Evan drums his fingers against the wheel of the Wrangler—it’s hot for July. Today in particular—79 degrees by lunchtime. The usual sea breeze that keeps the peninsula cool is nowhere to be found as Evan sits in the Friday lunchtime traffic. There’s a low hum of something surprisingly like anticipation making him restless—he hasn’t seen Dora in a bit over two years, not since she’d flown out to New York for his twenty-third birthday. He’d been to Miami to see her the year before, but both trips had been short. It’s been years since they’ve spent significant time together—not since they’d both left for college. They talk sometimes on the phone, once every few months, but it’s not the same. He doesn’t know how long she’s staying this time, but he finds himself hoping it’s a while. He thinks it’ll be a week or two at least—surely she’ll stay to see Reg. He’s looking forward to that too, to them all being together for the first time in nearly a decade. The first time since he’d left.
Evan waits by arrivals, the hustle and bustle of LAX flowing around him. Then, all of a sudden, there she is. His sister in a pale pink valour tracksuit and a pair of giant oversized sunglasses. She flips her waist length bleached blonde hair over her shoulder as she looks around for him. He knows the second she spots him because she screeches like a harpy and drops her alarmingly large purse in the middle of the floor. Several people look around. Dora pays no heed to the looks as she catapults towards him and body-slams him in an explosion of pink valour, tanned skin and coconut body spray.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god”— it comes out as one explosive word. Ohmigodohmigodohmigod.
Evan is laughing before he knows it. He squeezes her, lifting her off the ground—it’s not hard; she weighs practically nothing—and spins her once before putting her down. She pulls back, both hands still clamped around his neck, and beams up at him.
“Look at you. You look sooooo good.”
She hugs him again, she’s always been freakishly strong despite being pint sized, her vice like grip around his neck half chokes him.
“Dora,” he managed around a mouthful of hair. “You’re strangling me.”
“I know. I know. Just let me. I missed you so much.”
He smiles despite himself. “Missed you too.”
When she finally releases him, walks over to her purse and bends to retrieve it before someone else decides to. It weighs more than she does.
“This all you got?”
“Don’t be silly.” She waves a French-manicured hand behind her. “The rest’s coming.”
Evan follows the gesture. A lanky guy with glasses and a mop of messy brown hair is wrestling a luggage cart towards them. Four gigantic suitcases are piled on it, the top one at an angle that is decidedly precarious.
“Jesus, Dora.” Evan stares at the luggage.
“What?” she asks innocently, “I only brought the essentials.”
The guy reaches them. He’s a little out of breath.
“Oh my god, you’re literally the best,” his sister turns a thousand-watt smile on the guy. “Ev, this is my friend Steve. We met on the flight.”
“Nice to meet you, Steve,” says Evan.
“It’s actually Sam,” says Steve.
“Oh my god, Sam.” Dora pats his arm. “I’ve literally been calling you Steve in my head for, like, three hours. Why didn’t you say something?”
Sam opens his mouth to respond, but he doesn’t get the chance.
“Anyway, this is my brother Ev,” says Dora. “We’re twins. Can you tell?”
Sam looks between them. “Yeah, totally.”
“I know, right? Totally identical. It’s the cheekbones,” Dora says with utter sincerity. “Our parents still can’t tell us apart.”
Sam nods as if her words make perfect sense.
It’s utter bullshit of course. They look nothing alike. Which is why she thinks it’s funny. They’re both blond—although she’s heavily assisted bonde—but his eyes are blue and hers are a warm hazel. It’s not just that though. Their faces are completely different shapes. Hers heart-shaped with delicate soft features that are utterly at odds with the sharper lines of his face.
“Don’t let your aunt bully you about the house, okay? Your grandma said you could have it. That’s, like, legally binding or whatever.”
“I don’t think—” he starts.
“Call a lawyer. Seriously.” She points a glossy nail at him. “Promise me.”
“Okay. I will.”
“Good.”
Another dazzling smile, and then she’s tugging at Evan’s arm. He takes the luggage cart from Sam.
“So lovely meeting you, Steve!”
Sam nods, apparently oblivious to the fact she’s gotten his name wrong again, and smiles at her in the slightly dazed way straight men often do around his sister.
“I’ll call you!” she says over her shoulder, hooking her arm through Evan’s and sweeping him towards the doors.
“Wait, you don’t have my numb—”
The rest is lost as the crowd closes behind them. Evan glances back and catches sight of Sam craning his neck to find her. He feels momentarily sorry for him—the latest in a long line of innocent bystanders caught up in his sister’s wake—but there’s little time to dwell on Sam’s misfortune. Dora is already talking.
