Chapter Thirty-One Rae
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Rae
“I’M TEXTING HIM.” I hold out my hand for my phone.
“Who?”
“Grant. No, Brendan. No, Grant.”
“Bruh.”
“He needs to know he’s a total prick.”
“Which one?”
“Both.”
“No. They do not.”
“They do! It’s vitally important that I tell Brendan how bad he is at kissing. Was. Is. Ever more shall be.” I take another sip of cranberry-watermelon slush. God, it’s delicious.
“Yes, but not tonight.”
“Why not?” I squint at where Sam’s backed into the corner of the world’s smallest sofa, literally sitting on my phone to keep it away from me.
“This is the perfect night for it. Grant’s kiss is right here.
” My hand goes to my lips, my skin still buzzing.
“Sammy, I just… Why’s it so good with this guy?
Like, what is it? I mean, his voice. The dirty talk?
” Another swig. I don’t let myself think of who he’s dirty-talking with right this very minute.
Chef’s kiss. Somehow, I accidentally kiss with the hand holding my glass, which sends a watermelon waterfall over the sofa and me.
And Sam. “Oops. Oh. Sorry. Sorry. Let me get you a towel or a—”
“No towel! I’m fine.” She wipes herself off, giggling. “Geez, Rae. Give me that.”
“No.” I steal the glass back, spraying myself yet again with watermelon rain. “It’s too good.”
“You’re gonna throw up.”
“I won’t.” Sitting back down on my side of the sofa, I shake my head, staring at the drink’s pretty, pretty color. “I am stronger than that.”
“Everyone knows you have a weak stomach.” She hands me an open bag of chips. They’re jalapeno cheddar, and I picked them out at the little corner market. “Eat.”
I reach into the tiny bag, put a chip in my mouth, and consider. “Not bad.”
She takes one and crunches down. “Pretty good.”
“Ten dollars good?”
“Absolutely not.”
“But you bought them anyway.”
“I did,” she says.
“Because I wanted my favorite Cheetos.”
“Which they didn’t have.”
I sigh. “And you’re a good friend.”
“I am.” She watches me closely. “You okay?”
“I’m sad now.”
“What’s up?”
“Mom loved jalapeno Cheetos.”
“Oh, Beanie, I know. The date’s coming up soon, isn’t it?”
I nod. “September sixteenth.” The day Mom died and left me in charge.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I look over to where Pepe’s taken refuge on the chair in front of my workbench. “Pepe loves me.”
“He does.”
“Dad loves me. My sisters do.”
“Yep.”
“You too?”
“With all my heart, Beanie.”
“Grant Bowman is a dick.” I sound whinier than I’d like, but my god, why’d he send me away like that? All, you’ve got to get outta here.
“Pretty much.”
“He’d hate these chips.”
She snickers. “He’d like them ’cause they were expensive.”
“Oooooh, yeah. Definitely. So much that. ’Cause he’s a snob.”
“Hmm.” She seems to consider. “Is he?”
“Maybe. Probably.” Another sip. The watermelon’s starting to feel too sweet on my tongue. “Berk.”
“Here.”
Sam grabs my glass and shoves another into my hand. It’s cold and slippery with condensation. “What’s this?”
“Water. Try it. You’ll like it.”
“Ha ha.” I slug back the full glass. “Oh god, yes.”
“More?”
At my nod, she stands and walks the three steps to the sink, where she fills it again, pries a couple of ice cubes out of the tray, plops them into my glass, and returns the tray to my mini freezer.
“You’re so good, Sam.” I accept the glass. “So nice to me.”
“What now?”
“You put the ice away.”
“Course I did. Who wouldn’t?”
“Brendan.”
“Your ex was a turdface.”
“Wait. What did you call him?”
“Brendan?”
“No, Genghis.”
“Genghis?”
“Bowman.”
She laughs, long and hard. “Oh, hell yes. That’s what you call him? I love it. The conqueror.”
“Such a hard-ass, right?” My eyes land on my workbench. I get up, trip on the blanket that’s somehow wrapped itself around my leg, and flop to the floor.
“You okay?”
“Fine. Fine.” Once I pick myself back up, I wobble over to look at something I started working on last night. “Look. I just made this.”
“A chair?”
“Grant’s chair from our office. It even tilts, see?” She whistles when I show her how it adjusts. “I started making our building. His building. Did you know that?”
“Know what?”
“Genghis owns our office.”
“That seems… unethical.”
“Does it?” I consider. “Those two are up to something.” I flick a set of tiny handcuffs I put together. They’re so cute. So perfect. I’d pictured him putting a real set of these on me and pretending—ugh, no.
“Hey, you made a cat-o’-nine-tails.”
“It’s a flogger.”
“That’s amazing.”
“I wanted to make the whole building, you know?” I point the itty-bitty flogger at the wall o’ book nooks.
“With the club in the basement and everything, but…” Emotion fills me like bubbles getting forced into water in one of those at-home soda machines, and suddenly I’ve crushed the tiny flogger in my hand.
I pick up Grant’s chair, ready to smash it to bits.
Sam grabs it from me and holds it up high. “Nope.”
“You can’t do that. It’s mine.”
“You’ll regret it.”
“I won’t. It’ll feel good to break it all.” Just like I’ll break his rough/handsome face when I get the chance.
“No. You’ll hate yourself.”
We’re circling my chair in a demented ring-around-the-rosy, Pepe’s brows twitching as he watches blandly from the seat, not nearly interested enough to lift his head.
Finally, I give up, spin, and fall flat on my bed, which, like everything in my place, is conveniently right there.
“Why’d he have to be so good at the sexy stuff, Sammy?”
She sinks down beside me. “Could be your ex was just the worst.”
Grant barely even touched me, and it was better than anything I ever did with Brendan. My mind skips back to the way it felt when his mouth landed on mine tonight. The hungry sounds he made. “His breath was all shaky.”
“Genghis’s?”
“Yeah. Like… he felt it too.”
“Bet he did.”
“Why’d he go and ruin it?” Turning with a groan, I hide my head in my pillow. “This never happened,” I imitate, terribly. And then, “Please just go. Asshole couldn’t wait to get rid of me. Probably so he could go and kiss someone else against a wall.”
“Actually…”
“Actually, what?”
“You didn’t see the way he looked at you.”
The hopeful, excited little puppy inside me perks up its head. “How did he look at me?”
Sam stares up at the fabric I’ve draped across the ceiling to hide the fact that I’m literally living in an unfinished shed. “Okay. You remember that dog you guys had?”
“Butterscotch?”
“Yeah, you know how Otty would purposely drop salami on the floor, and he would like go crazy wolfing it down, and your dad would drag him away, kicking and fighting, and Butterscotch would look back with that yearning in his eyes?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s how he looked.”
“Like I was salami?”
“Exactly like that. He’s Butterscotch. You are just-out-of-reach floor salami.”
“I’m floor salami?”
“Yep,” she says with a level of certainty that calms me immediately.
“Why does he have to be like that?”
“Men.” She shakes her head.
For a long moment, we lie side by side, flat on our backs, staring up at the intricate nips and folds of fabric. After a while, I turn and look at Sam’s profile, which is almost as familiar to me as my sisters’ or my dad’s. “Where’ve you been going, Sammy? All week?”
A pause.
“I don’t want to tell you.”
Hurt swamps me, literal pain in my stomach. “Why not?”
“You’ll be mad.”
I can’t think of a single thing she could say right now that would make me mad. Not one.
So, of course, she goes and proves me wrong.