Day 7
Asher
I don’t remember getting into bed, but that’s where I wake up the next morning. In a cold puddle.
Holy crap, did I actually pee the freaking bed?
I’m still in the fog of sleep as I let my brain work through how I’m going to break it to my mother that her eighteen-year-old wet his bed.
What a proud mom moment that will be. Could I get everything bagged up and thrown away, without being caught?
I don’t even know where someone would buy new sheets around here.
There’s one little strip of stores that includes the grocery store, a dollar store, a hobby shop, and a salon.
It’s a forty-five-minute drive to an actual mall.
I am never drinking again.
The clock says 9:20. I hear voices in the kitchen and spring out of bed, feeling my head revolt against my body being upright.
My stomach lurches and I give myself to the count of five before walking, to make sure I don’t puke.
Two long strides from the bed and my door is locked with a click.
I’m about ten minutes away from my mom barging in, insisting I get up and enjoy the day.
I strip my clothes off and throw them on my bed, rolling my sheets into a pile and wrapping them in the crinkly plastic mattress pad underneath.
How much would it cost to replace all of this?
These aren’t even my sheets, they’re Nadine’s, so can I really just toss them?
I dig clothes out of my drawer and pull on a pair of basketball shorts.
I haven’t figured out what to do with everything yet—how I can get it all to a Laundromat undetected—but making an appearance will buy me time.
When I get into the kitchen my parents are sitting at the table.
There’s a plate of cinnamon rolls in the center, and Sidney is in the chair to the right of my mom, wide-eyed and smiling.
“Good morning.” Her tone is so chipper it almost hurts.
“Morning,” I mutter. “My alarm didn’t go off.”
“I hate when that happens,” Sidney says. Her voice drips with mock sympathy.
“Sidney brought us extra cinnamon rolls,” Mom says, just before biting into one.
“I love them, but Dad doesn’t,” Sidney says. “We had way too many.” Sidney bites into one of the gooey circles. “Plus I wanted to see if you wanted to take a run with me. I was going to drive down to the trails that run by the river.”
“That’s a great idea,” Mom says. “You two will be teammates soon.”
Sidney’s eyes dart from my mom to me, but if she’s surprised that the two of us will both be swimming at our parents’ alma mater in a few months she doesn’t show it.
I suppose even without talking we have our moms to keep us both flush with intel.
I’m about to tell my future teammate there’s no way I’m running this morning, when I realize that this is my chance.
My ticket out of the house for a few hours, no questions asked.
“Awesome.” I sound unintentionally ecstatic. Sidney’s surprised face makes the sharp pang my own voice just shot into my head almost worth it. She never expected me to say yes. “Give me a few minutes.”
Sidney turns back to my mother, who is peppering her with questions.
Glancing at everyone at the table with their attention focused on gooey rolls—and Sidney—I make my way to the sink.
I’ve never been so glad to have her in my house.
Quietly, I open the cabinet underneath and pull out a black trash bag.
I don’t look back at the table. I clench it in my fist, close to my side, and walk as fast as I can toward the hallway without running.
When I’m back in my room I stuff my pile of bedding into the black bag, pull on socks, shoes, and a T-shirt, and shove my bag of shame out the window.
It lands on the gravel driveway that runs behind the house, wedged between it and Dad’s car.
From the corner of the yard I see a flash of movement.
Nadine is standing in the yard, looking between my head hanging out of the window and the giant bag now lying on the ground.
I give her a tentative wave, trying to look casual—nothing to see here! —and retreat back into my bedroom.
“You ready?” I say as I walk back into the kitchen, grabbing a napkin and a cinnamon roll before bolting toward the door.
Sidney follows after me, keys in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. “Feeling good this morning?” she says, her voice more annoyed than sympathetic.
“Fantastic,” I say.
“You look fantastic.”
I haven’t looked at myself at all this morning. I didn’t even stop in the bathroom. For all I know she covered my face in Sharpie last night.
“Do I have a dick on my face or something?”
“What?” She looks legitimately shocked. “No.” She shakes her head, her face twisted in disgust. “What am I, a ten-year-old boy? Give me some freaking credit.”
Sidney turns toward the car and I jog to the right. I pick up the garbage bag and haul it toward her car on the other side of the driveway.
“What are you doing?” Sidney says.