“You know Reggie actually said he didn’t know if he could come,” she says, in that way she has, as though they’re picking up a conversation they’ve already been having rather than starting a new one. “I was like, no, you are, obviously, so figure it out. Don’t make me come out there and get your skinny butt, because you know I will—”
They clear the doors and step into the bright sunshine, the crowd parting before them like it always does for his sister. Evan privately marvels at it as they walk. He’d forgotten what it was like—the way people just move for her, hold doors open wherever she goes, like she’s some minor celebrity. Poor Sam never stood a chance. The guy will probably be pining after her for months, while Evan would bet she’s already forgotten all about him.
He loads her cases into the back of the Wrangler, wondering what exactly “the essentials” consist of and why they’re so damn heavy. Then fires off a text to Sirius saying he’s got Dora and asking if Sirius is still planning on driving down from Santa Barbara after work.
duuuude hell yes. soon as im done here im out.
Evan smiles.
“You know what we should totally do?” Dora says as he climbs into the truck. “I was thinking on the flight—you know what would, like, be so fun?”
“What?” asks Evan.
“We should go camping.”
Evan glances at her. “Camping?”
“Yes! All of us. Wouldn’t that be so fun? I haven’t been camping in forever. We could go up to the ridge, like when we were kids. Remember when Reggie fell in all that poison oak? Oh my god, his legs.”
“You mean when you pushed him?”
“What? I did not push him. He was standing right on the edge. I barely touched him.” She waves the accusation away. “Anyway, we should totally do that. Wouldn’t it be fun?”
An hour later, Evan is hauling Dora’s suitcases through the house and up two flights of stairs to her old bedroom on the second floor. It’s a workout, and he’s sweating by the second suitcase. Dora, naturally, doesn’t lift a finger to help, although she does trail after him, keeping up a steady stream of chatter about everything from the party she’d been at the weekend before—some radio personality’s, from what Evan can gather—to the many activities and outings she’s already planning for them. By the time he gets the last suitcase upstairs, Dora has decided she needs a shower. Evan leaves her rummaging through her luggage and retreats downstairs for a cold drink.
He’s on the sofa when she reappears, her pink velour monstrosity replaced by a tank top and a pair of baby-blue tracksuit bottoms with JUICY picked out across the bum in rhinestones. She flops down beside him, tucks her feet beneath his thigh, and immediately reaches for his Diet Coke.
“Help yourself,” says Evan.
She takes a deliberately long swig, widening her eyes dramatically over the rim at him, then smacks her lips as she hands it back. Evan snorts and rolls his eyes.
“Well,” says, “are you gonna tell me or am I going to have to force it out of you?”
“Tell you what?” says Evan.
“What happened, duh” she says. “I thought you and Barty were like star crossed lovers or whatever.”
Evan looks at her.
“What?” She settles deeper into the cushions. “You seriously thought I was going to let you get away with ‘we broke up, it’s fine’? That was, like, the least informative phone call of my entire life.”
She prods him with her foot. He lets out a breath. And then he tells her—he tells her how Barty’s lease had been coming to an end. How he’d asked Barty to move in. How it had seemed a reasonable thing to ask. Barty already spent half his time at Evan’s anyway. His clothes were in the drawers, his coffee in the cupboard. Once he started he couldn’t stop. The whole sorry truth came out—all of it. The stuff he’d never told her.
He told her how he’d wanted more since the very beginning. How, two years earlier, when he’d moved out of the place he shared with Reg, he’d chosen the apartment with Barty in mind. Barty hadn’t asked him to. They hadn’t agreed on anything. But Evan had pictured them there together, and somehow, between signing the lease and getting the keys, he’d let himself start believing it would happen. When Barty said he wasn’t ready, Evan had pushed.
That breakup had lasted four months. The longest one they’d ever had. Evan had spent most of those four months trying not to call him. Then Barty had turned up one evening with a bottle of wine. He’d apologised. Said he missed him. Told Evan he loved him. It was the first time he’d said it. Evan still remembers standing in the doorway, wanting to hear it again and not quite daring to ask. He’d thought about those words so often that he hadn’t known what to do with them when Barty finally said them.
He’d let him in.
For a while, they’d been happy. There had been whole stretches when it was easy, when he hadn’t felt as though he was waiting for anything. There were mornings when Evan woke up beside Barty and couldn’t understand how they ever managed to make it so difficult. Evan had told himself they were good together, that he didn’t need to put a date on everything, that he just had to wait for Barty. But he’d still catch himself thinking about it whenever Barty stayed a few nights in a row. Whenever he brought something over and left it there.
