Chapter Eight
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A project! The girlies love a project!
Wolfe
Leora is frighteningly attractive when she’s terrifying me.
“Do you have another whiteboard?” she asks. “Maybe one of those rolling ones with two sides that you can flip around?”
“I do not,” I answer from my spot on the ground by my couch, where I’ve sat in mild horror and fascination since she clambered over me and across the room thirty minutes ago.
One moment, she was telling me to shut up and staring at me intently.
The next, she was climbing over my lap to race to the far wall, where my five-foot whiteboard lives.
“I could get one, though, if you really need it. My mom has a couple. Her book club uses them to chart…” I grimace, then choke out, “Dalliances. In the book series they read.”
Leora’s nose wrinkles, and I blink in surprise.
I know that I have a problem thinking of my mom reading about 1800s couples doing things I’d rather pretend she has no clue about, but I don’t know why Leora would.
The stuff she reads in her book club with Almond is about on par for please don’t tell me my mother knows what bondage is levels of yikes.
“I don’t think they’d fit in your minivan without taking them apart,” Leora mutters. “And I drive a Honda Fit, so it’s for sure not fitting in there.”
Aha. I see. It’s not the contents being mapped on the whiteboards that she has an issue with; it’s the fact that they won’t fit in my junker minivan or her pastel yellow hatchback. Obviously.
I puff. “Dad could bring them over in his truck,” I suggest, though I’m not sure I actually want her to have them.
She’s already taken over my whiteboard, pausing only long enough for me to take a photo of the schedules, quotes, and other random bits of information that had been scribbled on it before she tackled the white plastic with an eraser from the basket drilled into the wall beside it.
At the top, in bold dark purple block letters, she wrote WOLFE’S GROWTH ARC: A MOUTON PROJECT.
You tell a girl you’re sorry—confess your deepest regrets and your biggest fears—and she starts plotting a plan to help you stop sucking as a person.
I’d be insulted, but I kind of agree with her that I could use the help.
Plus, the first thing she wrote under her heading was a list of things I am already doing well.
The list so far consists of Amia ??? and Good at letter writing, but still.
I appreciate that she started with my strengths before moving on to my weaknesses, a list that is much, much longer, even when we ignore things like Is a boy and Do boys even have brains anyway?
“If your dad wouldn’t mind bringing the whiteboards here, that would be wonderful,” Leora says, surprising me.
I didn’t think she’d be open to an interaction with my parents this early in our kidnapping relationship.
Then, she writes Ask Gilbert if Wolfe previously possessed brain on her growing to-do list, and things start to make more sense.
She’s not meeting the parents. She’s doing recon.
My skin flushes, and I gulp.
Is it because she is, essentially, taking care of me? Or promising to, at the very least? Is that what’s so attractive about her as she adds to my list of flaws? Or is it her take-charge attitude? The manic light that flashed in her eyes before she jumped over me to get started on her new project?
The way her skirt sways with her hips as she writes?
Whatever the culprit, my body aches all the same. Stand, it says. Stand, and grab her, and kiss her, and claim her.
I didn’t think I would be nostalgic for my passivity, especially not so soon after throwing it off, but here I am, begging for my flesh to find the balance between rationality and insanity.
Surely I can take more initiative without going in a direction that will scare off my closest friend and greatest love.
It’s a miracle she’s still here at all, and I need to not push her mercies.
Which means that my body can yearn all it wants, it’s not getting a thing anytime soon. Or possibly ever, depending on where her mercies end.
My stomach reacts violently to that thought, so I push it aside. I can consider the ramifications of unrequited love in the middle of the night like a proper man. Right now, I need to text my father so he can bring said love more whiteboards for her plans.
And I’ll just hope that these plans don’t tear me completely to shreds before they put me back together. I mean, how bad could it possibly be? To put myself in Leora’s hands and let her do as she wishes?
It sounds like heaven to me.
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This is hell. I am in hell. Fire, brimstone, the whole lot.
Leora, Poem, Almond, and my parents are having tea around one of my several-thousand dollar tattoo chairs as they discuss what, exactly, is wrong with me and when, exactly, the wrongness began.
My parents got here, discovered why Leora needed their possessions, and called in reinforcements with haste.
And my one hope at backup? My ride or die from beginning to end? The Fox to my Wolfe? Has to work.
