the judgment and beady eyes of suspicion. I could practically hear the thoughts of our mutual acquaintances. “That Yael, she’d fight a bear if she thought it had done her wrong.” “I wouldn’t want to get on Yael’s bad side. Once, she dragged a chick out of her brother’s apartment by her hair!” And okay, both those things were true, but that didn’t make my dislike for him any less valid.
There were three very real reasons why I did not like Alex Murray.
My idiot brother showed him pictures of me in my “awkward stage,” which was basically from birth to age sixteen—the year we moved from New York to Maryland and met Alex Murray. And Alex, who had been edging toward best friend status in my esteem, laughed. He went through each picture Mo showed him, studying them with a fine-tooth comb, cackling like he’d never seen anything funnier than me pre-nose job with cystic acne and braces. To this day, I wasn’t sure if he knew I’d overheard him laughing, but from that moment on, he went on my shit list and had lost all chances of being my friend, let alone best friend.
When Mo hired me as his assistant, Alex very bluntly told him it wasn’t a good idea. How did I know this? Call it a Freudian slip, but Mr. Murray sent this missive via text to the wrong Aronson sibling. Imagine my chagrin to receive a text that said, “Yael doesn’t have the temperament for the job. No way she’ll like it. Tell her to keep studying art. She’s gonna be a shit assistant.” I hadn’t even bothered replying. I merely screenshotted Alex’s lovely text and forwarded it to my brother.
This one was a doozy, and it occurred between number one and two, but I didn’t really feel like getting into it, thank you very much.
We exited the elevator, Alex still holding tight to Simone’s stroller, his ever-present skateboard tucked beneath his arm. Our doorman held the door for us, but Alex paused.
“Where are we headed?” he asked.
I nodded toward his skateboard. “It looks like you’re going skating. Simone and I are out for caffeine.”
He forged ahead, heading right out the front door, and I scrambled to follow, my tired feet tripping over each other.
“Are you kidnapping my niece? You’ve done some pretty uncool things over the years, but this might take the cake.”
He shook his head, chuckling merrily. “Oh, Yael, you never fail to make me laugh. Obviously I’m keeping you and my baby friend safe on the mean streets of NYC while escorting you to the nearest coffee establishment.”
“The problem with that is I’d rather swallow glass than spend time with you, Alex.”
His wince was subtle, but it didn’t go unnoticed. If my heart hadn’t been hardened from the beating he’d given it, I might have felt sorry for being such a dick. But it was, and I wasn’t.
He shook his head, clucking under his breath. “You never ease up, do you?”
“Not around you.”
“Guess it’s a good thing I’m immune to the Yael Aronson bitch-slap. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.”
I rolled my eyes. “For something to hurt, you’d have to first have feelings.” I gave him an almighty shove and stole my niece back. He could follow me all over the city if he wanted, but I was taking back my control.
Chapter Two
Murray
Yael stood in front of me in line, not acknowledging my existence. That wasn’t new. It had been a long, long time since I had actually existed to her. She was the cool girl, unaffected by it all—she had been since she was a teenager.
To kill some time, I studied the knotted wisps of hair on the back of her head. Each strand was dark and fine, but wild, dancing around like tangled-up, rabid ballerinas.
She stepped forward, so I did too. Her arms moved back and forth, rocking the stroller in front of her the entire time.
Hanging out with Yael and Simone hadn’t been part of my plan. I’d been up half the night, too much on my mind to sleep, and the moment the sun cracked the sky, I’d decided to head to the skate park. At twenty-six, I was one of the old men on the ramps, but I didn’t catch too much shit. Skaters could trash talk with the best of ’em, but we also had the tendency to live and let live.
Yael was at the counter now, placing her order. I stepped up behind her, my chest bumping