“Oh, thank God.” Elena grinned too. “Let’s do it.”
We didn’t get drunk. After all, I was drinking with Elena, a notorious stick-in-the-mud, and we were only a few hours away from a highly publicized charity gala. But we had a few glasses of delicious Italian wine at a ridiculously chic bar Elena had chosen not far from the apartment. We talked about work mostly because it was one of the only things on the very short list of acceptable topics to talk about with each other. Her passion for the law came through in her suddenly expressive hands and the way her speech slipped and swayed into broken English in her haste to explain the legal profession to me. When she tried to deviate, I choked a little.
“Excuse me?”
She shrugged elegantly. “You seem to be very close with him. I was just curious, are you sleeping with him?”
“Elena!” I laughed nervously and watched as she took it the wrong way, thinking it was true, that I must be sleeping with the sexy French singer.
I didn’t know what to do. How could I tell her it was because I was sleeping with the sexy French businessman instead?
“You’ve been spending too much time with Cosima, her dramatics are rubbing off on you.”
“Oh calm down, I was just shocked that my conservative older sister wants to discuss my sex life. Sebastian would be in hysterics if he heard you now.”
She frowned and I took a moment to notice how the expression barely creased the skin across her forehead, besides her eyes. She was so perfectly modulated that it was like interacting with a robot, one dressed very tastefully in a Club Monaco sheath dress.
I sighed. “I am not sleeping with Cage. He’s just a good friend.”
“A very handsome one.”
“Are you saying handsome boys and girls can’t be friends, Elena? That seems like pretty simple thinking.” I couldn’t help the little barb, insulting her intelligence was the weakest chink in her armor.
“I don’t believe they can.” She sniffed. “And anyway, I don’t know why you would want to spend time with such a barbarian.”
I laughed. “Cage is hardly a barbarian. Now who’s being dramatic?”
“Who is being defensive?”
I glared at her. “Listen, Elena. I’m not comfortable talking about my sex life with you but that doesn’t mean I’d lie about being with Cage. I am not.”
She pursed her lips and stared at me intently as I swung my coat over my shoulders and collected my bag.
“Please don’t tell me I’m the only one in our family without some weirdo fetish.”
My head snapped back so quickly it hurt but I masked the pain, and my horror, so that I could look at her unaffected. I wondered briefly if Sinclair was rubbing off on me.
“Weirdo?” I echoed.
When she remained unfazed, her eyes wide and filled with insecurity infested waters, I realized that my older sister, a pillar of strength, was terrified of being found wanting.
I sighed and leaned over into her personal space to press a warm kiss to her cheek. It was something Cosima would have done, or Seb, but I was beginning to understand how much more eloquent touch could be than the spoken word.
“You’re perfect, Elena. No comparisons necessary.”
She smiled and patted my hand where it lay on the table. I watched her awkward movements with a raised brow and she sighed lightly before entwining our fingers. A lock of beautifully curled hair fell across her white forehead like a wine stain on a fancy tablecloth. She was so lovely in her timidity that it took my breath away.
“I’m not very good at this communicating thing,” she said, waving a hand through the air to illustrate her lack of eloquence. “To be perfectly frank, you make me uncomfortable. I know you don’t mean to, but that is the way I’ve always felt.”
“Um, okay,” I said, because while I appreciated her attempt to open up, what else was I supposed to say to that?
She squeezed my hand before releasing it. Our increased physical distance seemed to calm her skittishness. “What I mean to say is, family is important to me and I would appreciate it if we could both make a greater effort to get to know each other again.”
The portion of my soul that was supposed to house my moral compass was achingly empty and hollow against the knock her words had rung upon it. My hand shook slightly with the reverberations as I reached for my glass and swallowed the last of my wine.
“I’d like that, Elena. Very much.”
She smiled, a slight but genuine tilt of her closed lips. “Good. As an olive branch, I would love to set you up with a wonderful friend of mine. His name is Ulrich Wick, he works in finance and he has the loveliest head of hair.”