Beneath the Surface by Gracie C. McKeever

fiercely denying it. You know the damage to her tomboy image would be irrevocable if the rumors are true, or much worse got around.”
    Evelyn laughed, always entertained one way or another when she called her sister, flashes of the same sort of disagreements occurring at the Vega house, especially when Evelyn started to sprout little buds and all three of her older, earlier endowed sisters had made it a day of celebration when they took her out to get her first training bra. The teasing from then on had been endless and merciless, especially since Evelyn at fourteen had been a later bloomer than any of her sisters in addition to having been a diehard tomboy who hadn’t wanted anything to do with breasts. At least she hadn’t before she discovered, as her three older sister before her had discovered, the persuasive power a pair of mammary glands held over the opposite sex.
    “So, any news on the romance front? Can I assume I will be sending an invitation to Tabitha for EJ’s surprise party in a couple of months?”
    “Hold your horses, sister dear. I think it’s a little too early to start sending out any sort of invitations regarding those two.”
    “Shucks, and I had such high hopes.”
    “Don’t give up hope just yet. The situation is promising.”
    “Spill it. How are things coming along?”
    Evelyn smiled. She could see her sister ensconced in her family room recliner/rocking chair and getting ready for a juicy tidbit. “I dropped by EJ’s today to check in.”
    “And was Tabitha there?”
    “Indeed she was.”
    “Give, Evie, give.”
    She gave Angela as many details as she could about her abbreviated visit, Angela held rapt attention until Evelyn had finished, if her sister’s silence on the other end was any indication.
    “I know EJ’s a pretty fast mover, but do you think they, you know, did anything?”
    Angela asked in a demure un-Angela-like tone.
    “If the look on Tabitha’s face was anything to go by, they came pretty damn close.”
    “How did she look?”
    “Blushing and trying to hide it. I’ve never seen her blush. She’s too in control to let anyone know they’ve gotten to her to that point.”
    “Leave it to EJ.” Angela laughed. “What about him? How’d he look?”

    45
    Gracie C. McKeever
    “You know EJ. He’s like Nick. He acts like he doesn’t care when it’s plain that he does.”
    “ Acts like being the operative words.”
    This was true enough.
    Evelyn remembered EJ’s finger-combed hair, the color creeping up his neck at the mention of Tabitha in his bedroom. She knew EJ hadn’t been as unaffected by Tabitha as he’d tried to pretend, knew that whatever had gone on in that bedroom to put the flush in her brother’s and her friend’s faces had nothing to do with fashion consulting and everything to do with lust.
    She wondered what Tabitha’s reaction to arriving in the middle of EJ’s workout had been. Had she come in the middle of it, or had she been a part of it?
    “He looked…diddled,” Evelyn said, and listened as her sister chuckled and clapped her hands with what could only be described as childish glee.
    “So you think they’re getting along okay?”
    “Like I said, it’s early yet, but they seem to…vibe.” She couldn’t come up with another word to describe what she’d felt flowing between the pair, the current that had filled the air for just the brief moment that Tabitha had come out of the bedroom to say hi to Evelyn. For that instant, the room had sizzled with Tabitha’s and EJ’s curbed energy, palpable, like a fourth entity in the room.
    “He was angry, wasn’t he?”
    How did the two of them do that? Just pluck thoughts and emotions out of thin air, and with such accuracy? She’d felt the connection at EJ’s and she felt it now over the phone with Angela, a sensation of fingers caressing her mind.
    Evelyn wondered vaguely if her sister’s uncanny link and insight had anything to do with the New Age spirituality that Angie had