Chapter 4 Mia #2
I shot her a look, and she blanched as she hurriedly looked away from me.
I watched her turn slowly to take in the new changes — the television, the sofa, the monstrosity of a fridge.
As she walked down the hall, I watched her look in her bedroom with awe.
She had a new bed, a new desk and chair, and a free-standing clothes rail, which I was actually jealous of, but I would die before I mentioned it to him or anyone.
“They don’t get how over-the-top they are,” Ava tried to defend them, and as I glared, she ducked into her bedroom out of my sight.
I heard a muted conversation and then an “oh shit” and a quiet laugh. Two seconds later, Ava’s head popped out of her bedroom.
“Err, Mee?”
“What now?” I could feel my gut clenching, waiting for the next bombshell.
“You ever heard of a wet room?” Ava asked me cautiously. Seeing my look, she hurried on. “It’s a bathroom where the flooring is essentially a drain, so there’s no shower stall or bath.”
“What?”
“So, you like, um, run the shower, and the whole bathroom is the shower.”
“Like sprinklers?” If I frowned any harder, I would get wrinkles.
“No, you still have the shower head, you just aren’t . . . um . . . enclosed.” Ava was rubbing her hands on her jeans nervously.
“Sounds weird, why are you telling me?” I saw her guilt, and I slammed my Coke on the counter. “No.”
“Mee, I—”
“No. He doesn’t get to change anything else!” I cried in despair. “He’s been here one night. One night.”
Ava stepped toward me, and I made a sound low in my throat that honestly sounded like a growl. “We don’t know how long it has to be for. He’s a big guy, and he’s doing us all a favor. Can you blame him for trying to be comfortable?”
Was she kidding me? “Are you serious?” I squinted at Ava to make sure I was hearing her properly.
“Mia—”
“I didn’t ask him to be here,” I cut her off. “I don’t even know why he’s here. He can go back to his own room, in his own dorm, and leave mine alone.”
“Well, technically, it’s my room,” Ava muttered.
I wanted to slap her. “Your room? What about our kitchen, our living area, our bathroom?” I saw the delivery guy hovering uncertainly in the hallway. “What?” I barked at him.
“We’re done, miss, ma’am. Um, we’ll, eh, we’ll be back in the morning.” With a nod to us both, he practically ran out of the apartment.
“Ma’am?” I said after him in disbelief. Did I look like a ma’am?
“I think you’ve scared them.” Ava snickered, but my look cut her off. “He said they’d only be a few hours with the installation tomorrow,” she said quietly.
“Where is he?” I asked as I leaned forward.
“Practice,” Ava whispered.
“How did they get into my home?” I demanded. “My home.”
“I don’t know.”
“They’re not gods!” I reiterated Ava’s words back to her — words she’d said to me in this kitchen only a few weeks ago.
“I’ll talk to them,” she assured me, and with my blank stare, she nodded eagerly. “I really will, I’ll let them know this isn’t okay.”
It really wasn’t her fault. It shouldn’t have been Ava that I was taking this out on. “He can’t turn everything upside down.”
“I know, I’m sorry. They act first, think later,” she told me with a small smile. “I mean, if you think about it, they caused Mayhem. Just a singular attack,” she added as she looked around our apartment. “And to be fair, the couch looks so comfortable.”
“You think a personal delivery of Mayhem to my home is a positive thing?”
Ava bit the inside of her cheek as she looked at me. “Want me to stay? I could, after all I need to go sort out my room.”
“No point, they took all your stuff away.”
It was with a small measure of satisfaction that I saw her sprint to her room and then start cursing colorfully. “Where the hell’s all my shit?”
I listened to the sound of the closet door banging off the wall and multiple curse words being strung into nonsensical sentences. When Ava came storming back into the kitchen, her cell was already pressed to her ear.
“Where’s all my stuff?” she demanded of Jett. Well, I assumed it was Jett. She listened, and I took another drink of my Coke. “What do you mean it’s at your place? I don’t live with you, Jett. I live with Mia.”
That’s exactly what I had been trying to remind her of.
“No, Jett, no. I want it back here.” I watched her as she paced. “I understand that.” A pause. “No. How can you say that? I know what’s happening, of course I know.”
I wish someone would tell me.
“Jett, don’t be so harsh. You know I understand.”
I frowned as I saw her face pale and her eyes lower.
“I know.” Her voice was so low I was surprised Jett could hear her. “Okay, we’ll talk later.” With a sigh, she slipped her phone into her back pocket before she turned to look at me and raised her hands in supplication. “It’s only temporary.”
I wanted to snap at her. I wanted to shake her. I wanted to hug her. I wanted a lot of things, but I also knew my friend, her troubled expression, the worry in her eyes, and the tightness around her eyes. I let it go.
“Okay,” I spoke quietly.
“Apparently, wet rooms make sense in small areas,” Ava informed me as she reached over and took a drink of my Coke.
“Okay.”
“You’re not okay though.” Ava rubbed her hands over her eyes.
“I’ll be better when you’re back here,” I told her truthfully.
“I know.” Reaching for me, she gave me a hug and then looked around again. “They’re still at practice — want to go to the house and eat all their food?”
I thought about it. Yes. I did. I wanted to invade his space the same way that he had invaded mine.
“Sure.”
“Okay, Quinn is on her way here,” Ava said as she perked up considerably.
“Yay.” She shot me a hard look, which I returned with all the innocence I could muster.
“Be nice, you don’t know what’s going on,” Ava chided me as she took her phone out of her back pocket again to check.
“Because no one tells me anything,” I reminded her more sharply than I meant to.
Ava went to speak when Quinn rapped her knuckles against the door. “Hey, bad time?” she asked us both.
“No,” we both answered, and Quinn raised her eyebrow but said nothing.
She was so beautiful. I took in her long, dark hair, dark eyes, and absolutely perfect complexion.
My mom would have swooned over Quinn’s looks.
All my life, she had told me my brash hair and my white face were every director’s nightmare.
I remembered the first time I sang on stage.
I had been six and wearing a white sundress, with my hair in braids to smother the red, as my mom would say.
When I came off, she scolded me for wearing no makeup and wearing white.
When someone commented that I “shone” on stage, my mom had told them it was because I was so pale that I reflected the spotlight.
Thankfully, as I got older, the harsh red toned down to auburn, and foundation gave me the color the sun could not.
Standing beside Quinn, I looked like a gangly scarecrow, while she looked like an exotic princess.
“I think Mia needs to know it all,” Ava blurted out as she looked between the two of us. She gestured behind her. “Ash is making himself at home, he’s changed everything in my room, and tomorrow the bathroom is getting changed.”
Quinn’s eyes widened in surprise before she walked down to Ava’s bedroom and looked inside. Coming back to us, she looked at me and ran a hand over her thick hair. I noticed the small tremor and looked at her with concern.
“Where do you want me to start?”