It’s just me, most of my family, and great lakes of fire.
Not only are crumbs and tea droplets getting all over my several thousand dollar chair while I’m being ripped to shreds, but the shreds are being documented—in detail—on the five whiteboards my parents showed up with.
“It took ages to convince him to kidnap you,” Almond says. “Write that up there under Needs Work.”
“He used to kick all his laundry under the bed when he was a teenager,” Dad supplies. “All the way up until he moved out, so no telling if he still does it or not.”
“I do not!” I protest. “And I did not! That was Fox!”
“Yeah, right,” Poem says. “I’ve seen his apartment. That place is spotless. Yours, on the other hand…” She trails off with a tsk, shaking her head. The wild gleam in her eyes tells me she’s having the time of her life.
“I wish I felt less strongly about kicking women,” I declare. Then, a light bulb goes off. “But you’re not going to be a woman, soon. You’re going to be a sister. I could totally kick a sister.”
“And does,” Almond grumbles. “Even though all I ever do is help him.”
Poem sniffs. “First of all, Fox would never let you hurt me,” she says. “Second, I’ve been your sister, and it hurts my feelings that you’d imply I haven’t.”
“I’m incredibly concerned about your hurt feelings right now,” I deadpan, narrowing my eyes at her contributions to the Wolfe Sucks list. “My highest concern, truly.”
“You used to be contrite,” she retorts. “And apologetic. That was the correct behavior. Go back to that.”
“I fear my apologetic spirit left me around the time I watched you squish a ball of crumbs into the crevice of the tattoo chair you all think is a snack table. Something about the possibility of ants in my sterile environment has me less concerned about making amends with you, especially when I’ve already made them with Fox.
Do I need to get better? Absolutely. Do I need to get better to you? I no longer think so.”
“Excellent,” Leora mutters, making a note under my list of positive attributes, which have been transferred to a portable whiteboard for our convenience. No longer beholden to Poem’s whims, it reads.
“Hey!” Poem protests. “Put that under the cons!”
“I need him beholden to my whims,” Leora returns. “You already have your own boy to do with as you please. Don’t be greedy.”
I perk up. “I’m your boy?”
“Of course,” Leora replies, brows furrowing. “Unless you have someone else you’d like to head up this project? I already put my name on it, though. That’s basically calling dibs. Nobody’s going to disrespect dibs, right?”
Poem pouts but does not disrespect dibs.
I pout, too, but for a different reason entirely. “I’m your project boy,” I correct myself.
“Yes,” she confirms. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t interrupt at this stage. I’m getting family history. It’s important that it’s accurate with no biased takes from Project Boy. Wait your turn nicely, and I’ll even get you a treat.”
I groan, dropping my head to the chair-turned-table.
“And Poem, I believe you can afford to hire a cleaner for those crumbs, yes?” Leora continues.
“Your petty is beautiful and respectable, but this is his business you’re messing with, not just him.
He has standards he has to keep in order to keep his doors open.
He’s being generous enough letting us eat here. ”
I raise my head incredulously. Letting them eat here? I was bulldozed!
“Fine,” Poem agrees, wrinkling her nose. Her eyes stray to the crumb-filled crack, though, and a tinge of regret hits her eyes. “I’ll make sure it’s taken care of by the best October has to offer.”
Leora nods, and I wonder at her. She just got Poem to do what she wanted. In less than thirty seconds, even.
I thought I found her attractive before, but this is a whole new level.
She’s not just powerful, she’s powerful.
I think I might not even mind the nightmare that is a family meeting to dissect and game plan the project that is me.
Maybe I was wrong about this being the worst…
Maybe some of the heat I thought was hellfire is actually just my bodily reaction to the sheer level of temptation Leora evokes in me.
Temptation I’m not meant to be permitting, I remind myself. She hasn’t expressed interest in anything more than the project potential I present. I assume her throwing herself whiteboard-first into it means she is okay keeping our friendship and even adding an IRL level to it, but romantically…
I blink, and my brows furrow.
Did I…
Did I even tell her I wanted to meet for romantic reasons?
I definitely told her kidnapping was presented as a romantic action, but beyond that…
I groan, throwing my head back down on the chair as I replay our interactions today and their serious lack of clarity on my end. I can’t believe I went through all of this and forgot to tell her the reason I even wanted to meet her in the first place.