idea.”

“Jeezus! This family! We’re too close! I can’t take it!”

They both stop me from slamming them out of my sanctuary, Gabriel’s hand high above hers since he’s got a full foot of height on her five-foot-four inches. She glances up at him. “You should go.”

“She’s my sister! C’mon Hannah, I’m sorry for making you so upset. But the guy’s a dick and you should just forget about it.”

Emma locks eyes with me, hers saying, men just don’t understand these things. “Go home, Gabriel.”

His lips purse and he stares at me a beat then storms off. “Fine!”

“Don’t call Elijah!” I shout after him.

He throws his arm up and disappears.

As the front door slams after my brother, Emma mutters, “He’ll call.”

“I know,” I groan plopping onto my reading chair.

Emma walks into my room and stands in front of me. “Talk to me.”

“Why should I? You just lied to me right after I said…”

“What I did was not really lying.”

“Yes it was.”

“Not like what Joe did. This one was to help you.”

“I don’t care, Emm. I want to be left alone.”

She patiently adjusts the messy bun on her head as she walks to my unmade bed and sits on it. “Talk to me anyway.”

I know it’s no use to resist her. She knows everything about me anyway, and vice versa. We’ve been inseparable ever since we were little. Nobody was surprised when she and I moved in together during college. We’ve scaled up since that first apartment, this one is much nicer with two bathrooms and a washer and dryer in the unit, but neither of us has entertained the idea of living on our own. Even though she’s my cousin, she’s the sister I always wanted.

Wiping my cheeks I struggle with how to explain this. “I get it how when you’re starting to date someone and it’s not working out you ghost them, but you never do that after you’ve had sex. An explanation is owed. I mean, not for one-night stands…”

“— of course, I know what you mean.”

“Right! When it’s gone to the next level and you start sleeping together, fucking, then you give someone an explanation if it’s ending. It’s called kindness. He was inside my body and then just acts like I don’t exist. Does he think I can’t feel pain? Is this because of our reputation?”

“I don’t know if it’s because of our family this time. I think maybe he got scared of getting close to you. You’re…” Her sentence trails, unfinished.

“I’m what?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I love that you’re not aware of how pretty you are, but to most men you aren’t the one they’ll marry.”

My heart shrivels.

I’m totally speechless.

She’s looking at me like this is a fact.

After my throat nearly closes up I gasp, “What?!”

“You’re a lot to live up to. You’re kind, smart, goofy when you’re happy. Stunningly pretty. It’s hard to keep up with that kind of perfection.”

“Stop it!” I croak, covering my face. “Don’t say that about me, Emma. Don’t say I’m untouchable. I don’t want to be some doll in a cage. I want love. Real honest to God love.”

“You’ll find it! I said most men, not all! Your guy is going to be special. He won’t be a Joe.”

“At least text and say, Hey, didn’t want you to wonder what happened…”

Emma quietly nods. “It’s the wondering that kills me.”

Hugging my knees, I bury my head into the pretzel of my crossed arms. “Yeah.”

She reaches for Lou, my tattered, pink alien doll I’ve kept close ever since my mother died when I was little. Rising from the bed, Emma comes to sit on my chair with me. “Scoot over, Hann.” When she settles into a comfy place, a soft arm envelops me, and Lou gets pressed into my hand before she kisses the side of my head. “I’m sorry he treated you this way.”

Leaning into her warm and gentle body I whisper, “I should have kept my heart closed.”