Sister Mother

Chapter 1

Four and a half years later

Leo

Several months after I graduated college, I debated quitting job number four. Or five. I honestly lost count.

While I'm not the slacker my old man tells me I am, I get bored easily. Sitting in an office pushing papers was my idea of Hell, which is probably why Vance dared me to apply for an editing job at a newspaper firm.

Is three weeks too soon to quit a job?

Exiting the office on a freezing cold afternoon in January, I ducked into the closest building not prepared to face the cold just yet. The blizzard that was expected to start this afternoon had turned the previously nippy temperatures into an ice locker. I tucked my hands inside the pockets of my jeans and walked deeper into the library.

"Cold out there, I take it?" a man behind the front desk asked me.

I nodded. "Freezing. It's not supposed to start snowing until tonight though, right?"

"Not what I heard. It should have started an hour ago," he said. He had white silvery streaks of hair flowing from his head.

I took my hands out of my pockets and exhaled on them. "I'll hang out here until it passes. I'm a bit of a wimp in the cold. That alright?"

"Long as you read something," the man said as he pointed deeper into the building.

I shrugged.

Reading wasn't really my thing, but hey, neither was journalism, and that was apparently what I did for a living.

I wandered mindlessly down a few aisles, only to stop when I saw Mags Parker sitting at one of the desktops, a giant backpack sitting next to her.

"Mags?" I exclaimed.

My college friend's green eyes turned wide and her blonde curls bounced up and down as she turned around and saw me.

"Leo? No way!" She said before she stood up and hugged me. "How are you doing?"

"Not bad. You?"

Mags and I were never that close. She was Addie's roommate and fellow pre-med major, but we hung out a lot too. To make Addie jealous, I once asked Mags out on a date. It didn't go anywhere because Mags and I were always completely platonic, but it spited Addie. Not enough to get her to make a move, but enough for her face to turn as red as her hair.

Addie McKenna had me wrapped around her finger from the start. She was smart, funny, fearless and she saw through me like no one ever had before. I fell for her hard and fast and would have made a move on her if she hadn't been so stubborn. She knew me better than anyone else did. Once she asked me how an economics paper I was writing was going, and I fibbed to her and told her that it was going great. She immediately shook her head and told me to meet her in the library so that she could help me with it. When I asked her how she knew I was lying, she said "you can't keep your eyes open when you lie." I hadn't known about my lame tell until she figured it out, and as hard as I tried, I couldn't even lie to myself without blinking in the bathroom mirror.

Addie was supposed to be at our commencement. If she had been, I would have ended our game of making each other jealous and who's-going-to-make-the-first-move right after we got our diplomas. I found out after the ceremony that she requested her diploma to be sent to her parents' house. I didn't have her number and the most recent thing she posted on social media was a screenshot of her final grades. Lesson learned, Adds. I should have made the first move.

I had reached out to Mags shortly after graduation but she dodged my calls and only answered my texts with one or two words max.

"Dental school is kicking my ass. I'm home for the week visiting my parents. What's new with you?" Mags asked.