CARA

I may fly home to New York to visit my Nana way too often, but I know better than to stay with her.

Instead I alternate between staying with my brother and my sister. Ben’s place has the advantage of being quiet, so I stay there if I’ve brought work with me, or I need to study.

This weekend there’s no such need, so I stay at my sister’s townhouse just a few blocks away from my grandmother’s. My entire family lives in a six-block area on the Upper West Side. Even my parents have stayed in here, which means my mother has spent the last twenty years bumping into a non-stop parade of my various stepmothers.

I swear my parents are the most fucked-up people in the world, and any credit for me and my siblings turning out to be normal human beings is full credit to Nana.

I put the finishing touches on my makeup—well, lip balm and mascara over a touch of Elana’s crazy BB cream that’s all the rage, because it’s just Ben and Toby for dinner.

But when your sister is the CEO of a cosmetics company, leaving her house with a bare face is just a non-starter.

I slip my feet into sandals and open my bedroom door just in time to see one of my nephews go sailing down the bannister to the second floor. A shriek follows, then cackling little boy laughter.

Staying at my sister’s is also excellent birth control, as much as I adore all four of my nephews.

Four boys under the age of ten.

Elana is crazy, and I’m pretty sure she’s pregnant again. It stopped being a big exciting announcement two boys ago, but I didn’t miss that she begged off dinner tonight, opting to stay in with her family instead.

With four boys and a husband who encourages roughhousing? The only way she’s skipping sushi with Ben and Toby is if she can’t eat the sushi.

I know I’m right.

If I were a better sister, I’d say something. Tell her how excited I am for her—and I am. Offer to help out—which I could, because my program is flexible enough I could spend more time in NYC.

But right now, all I can think about is Nana’s crazy demand I find a husband.

How the heck am I going to do that?

Not a real husband, of course. That would be insane.

I need a marriage of convenience. Maybe somebody who needs a green card and likes tea.

The din from downstairs grows louder.

“Unca Ben!” The excited cry is followed by a heavy oof. That would be the littlest one leaping into my brother’s arms.

Right. Crazy plans will just have to wait until after sushi.

It takes Ben a few minutes to extricate himself from a spontaneous wrestling match, so by the time we get to Brooklyn, Toby is waiting outside the restaurant for us. He’s standing back from the sidewalk, leaning against the building, and he’s typing on his phone.

Always working, just like Ben. But there’s something different about Toby. Maybe it’s the fact he went to California, that he made a name for himself in an already crowded industry. That he did it on his own terms, in his own way. He owns a majority share in the publicly-traded tech company he founded. A billionaire at thirty, and a philanthropist to rival Bill Gates at thirty-five.

Or maybe it’s that he’s always seen me as more than Ben’s little sister. When I was a teenager, he encouraged me to apply to schools not on the east coast, and ran interference when my family objected. He invited Ben to bring me out to California and arranged for a personal tour of Stanford.

And then there’s all the secret times he saved my butt once I was out there, too.

Yeah, I definitely have some hero worship when it comes to Toby, so when I see him concentrating so hard his brow furrows and his mouth pulls tight, I don’t get annoyed like I do with Ben.

I find myself wanting to know what he’s worried about, and wanting to distract him, too, because it’s Sunday night and everyone deserves a break.

I assume he didn’t notice us get out of Ben’s town car, but as soon as I’m within earshot, he smirks—still looking at his phone—and says, “Only Cara Russo would make us cross the river for sushi.”

“I didn’t make you do anything,” I say lightly, stopping in front of him and covering his screen with my hand. “Plus, you like it when I pick restaurants.”

He takes his time dragging his gaze from my hand, up my arm, to my face, and when he finally looks at me, he’s grinning. I grin right back. Even in heels, I’m eight inches shorter than him.

Ben gently removes my arm and frowns, looking at me first, then his best friend, as if realizing for the first time that we know each other in a way that doesn’t directly go through him. “When have you two gone out for dinner before?”

I roll my eyes. “I swear you think I’m still in high school.”

“Aren’t you?” He pulls a teasing face, winking at me, but I’m not sure he’s completely kidding.

“I spent five years down the road from the Starfish Instrumentation campus, remember? I made him take me to the most expensive restaurants in Palo Alto.”

“A few times,” Toby says blandly. He doesn’t return his attention to his phone, he just tucks it away. He ushers me toward the restaurant, pulling open the door as he lightly touches his hand to my shoulder. “After you, troublemaker.”

I give him a cheeky grin. I’m hardly that, but anything that riles Ben up is good fun in my books.

“You were a teenager for half of those years,” Ben mutters.

I should ignore him. He’s such a typical overprotective big brother, and he’s all bark, no bite. And we’re talking about Toby. But it’s not the Russo way to be mature with one’s siblings. I give Ben a too-innocent look. “And an adult for the other half.” Toby makes a choking sound and I turn toward the hostess. “Russo. Party of three.”