30. Michelle
Chapter 30
Michelle
P opcorn topples down from the couch cushion again, missing Sara’s mouth by almost a foot.
“Okay, try one more time,” she says, leaning on her knees.
Brittany rears back and tosses the kernel. Sara twists, it lands, and she raises her arms in victory. Carol, Emily, Brittany, and I clap and cheer.
I’ve never had a girls’ night with anyone except my sister. Then again, I’ve never had many friends aside from Sara either. At least not close enough to be invited to pajama parties. I don’t know what that says about me.
We’re in the Burkes’ living room under a makeshift fort of pillows and blankets. Bedsheets hang from the top of the couch, knotted to corners of kitchen chairs with hair ties and scrunchies and pinned behind the television, so the entire world is blocked out aside from us and Rock-a-Doodle . Snacks fill bowls, plates, and the ground.
“Miss Shell, can you braid my hair?” Brittany asks, squirming on a pillow.
“I’d love to.” I sit on the couch as she straightens up on the floor below me.
A door outside our fort creaks open, and my spine stiffens the moment I hear it.
“How’s it going in there?” Cliff’s voice asks.
I haven’t spoken to Cliff in nearly two days. Forty-eight hours of only seeing his daughters and waving from afar. But now, his voice strikes a bolt through my nerves, and I’m stock-still.
“It’s fun!” Brittany calls.
“So-so!” Emily answers sarcastically with a wide grin toward me. She’s continuing to get her kicks messing with her dad.
“Terrible!” Carol adds.
“Good,” Cliff says with a low chuckle. His laugh … “Don’t have too much fun without me.”
“Dad, are you going to the kitchen?” Emily calls.
“Yeah. What do you need?”
“Gummy worms.”
“How many have you eaten?” he asks suspiciously.
All of us stare at the large bag with four remaining worms.
“None,” she lies.
“Who cares?” Carol amends. “It’s a girls’ night!”
“Girls’ night!” Emily adds through cupped hands.
“All right, all right,” he says with a husky laugh. “Be back.”
The moment his footfalls disappear, I feel like I can breathe again.
My fingers thread through Brittany’s hair strand by strand, and when I finally look up, Sara is staring back at me with one gummy worm hanging between her lips.
She sucks it in and mouths, Are you all right?
I nod stiffly and return to braiding.
I’m not all right. I’ve been thinking about Cliff’s words for two days now.
“Because I’m really confused about us and I’m trying to sort through it.”
“Because you mean more to me than just a simple, confusing kiss.”
We haven’t talked about it like we said we would. The inn has been too busy, he’s been trying to soak up as much time with his girls as possible before they leave for their mom’s, and honestly, we’ve been avoiding each other.
I want to talk to him, but I don’t know what I’d even say. I miss talking with him so much that it hurts. I miss our nights on the front porch. I miss racing down the inn steps together. I miss his sarcasm. I miss the way he challenges me.
My neck tingles again when I hear Cliff approaching. The curtain to our fort slides to the side, held by Cliff’s big hands with trailing veins and defined knuckles and wrists. I miss those hands—touching my knee, my back, my hair. I hate that I miss those hands.
And then his head pokes in.
It’s a weird thing, seeing someone you know so well but feeling like they’re a stranger. He’s only a few feet away, but it’s so distant at the same time. My hands tangled in Brittany’s hair suddenly feel clammy, like he’s a popular boy in high school I have a crush on instead of Cliff Burke. My Cliff Burke.
“Having fun?” he asks.
Cliff pokes at Brittany’s feet—so close to mine—and she giggles, nodding over and over.
“Em?”
Emily purses her lips. “We’re having a good time.”
“Good.” He looks at Carol with a lopsided smile and waves to Sara.
I keep anticipating that he’ll look at me. I’m buzzing with nerves. My knee bounces on the floor.
See me, see me, see me.
Finally, he does.
And our gazes snag .
They always do.
There isn’t Brittany, Emily, Sara, or Carol. It’s me, Cliff, and his blue eyes. Cliff and the little line in the corner of his mouth that deepens when he starts to smile. Cliff and the barely there bend in the bridge of his nose. Cliff and the small scar above his upper lip that I traced with my fingertips. Cliff and his tense jaw.
“Because I’m really confused about us …”
What do we say? Nothing. I’m leaving, and I don’t know when I’ll come back, and ultimately, it doesn’t matter. He’s got a life here. I’ve got a life elsewhere. We can’t get close.
It makes me sad. It makes me upset. Angry with myself.
I like control over my own life, but somehow, I can’t get my wits about me around Cliff. He’s been the tornado barreling toward me since the day my taxi drove into town.
I want my life back. I want normalcy. And he’s messing it all up.
“Dad!”
Cliff blinks, and so do I, my tunnel vision widening back to the pillow fort and my hands tightened in Brittany’s hair, mid-braid.
Emily groans. “Can’t you see we’re busy ?”
“Right, right, right,” he says, shaking his head. “You girls have fun.”
I expect him to steal one last glance at me. I’m desperate for it, but the curtain drops, and I’m left without him again.
I swallow and finish Brittany’s braid.
“Hair tie?” I ask.
When none lands in my hand, I look up.
Emily, Carol, and Sara are staring at me.
“What?” I ask.
All three look away, saying, “Nothing,” “Nope,” and, “Not a thing.”
“I wish Rocket were here,” Brittany says in a low whine.
Emily’s head jerks up. “You do?”
Brittany nods. “I miss him.”
I stroke my fingers through the ends of her braid, undoing it to try again. “He misses you too.”
Brittany gasps. “Did he tell you that?”
I tilt my head side to side. “In a way, yes.” I keep braiding halfway down her neck. “Hey, how about when you get back, we have a whole playdate in the front yard?”
“It’ll be cold.”
“Then, we’ll wear jackets.”
“Will Rocket be there?”
“Yes, and we’ll find him a jacket too.”
A steady smile rises onto Brittany’s cheeks as she murmurs, “Okay.”
“Hair tie?” I insist again.
This time, Sara tosses me one. I tie off Brittany’s braid and pat her back. She, Carol, and Sara roll over to the nail polish station, leaving me to slide down the edge of the sofa to the pillowed floor. Emily sidles up next to me, leaning her head on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry he went on a date with your sister,” Emily whispers.
My stomach curls. It was my fault. I’d told him to. I’d pushed it. I have nobody to blame but myself.
I force a smile. “Why?”
“Because.”
I remember how hurt he looked the other morning, and it kills me to think I did that to him. I’m causing all of our problems, and it’s so par for the course that I’m almost sickened. He doesn’t deserve that.
“Hey, do me a favor?” I ask.
“Yeah?”
“Cut him some slack about Halloween.”
Emily giggles. “I like to make him sweat. He thinks he’s all that , so I’ve gotta set him straight.”
I huff out a laugh. “Well, try not to make him too nervous, okay?”
“I promise.” Then, she nudges me. “And you too.”
My heart hammers, but all I manage is a small, “I’ll try.”