Almost in Love by Kylie Gilmore Page A

back because of her. And that was sweet. This was so not a big deal.
    You’ll have to watch every night.
    Don’t remind me.
    Finally, she headed home. It was Friday night after a long week of work and rehearsals. She just wanted to zone out on the sofa with a glass of wine and Zombie Bonanza . She stopped short at her door, where someone was sitting, knees drawn up, leaning against it. She got closer. Oh, hell in a handbasket. She did not have the energy to deal with this tonight.
    “Hi, Kate,” she said, stopping in front of her half-sister.
    Her sister was twenty-one going on fifty—conservative, obsessed with equations, not men, and into comfort before fashion. She even drove a station wagon, chosen for its safety record. Though they resembled each other in coloring and size, the rest of them was absolutely different. Kate was her usual mess—blond hair half wrapped in a bun, half down in a weird half tail, her baggy T-shirt had a stain on it, her jeans faded to the point of fraying, but not in a cool way, more like a thrift-shop-reject way.
    Kate looked up through her huge tortoiseshell glasses. “Hi,” she mumbled.
    She stood, and that’s when Amber noticed the wheeled suitcase her sister had been leaning against. Oh, no.
    “Planning on staying a while?” Amber asked with a sinking feeling as she unlocked the door.
    “I can’t deal with the mothership,” Kate said, wheeling in her suitcase. Knowing Kate, she’d probably packed one pair of ancient jeans, a dozen T-shirts, and her laptop.
    Amber sighed. “Your mother doesn’t hover.”
    Maxine was, in fact, a brilliant physicist with an absentminded, benignly neglectful way about her. Still, she was there , at home every day by five thirty, which was more than Amber had ever gotten from her own mother. Even when she’d lived with her mom, her mom had spent all of her time painting in their sunroom, barely noticing her young daughter painting nearby, trying to reach her mom in the only way she knew how. Since moving to Paris, her mom sent Amber hand-painted cards on her birthday and whenever the hell else she got around to it, but she never visited, never called, never even emailed. She was the kind of artist that was so wrapped up in her art she didn’t have the energy for anyone else. Amber vowed long ago to always keep a balance between her art and the people in her life that mattered.
    Kate interrupted her unhappy memories when she exclaimed, “Mom bugs me all the time! She wants me to spend the summer studying ahead of time for grad school. Isn’t it enough I did a double major in math and physics in three years? I’ve been taking college classes since high school. Don’t I deserve a break?”
    Amber’s head spun, thinking about cramming all those equations into such a short time. “Of course you do.”
    “I’ve only got the summer, and then it’s grad school here I come.”
    Kate wheeled her suitcase into Amber’s room.
    “Uh, Kate. You’ve got the sofa.”
    “Oh.” She wheeled her suitcase back to the living room and flopped down on the sofa. “So what’s on the agenda tonight?”
    Amber flopped down on the sofa next to her. “I just got home from a long day. I had work, then play rehearsal. I just want to crash.”
    “Great! I’ll crash too.”
    They sat side by side on the sofa. “Kate?”
    “Yes.”
    “Next time can you call?”
    “I emailed you yesterday. Don’t you check your email?”
    “Oh, yeah. I guess I haven’t checked it in a couple of days.”
    Kate shook her head.
    “How long are you staying?” Amber asked.
    “The whole summer,” Kate said.
    “The whole—now wait a minute.” The doorbell rang. Amber headed to the door and said over her shoulder, “We need to talk about this.”
    She peeked through the peephole. Bare. This was the never-ending night. It was nearly ten o’clock. Just put her out of her misery. A long sleep to end this day.
    She opened the door. “Hi, Bare.”
    “Hey, wench. Just