“And over here,” Peter announced with a wave of his tiny hand in the direction of his towering bedroom shelf, “is where I’d keep all my trophies, if I’d ever earned one in my life.”

                Lisa stifled an embarrassed snort, shaking her head, even as her cupped palm containing her five-inch date remained just as still except for the slightest of jovial tremors.

                “You’re goofy. Seriously, what are the shelves for? I don’t see anything up here,” the redhead chuckled. With her free hand she reached along the sky-blue gloss of the walls, fingers gliding past the strip of cartoon airplane wallpaper still leftover from childhood. She swiped her thumb over the white painted surface, collecting a coating of dust along her digit. Her nose wrinkled at the grisly sight.

                “Mom used them to store all the furniture I don’t need any more,” he said. “My baby stuff, mostly.”

                “You mean like… your crib?”

                “Yeah.”

                “Ohhh my Goood…” Lisa blushed, her voice diminishing into another bashful squeal. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, not trying to make a big deal out of it, but… it just sounds so cute.”

                “Hey, if that’s a good thing to you, go ahead and picture it as cute all you want,” Peter shrugged, giving her thumb a pat as he leaned back against it.

                “Oh, it’s definitely a good thing,” Lisa mused. Her hand rose higher, nearer to her chin, where a few wisps of her fiery locks could brush past the young man’s face. Pouting, her lips puffed, chin trembling, the smile shifting from one corner of her mouth to the other.

                Peter was robbed of any intelligent retort as he found himself, as per usual, lost in gazing up at the girl’s plush lips, a matter of inches away from him. Fragile as this whole situation seemed at times, there were moments like this, where the miniature boy couldn’t help but let his imagination wander into some soft and slightly moister places.

                He wondered if Lisa’s mind did, too. Unlikely as it was, it was hard not to hope, even pray a little. What if-

                “Hey, Peter!”

                The attention-demanding pronouncement of Jessica entering the bedroom snapped Peter out of his pubescent reverie, and also caused Lisa to immediately lower her hand just a few inches as it cradled the boy, lest its proximity to her lips be interpreted in the wrong circumstance. But it probably already was.

                “Hey, Jessie,” the boy coughed. “You just get home?”

                “Uh-huh,” she mused blankly as she crossed the carpet into the room, though her eyes were locked somewhere above her miniature brother’s head, on the face of the newcomer. Her expression was impossible to read. Those crystal blue eyes were narrowed in suspicion, and probably not just because she’d caught her sibling so near to a mouth that was capable of slurping him inside.

                “Oh! Sorry, guys. Um, Lisa, this is my sister Jessie-”

                “I like to be called Jessica, actually,” the younger girl said to Lisa, offering a greeting wave. Her response didn’t come off as curt so much as forced confidence. “I’m thirteen now, after all.”

                “It’s definitely a big age,” Lisa said with a bob of her head, though obviously sensing the indefinable tension. “It’s, uh, nice to meet you, Jessica!”

                “Nice to meet you too. Lisa,” Jessica repeated, at last looking back to her five-inch sibling in the girl’s hand, her brow furrowed slightly. Her leg bowed at the knee, foot kicked off from the ground in a casual dance pose. Peter watched her keeping near-perfect balance on one leg, the pudgy toes of her dangled foot grasping slowly at the carpet fibers. Whether or not she meant it consciously, it was the closest thing Peter imagined his charitably-hearted little sister was capable of enacting in the form of intimidation. And it was working, though not on the correct person.

                The two girls stood roughly eye-to-eye given Lisa’s lower stature, which Peter couldn’t help but feel a twinge of discomfort over. Probably within a year, Jessica would have the height advantage. He wondered if Lisa was thinking this through at all, or if she was keeping her cool better than him.

                “Are you giving her a tour of your room, Peter?” his sister asked.

                “Yep! We were just about finished, though,” Peter said good-naturedly.

                “Did you show her all the Lego stuff you built? Your stairs and bridges and things?”

                “Some of it, yeah,” he said.

                “He’s really smart,” Jessica explained in a tone stern enough that it was clear she didn’t believe Lisa had yet grasped this fact. “He really knows when he’s safe and when he’s not safe and what to do.”

                “That’s good,” Lisa replied, flashing a questioning glance to Peter at Jessica’s word choice. “Isn’t it?”

                “Yep…” he said. The boy wasn’t a huge fan of where this conversation was steering, after the drama of Jessica’s sock-hopping sleepover and the hopefully temporary devolvement of her relationship back into treating him like a porcelain doll. “Hey, Mom said dinner was supposed to be ready pretty soon. Did it look like it was c-”

                “Are you keeping your arm still, Lisa?” Jessica butted in. Her eyes darted instantly back to the redhead’s sweater-clad limb, pupils opening. “You know, it’s pretty important.”

                “Oh, for sure. For sure. I know to think about it whenever I’m, um…” Lisa said.  “Whenever I’m giving him a boost.” Her palm trembled softly as she flexed her willowy muscles again, reaffirming the poise with which she held the boy. He felt the warm, soap-scented skin beneath his back quiver, but quickly realigned with the stone-still posture it normally held. No bluffing there.

