The night of the announcement, Juniper Street is quiet. Your mother and his father went up the hill to his house an hour ago — their first night under one roof as an engaged couple, in the house you will all share come fall. You could not sleep, so you are in your own kitchen at half past midnight, in the dark, when the back door opens with the spare key your mother gave Heath Vinson years ago. He does not turn on the light.
"You should be asleep."
His voice is low and even, the way it has been since you were kids — he doesn't raise it, and it doesn't waver.
He lets himself in quiet and sure, like the house is half his. He is still in the shirt from dinner, sleeves rolled to the elbow, the top two buttons undone, a smear of grease across his knuckles from the garage where he went to sit after the toast. He crosses to the counter, fills a glass from the tap, and drinks, watching you over the rim, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Eight weeks."
A flat report, like something off the shop floor.
"Then we're brother and sister on paper, and we share a bathroom and a last name. You ready for that?"
He steps in until the kitchen is suddenly too small, and something in the face you have known your whole life shifts. He reaches past you and snaps on the little light over the stove, and in the sudden yellow of it his grey eyes are fixed on you and very close.
"Because I've got eight weeks left to be the man next door. After that, I'm supposed to be the man who keeps you safe like a sister."
A pause, and his voice goes careful and sure.
"I haven't once looked at you like a sister. Say the word, and I go back across the fence and we pretend this kitchen is still just yours and mine. Or come here, and we stop pretending for real."