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The curiosity is killing an said he lived with four brothers the day Iabout a sister I put the bucket back under the sink, and keep cleaning

The tioes off, and I fold the last load of laundry, blowing a lock of hair out of my eyes I look toward the , and see that the day is nearly gone Soin the subway And Fridays are usually enerous I have wasted the whole day cleaning Logan’s apartood about it I put ood job I’ve s away Of course, I had to guess where a lot of stuff goes The stuff I’ on the kitchen table with the stacked laundry

I open a kitchen drawer and stu but condoms They’re in every shape, every size and every color And every flavor, if the banana on the front of one is any indication My face fills with heat Why on earth do they have a drawer filled with condoms? I slam it shut, and walk away It’s none of my business

I carry the mop bucked toward the sink so that I can du across the kitchen floor, the door of the aparth Only he’s not alone On his shoulders, there’s a blonde with two squiggly pony tails He ducks to get through the door, and she giggles when he wiggles her feet and pretends to dump her off his shoulders

He stops in front of the closed door and freezes when he seesthere He must not have expected me to still be there And I certainly didn’t expect for hi on to her feet tightly at the base of his neck And the other reaches for irl that the bucket of sudsy water slips from my hands

"Stop!" I warn, because I don’t want hian

I’m so damn happy to see Kit that I want to run to her and pick her and spin her around I wonder if she’d giggle like Hayley does when I jostle her Probably not I wasn’t sure Kit would still be here, and I was really worried she’d vanished when she didn’t come to see me at the tattoo parlor

Water crashes over the toes of ht the bucket She slu down at the ets herself together and rushes to the table, where there are piles of folded laundry and she grabs towels, throwing the but I can’t read her lips I walk toward her and she warnsup her hands Her eyes dart to Hayley, and then back to my face, and she doesn’t look too happy with me I set Hayley on the counter and put a cookie in her hands, and she settles there to watch us, her mouth full of chocolate chips Hayley’s three, and she’s a cool kid

I move the towels around with my boots, and Kit drops to her knees to mop up all the water She pushes the towels around frantically, until it’s all cleaned up Then she throws the wet towels in the mop bucket and starts a load of ith them in it She comes back to the kitchen and looks at Hayley, who’s still perched on the counter, happilyto have ave her chocolate, but I needed to entertain her for a second

Kit blows her hair out her eyes with a frustrated breath and glares at me "You’re home," she says Her hands are on her hips, and she’s not wearing any make up and her hair’s a mess and she has a line of dirt streaked across her forehead But she’s never looked prettier

I nod The knees of Kit’s jeans are wet, and her shirt’s da?" I ask I look around The aparthten it up because Grand over" clean I mean spotlessly clean Like showroom floor clean But better It smells nice And it looks nice And she’s here God, I’s "Hoas your day?" she asks Her gaze zips betweena mess, but I don’t care

"Better, now," I adht off my chest when I walked into the room and saw her here I reach for Kit, and squeeze her toher on the forehead She scrunches up her face, and pushes back froain

"Who’s that?" she asks warily

I wet a kitchen towel and wipe Hayley’s otten it on her dress yet, but I know it’ll happen any second Her mother will shit a brick if we send her back with dirty clothes I tickle Hayley’s tu as she arches into my hands "This is Hayley"

Hayley looks a little confused, and I pick her up, putting her on my hip She wraps around me, and one hand covers les inout of my mouth I’ve never talked in front of her before

"How old is she?"

"How old are you Hayley?" I ask her, jostling her on ers

"Three?" Kit says, like she’s airl" Kit looks at me "Does she talk?"

"I don’t know," I admit Her lips are really hard to read, so I don’t know if she talks or if she’s just n sis she needs She and I do pretty well together Most of it is just ure out what she needs, but Hayley doesn’t seeht"

Kit bends down to her level and asks, "Do you talk?" Kit s faces at Hayley that I want to kiss her I grab Kit quickly around the waist and jerk her intoup at me I kiss her on the forehead and Hayley bats the side of my face with her open pal away froet used to it" Kit’s eyes meet mine, and then they skitter away

"She’s adorable," she says, but she’s not looking in my eyes We’ll have to talk about that later

"What happened to the apart at my lips She looks unsure of herself as she brushes her hair back from her face That streak of dirt is still across her forehead and I reach out to wipe it aith ether and doesn’t look "

I take her chin in lad you’re still here"

"You’re not mad, are you?" she asks She bites her botto ecstatic"

She scowls and looks at Hayley "Language," she says "And Iand… well… I couldn’t stop"

"You shouldn’t have"

"I know," she says with a shrug "I wanted to And I sort of feel like I owe you guys for letting ," I try to explain I tug her to irl inyou here"