By the time the lease came up, Evan had convinced himself that this time it would happen. Barty needed somewhere to live. Evan wanted him there. It was a month after his twenty-fifth birthday, they’d been sleeping together for five years, exclusive for four—if you didn’t count the two breakups they’d had in that time (which Evan usually didn’t) he loved Barty—and he was tired of missing someone he was supposed to be with. So he’d asked again. Barty had said no. Gently, which had somehow made it harder. Said he still wasn’t ready.
Evan had said okay.
They’d gone to bed. Barty had fallen asleep, and Evan had lain beside him, listening to him breathe. He’d tried to settle. But lying there, he’d found himself thinking about the next time he asked. How long he’d wait before he felt brave enough to ask again. Twenty six. Twenty seven. Barty shifted in his sleep, moving closer, and Evan hadn’t noticed that his eyes were wet until it was too late. A few days later, they’d been talking about something ordinary—Evan can’t even remember what— then he looked at Barty across the table—and realised he couldn’t keep pretending they were fine.
“I can’t keep doing this,” Evan had said. “I can’t keep waiting for you.”
He’d said it before. In both their breakups he’d said a version of those words. Maybe Barty had thought this was another conversation they needed to get through. Maybe Evan hadn’t sounded any different from the previous times he’d said it. Maybe that’s why Barty hadn’t taken him seriously—why he’d said they’d talk when he got back. He had a work trip upstate. Some indie band shooting a music video.
They’d talk when he got home, Barty had said. And Evan let him go—for two days, he’d gone to work and come home. On the second evening, he’d stood in his apartment with his keys in his hand and tried to imagine another year there. He could picture it easily. That was what hurt. Barty coming over. Barty leaving. Good weekends, stupid arguments, dinner getting cold because they’d become distracted talking. Enough happiness that Evan would feel ungrateful for wanting more. And in that moment he knew he couldn’t keep going, couldn’t keep waiting.
So he’d left.
Telling Dora now, he can hear how sudden it sounds. He’d been there, and then he hadn’t. But he remembers every time he’d unpacked Barty’s things from an overnight bag and put them in the wash with his own. Every time he’d hoped he might stay another night. All the small, embarrassing hopes he’d never quite managed to stop having.
He lets out a sigh. “It wasn’t just the living together thing, you know? Sure, that’s what we broke up over, but it was just… the biggest thing. Any time I brought up the future, he’d go quiet. Even something small. A stupid joke about having kids or whatever—not an actual conversation. And he’d change the subject, and I’d feel like I’d made it weird.”
He picks at the seam of the cushion.
“You remember when I came to see you in Miami? I asked him to come. I wanted you to get to know him properly. He said yes, and then a job came up and he bailed. And I got it. It was work. But I’d been looking forward to it, you know? I’d pictured us all hanging out, and then I felt stupid for being so disappointed.”
He swallows. The next part comes out like a confession. Raw. Humiliating.
“Fuck Dora, we weren’t even exclusive for the first year. I wanted to be, but he said it was too soon, and I said okay. Like I was fine with it. Then I’d lie awake wondering if he was with someone else.”
He rubs a hand over his face.
“And I couldn’t even be angry with him. He hadn’t lied to me. I’d agreed to it.”
He looks at her.
“I just wanted it so badly. I wanted him so badly. So whenever he wasn’t ready for something, I’d think, okay, I can wait. We’ve got time. But then it just hit me—I’d been waiting for him to want the same things I did. I kept thinking he would, if I gave him enough time.” He pauses. “But I don’t think he ever did. He wanted me. I know he did. Just… I don’t think the life he wanted with me looked anything like the one I wanted with him.”
Beside him, Dora shifts closer, reaches for his hand and squeezes it.
“I’m sorry Ev, that’s really rough.”
“Yeah,” he says.
“I think you did the right thing,” Dora says. “And, okay, I barely knew him. I met him for, like, three hours in New York one time, and I spent most of that trying to work out if he hated me or if that was just his face.”
“Dora.”
“What? Some people just look like that. It’s fine. I’m sure he was great, sweetie. You loved him. Obviously there was a reason. But just because he never promised you anything, doesn't mean you weren’t allowed hope—-to be upset or disappointed. You’re allowed to have feelings, Ev.”
Evan looks down at their hands, her small manicured fingers tangled with his.
“And, look,” she goes on, “it’s not like you were asking him to, like, give you a kidney. You wanted to live with your boyfriend. After five years. That’s, like, an extremely normal thing to want.”
He looks at her then.
