Eliza turned to look at him before extending his arms out of his sides. "What's up?"

"Help me win twenty bucks—”

I hit his arm. “You damn cheater.” Of course Eli would put in some effort to try and remember if he thought I’d lose money.

“—I can’t remember what blood types there are. Do you know?”

My brother frowned. "Blood types?”

I snickered and smacked Sacha in the side with the back of my hand.

"Yeah. There’s OB, right? What else?”

OB? What the hell? On the other hand, a wrong suggestion was fair enough, it wasn’t exactly cheating.

Eli coughed. "Uh, A? Positive? B uhhummum…”

"What was that?" I asked him, trying my best to hold back a laugh.

"A minus, aaaahhummmhhhmmhmm," he garbled again, saying the something really loudly and then trailing off in volume as soon as he kept making noises. I couldn't help but laugh, which only made Eli frown again before shooting me the finger. "I don’t know! What do I look like? Some kind of blood professional?”

Blood professional? I slapped a hand over my mouth and ducked down so he wouldn’t see me laughing at his stupidity.

"What did I tell you? He’s so smart when he wants to be, but when he doesn’t…" I told my gray-eyed friend through my giggling. "If you ask him what day our Mom's birthday is, he'll tell you April thirty-first."

Sacha smiled. "But there's only thirty days in April."

I waggled my eyebrows. "Exactly. I have to text him to remind him of every birthday in our family." I thought about it for a second. “If we weren’t born on the same day, he wouldn’t know what day my birthday was. That’s for sure.”

“What day is your birthday?” he asked.

“December second. Yours?”

“August thirteenth.”

“I’ll have to make sure to remember and send you a One Direction birthday card or something.” I smiled at him.

He blinked. “You’re too generous.”

I shrugged, still smiling. “What about you? Do you know your family’s birthdays?”

"I know everyone’s. If I forgot, my sisters would probably skin my nuts." He paused and thought about it. "Well, Dena, my eldest, would. The rest would put a personal ad on Craigslist for a one-night stand, men only, and put my number as the contact," he laughed.

"That's a good one." I laughed too. "I'll have to remember that in case you ever piss me off."

He mocked a gasp. "Me? Piss you off? Whatever do you mean?"

"Shut your mouth." I elbowed him in the rib. "It's bound to happen one day. You'll catch me on my period again or something."

Sacha stuck his tongue out at the corner of his mouth. "I survived eighteen years with my sisters, and you’re a lot nicer and prettier than they are. We’ll be fine.”

My cheeks went hot, and yet again, I told myself not to take what he was saying seriously. He was nice. Unbelievably nice. Nice people said sweet things to others because that was something they did. I wasn’t going to be an idiot and misinterpret it. “Yeah, sure, Sassy.” I blinked at him, trying to school my cheeks so that they weren’t traitorous blushing bastards. “I’ll let you pay me my twenty dollars later, you don’t have to sweet-talk me.”

* * *

Later that night, while TCC was performing, Eli trailed to the merch area to sign some autographs.

"Flabby?" he yelled into my ear while I was helping a fan, with one eye on Sacha in his prim and proper clothing as he moved across the stage.