                “Uh-huh,” Jessica said, the last syllable denoting just how drastically unconvinced she was. “You said “whenever.” You carry him around a lot, huh?”

                “Oh… no, not really. Just sometimes, if he… you know, asks me first,” Lisa said. Her hand’s passenger could hear the lump swallowed inside her throat, even from below her chest.

                “Peter? Do you feel steady?” Jessica’s head tilted to the side.

                “Completely,” Peter gushed. He could feel himself probably overcompensating on Lisa’s behalf, but of course it was true. “She’s got my back.”
                “Well, if you’re sure,” Jessica sighed. She shrugged, her bugged blue eyes passing rapidly between Lisa’s face and Peter’s below. Extending her open palm, her petite fingers uncurling, she pressed it up against Lisa’s wrist. “Can I show you how, though?”

                “Uh, of course. Peter? Do you guys want to show me how it’s done?” Lisa asked politely.

                “I promise you, Jessie, she’s got me. But-” the freshman protested kindly, though another gaze up into his little sister’s irises showed him all the fear he needed to see. Her lip quivered, her eyelash batted. She wasn’t just asking on his behalf. “Sure. Sure I can.”

                Rolling onto his side, Peter pulled himself up from the smooth, pale plain of Lisa’s hand, conscious of its rigid plateau even as he walked the plank of her fingers toward Jessica. As he stepped into the considerably hotter palm of his little sister, Peter felt the minute dampness of her skin beneath his feet. The clamminess receded somewhat once he was safely leaned against her curled fingers, but it was enough for him to get the picture.

                “It’s all about focusing on just this part of your arm,” Jessica explained. She ran a finger along the length of her slender forearm, from her elbow and to the heel of her hand, where Peter was patiently cushioned. “Especially when you walk, you gotta just make sure this part is still. And keep it straight with your stomach. If you can do that, then Peter will be safe. It’s what Mom taught me a long time ago… before you guys knew each other.”

                As Peter had predicted, his sibling wasn’t taking this first meeting especially well. Already he was mentally preparing for another day or two of near-constant personal time being scooped up by Jessica’s eager fingers until she could get her anxiety over his safety back down to normal again. He couldn’t quite blame her after the emotional beating she’d given herself after Stella; still, in this particular moment, with the one non-family member whose opinion most mattered watching him be coddled like a toy in a little girl’s hand, it was hard not to be resentful. With any luck, Lisa had a high-tolerance for secondhand embarrassment.

                “I can definitely see the difference,” Lisa said with genuine awe. Peter was duly impressed by the performance of her voice when, if he had to be honest with himself, she was more skilled at carrying him than Jessica. Not that he could ever admit that to his sister, of course, for fear of breaking her soul cleanly in two at the thought of not being his primary earthly defender.

                “It’s okay. I’ve been practicing for a long time. You’ll get as good as me sometime, if you just be careful and think about it a lot,” Jessica sighed, not shying from a humble-brag.

                “Well, I certainly appreciate it. I just want Peter to be safe,” Lisa said, reading the younger girl’s heart and knowing precisely how to speak.

                “Good. Don’t worry, I’ll hang out with you guys when you come back here and give you more practice,” Jessica explained.

                Peter felt a groan seismic enough to split the planet’s crust rising in his throat. Was this really what dating was like? Or was it just because his entire family, Erica included, had to have it in the back of their mind that his date might someday, even with the kindest and most magnanimous of intentions, accidentally smear his body on the underside of a rubber-soled shoe? That little nugget of a possibility had to be hurting his game.

                But instead he swallowed that groan as well as the humiliation raining down on him in this unnecessarily awkward exchange, and just thanked his lucky stars that Lisa was so skilled at appeasing his overzealous guardian angel.

                And at being adaptable to the bizarre reality of treating him not just as an equal but a viable candidate for affection.

                And at being funny.

                And at being painfully sweet.

                And at being the prettiest girl he had ever looked up at.

                “Everyone, dinner!” Suzanne called out from the front hallway.

                Jessica turned her head and automatically took several paces away from Lisa and toward the door, with Peter still cupped firmly in her palm. “Sounds like you were right!” she said cheekily to her miniature sibling. As if to discourage any alternative travel method suggestions, she brought her opposite hand up and over her brother. She blanketed him with her soft skin above his entire body except his head and feet, which poked insistently from beneath her drumming fingers.

                “Right. Um, Lisa?” Peter said as innocuously as possible, trying to distract from his precariously emasculating position sandwiched between his younger sister’s aggressively defensive hands like an escaped hamster. “You hungry?”

                “Starving,” she said brightly, and with an adorable wink, Lisa sent Peter the message that she wasn’t in the least bit negatively impacted by this act of overbearance.

                “Your heart’s beating faster, Peter,” Jessica whispered into her brother’s ear as they paraded down the stairs, her palms clasped against her brother’s torso. She braided her fingers together, gently clamping the boy in against her skin. “You feel safe, huh?”

                “Yeah. I think I do,” he whispered back.