“Pop the trunk.”
She leans her hip against the car and crosses her arms. “Not until you tell me what’s in the bag.”
“I’ll tell you in the car,” I say, and hear the trunk click and pop.
“Well?” We’re a mile down the road when Sidney finally presses me on the contraband in her trunk. “Am I helping you hide a body or something?”
“Why, do you have experience in that? Have a checklist you need to go back for?”
She gives a little grunt of annoyance. “Please, as if I’d keep any evidence of that,” she says softly.
“I need you to drop me off at the Laundromat.”
“Why?”
“Because I hear they have the best breakfast in town.” I roll my eyes. “What do people usually do at Laundromats?”
“Doesn’t your dad do laundry on Tuesdays?”
“Just drop me off, Sidney.”
She drums her fingers softly against the steering wheel. “Did you … have an accident or something?” Sidney is barely controlling herself. She sounds like she’s about to break into laughter at any moment. Her shoulders are shaking gently.
“What did you do? Put my hand in warm water or something? Jesus, Sidney.”
“Settle down.” She sounds defensive. “You seriously thought you peed the bed?”
“What the hell was I supposed to think when I woke up in a wet bed?”
Sidney shakes her head and rolls her eyes. I think she mutters boys. “You obviously never babysat. Pee has a … very distinct smell.”
“Well excuse me for not sniffing the sheets I thought I peed on. I was a little distracted by the fact that I thought I peed the bed!”
“Wow, you are a drama llama this morning,” Sidney mutters.
I had fully expected drama today, but this isn’t what I had in mind at all. We drive the rest of the way in silence. When we pull into the parking lot in front of the Laundromat, Sidney unlocks the doors.
“What are you doing?”
“Dropping you off,” she says matter-of-factly.
“Sounds like I don’t need to be here,” I say, annoyed. Not that I want to run with her, but at least I could just sit somewhere for an hour.
“You still need to wash them,” she says. “They’re going to be sticky.”
“From?” I practically growl it at her. I am so not in the mood this morning.
“Lemonade,” she says, trying her best to contain the smile working at the corners of her mouth. “Your favorite, if I remember correctly.”
I slam the door and yank my bag out of the trunk. Apparently I’m spending my hour at the Laundromat.
“How much do you hate me right now?” she yells out the open window as she pulls away.
Sidney
Asher probably kisses anyone when he’s drunk.
Maybe everyone. I bet his standards are super low under regular circumstances, so what can I expect from him when he’s trashed?
Obviously I can’t expect him not to kiss his arch enemy.
Though that seems like the least you could expect of any guy who isn’t currently starring in a Bond movie.
So what’s my excuse? Shock? Retaliation for that stunt he pulled in the lake?
I had just woken up. Maybe I thought it was a dream.
I’m looking out the kitchen window, thinking about our drunken kiss and obvious mutual lack of standards, when my date—a guy who actually seems to like me—pulls into the driveway.
“Mom, I’m going out, I’ll be back in a few hours.” The door is half-open when I shout it behind me. Mom is sitting on our little screened-in porch, at her table covered in glass.
“With Asher?” The question shouldn’t sound like an accusation, but it does, so I practically screech no as I let the door slam behind me.
And then, as if my mother just chanted his name into a mirror three times in the dark, Asher appears. Standing in the yard, halfway between our houses. He looks from me to the old black car sitting in the driveway, and as I pivot right toward Caleb, he pivots left, and heads toward the lake.
Caleb must catch the look on my face as we step out of his car five minutes later, because he looks apologetic when he meets me at my door. As I stare at the stone-covered restaurant that looks like a hobbit house built into the side of a hill, Caleb stares at me.
“You were so dressed up at the party.” He shoves his hands into his khaki shorts. “I just sort of figured that was your norm.”
He’s not wrong, my first instinct would have been to wear the white skirt from the party.
But it’s still in a pile on my floor, light grass stains up one side from last night.
That kiss. Instead, I’m wearing a cute blue tank top that hangs loose but is far from dressy.
It could be, if I had paired it with a skirt, but I’m not wearing one.
I’m wearing cut-off shorts. Because I was determined to show Caleb that I wasn’t some stuck-up tourist who doesn’t know how to relax.
I didn’t expect that he’d bring me to the one fancy restaurant in all of Riverton.