“It is,” she insists, as though she can see he still needs convincing. She shakes her head. “And I hate that you were sitting there feeling like you had to be all cool about it. You do that so much. The whole ‘it’s fine, I don’t need anything’ thing. You deserve someone who, like, totally worships the ground you walk on. Someone who gets excited when you ask them to move in. Who wants to go sofa shopping with you.” She pauses. “Or, like, whatever the gay equivalent is.”
“We gays also use sofas.”
She giggles. “Okaaay, well, I didn’t want to assume.”
He laughs then.
“And I’m so proud of you,” she adds, quieter now. “Because I know it must have been hard to leave—I think you’re very strong for doing that.”
The words make something in Evan’s throat hurt. He doesn’t feel strong. Certainly not compared to her. Dora has always been the stronger one as far as he’s concerned—bright, determined to be happy, wielding joy like a weapon, even at six years old. He’d hated her for it at first. How bubbly and bright she was when it felt like his world was falling apart around him. But later—as he’d gotten to know her he’d begun to realise it was just who she was—how she dealt with the world. It didn’t mean her world was any less scary or confusing than his—it was just Dora—she hated being sad, refused to be.
His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he fumbles for it, grateful for the distraction. It gives him a moment to swallow the lump in his throat as he flips it open.
A text from Sirius.
b there in 15. u kids want pizza?
He texts back.
Yes.
There’s text from Pete too. One he hasn’t seen yet. He starts typing a response.
“Oh my god.” Dora sits up. “I can’t believe you got a cell phone and didn’t tell me. How long have you had that?”
“A couple of months.”
“A couple of—Ev! We could’ve been texting this whole time.”
She makes a grab for it. He moves his hand just in time.
“Get your own.”
“I have my own. I need your number, obviously.” She reaches for it again, then pauses. “Who are you texting?”
“Just a friend.”
“From New York?” she asks.
“Nah.” He tries to say it casually.
Her eyebrows lift.
“You’ve got friends here?”
“Yeah.”
“Like—real friends?”
“No, Dora. Imaginary friends.” He rolls his eyes but he’s smiling, he can’t help it. “Yes, real friends.”
She hits his arm. “Shut up. Really?”
“Really.”
She squeals, and he winces. He’d forgotten—or deliberately blocked out—just how shrill she can be.
“Oh my god, Ev!”
“Jesus. Volume.”
“Sorry.” She doesn’t sound sorry. “But that’s so exciting!”
From anyone else, it might have embarrassed him. He knows how it sounds, being twenty-five and having his sister celebrate the fact that he’s made friends. But Dora is already shifting closer, her face alight, wanting to know who they are and how he met them. There’s no pity in it. She’s pleased because he’s pleased, and he finds he doesn’t mind her seeing just how much.
“Can I meet them?”
He nods.
She claps her hands together. “Oh my god, yay! Okay, tell me everything.”
Evan gets as far as Emmeline and Mary before the back door slams in the kitchen. Footsteps follow, then a familiar voice carries down the hall.
“Honnnney, I’m hoooome.”
Dora turns towards the sound, her brow creasing. She looks back at Evan.
“Think that’s our pizza,” says Evan, fighting to keep a straight face.
Sirius appears in the doorway with a grin and two pizza boxes. For half a second, she just stares. Then her mouth falls open, and this time Evan is ready, he claps his hands over his ears in preparation.
“SIRIUS!” she shrieks at a frequency high enough to smash glass.
And then she’s off the sofa before the name is finished, launching herself across the room in a blur of baby-blue velour.
“Ohmigodohmigod—Sirius!”
Sirius catches her with one arm, rocking back a step and rather impressively keeping the pizzas level with the other.
“Hey there, Dora Explora.” He laughs as she tightens her grip around his neck. “Easy. You take me down, the pizza goes with me.”
She pulls back just far enough to look at him, both hands gripping his shoulders.
“Oh my god, what are you doing here?”
“Heard my favourite girl was in town,” he grins at her. “Figured I’d cruise down for the weekend, see if I couldn’t get you into some trouble.”
“As if I need your help,” she shoots back.
“Yeah? Who d’you think taught you everything you know?”
She beams at him.
“Hey, you get pepperoni?” Evan asks, nodding towards the boxes.
“Sure did.” Sirius gives Dora a squeeze before disentangling himself from her. He deposits the boxes on the table. “You got beer?”
“Yeah,” Evan stands and heads for the kitchen. But not before he hears Sirius add,
“And yes before you ask, I got Hawaiian for you you little pineapple-loving freakazoid.”
“You remembered!”
“Course I remembered.”
Dora’s delighted giggle follows Evan out of the room.