Eight
‘DO YOU DO ALL THAT EVERY DAY?’
‘Excuse you.’ A decorative cushion sails through the air, and I just about dodge it in time to avoid an oily catastrophe. ‘I condition.’
I cast a pointed look at his near-bald head. ‘You condition what, exactly?’
Another pillow assault has me ducking and chuckling – a glance over my shoulder has me sobering up fast.
Heath only sauntered into my apartment a couple of hours ago, yet he already looks like he belongs here.
Like he’s part of the damn furniture. Lounging casually with an arm propped behind his head, the other resting on his stomach, long fingers lazily scratching the patch of hair-dusted lower stomach that’s revealed by a short tee and a low waistband, he ignores the textbooks strewn across the coffee table.
The stacks of notes, my notes, don’t hold his interest much either.
I do. Unwaveringly. I’m not entirely sure he’s taken his eyes off me once since he arrived bearing dinner from my favorite restaurant and a bookbag that I don’t think he would’ve even opened if I hadn’t demanded it.
A demand he only met after we ate, after he yapped my ear off about his day, and extracted reluctant, bland information about mine, after I literally dragged his ass to the sofa and threw a book at his head and told him I wouldn’t speak to him again until he was at least halfway through his assigned reading for the week.
With the way he’s been intently watching me slather on skincare and hair serums and soothing oils made for aching, athletic muscles, I’d be surprised if he was halfway through a sentence. ‘You’re supposed to be studying history, not my grooming habits.’
The hand on his stomach flexes. ‘One is infinitely more interesting than the other.’
Ignoring the way my stomach flutters just a little at that, I push to my feet.
Eyes linger on my bare legs, burning my calves as I round the sofa.
In the kitchen, I bypass the takeout littering the counter and open the fridge, snagging a couple kombuchas before returning to the living room and dropping to the floor in front of the coffee table.
Tossing one cold can to Heath, I pick up the neatly stapled wad of paper lined with my handwriting and throw that over too. ‘Here. I made some notes.’
‘You did my reading?’
‘I like reading.’ I like studying, and I like taking notes too, but before I can insist anymore, Heath shakes his head.
At first, I think it’s disbelief guiding the slow movement. When he returns my notes and brandishes a notebook cluttered with his own scrawl, I realize it’s refusal. ‘I have my own.’
Two fingers stabbing the stack, I push them over again. ‘Mine are better.’
‘I don’t need them.’
‘Evidently, you do.’
‘I can’t use your notes.’
‘Why not?’
Tanned cheeks turn ever-so-slightly ruddy. ‘I can’t read your handwriting.’
Squinting at my perfectly legible flowing strokes, I ask again, ‘Why not?’
‘Because I can’t.’ Heath shifts, body slanted in my direction even as he steadfastly avoids my gaze. ‘I’m dyslexic. Cursive is harder to read.’
‘Oh.’ My own cheeks flush, my voice a raw croak as it struggles to be heard around the foot currently wedged in my mouth. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Why would you?’
There’s no accusation, no snark nor bite, but I flinch anyway, guilt socking me in the stomach because I should know.
It’s been a week of this, of daily study sessions fit in around daily flaunting our fake relationship, and I just .
. . haven’t noticed? God, I can think of at least a dozen gripes aimed at his spelling, at his handwriting, and he just laughed, brushed it off, and I am an asshole. ‘I’m sorry.’
He doesn’t wave off my apology so much as pretend I didn’t even say it. ‘So I’ve been thinking about the next phase—’
‘Heath—’
‘—and we need to up the ante a little. Really dig our heels in. Make Ben sweat.’
Resting an elbow on the table and my temple against my knuckles, I sigh my defeat. If he really doesn’t want to talk about it, I’ll drop it. For now. ‘I’m pretty sure he’s been sweating.’
‘He’s been jealous,’ Heath corrects, a little of the tension leaking out of him as I oblige his subject change. ‘We want him inconsolable. Regretting life choices. Punching walls.’
‘Nix the last one. I think he gets a kick out of it.’
Heath stiffens. His gaze flits around my apartment, taking stock of the walls, like he’s searching for telltale holes hidden behind the paint. ‘He seriously does that?’
Once. After a particularly lackluster out-of-state meet. ‘He doesn’t like losing.’
‘Neither do you. You don’t get violent.’
‘Because I don’t lose.’
‘Jesus.’ With a low huff, Heath slumps against the sofa, fingers curling into tight balls where they rest on his upper thighs. ‘He’s such a fucking child.’
‘Toddler is more accurate, I think.’
That strong jaw works as Heath clenches it, as his brain works too, as some thought bounces around in that pretty head of his – one that makes him look at me with hard, cautious eyes. ‘Just walls?’
It takes me a second to get what he’s asking. When I do, my spine snaps straight, my head just about snapping off my neck with how fervently I nod. ‘Just walls.’
Heath swallows. Slowly nodding too, his fists unfurl just as leisurely. Swallowing again, he clears his throat. ‘Phase Two. Time to really rub us in his face.’
‘Right. What’s the plan?’
‘What do you think would hurt him the most? What’s a sore spot?’
Where do I start? ‘He used to complain a lot about me not going out with him. Like to parties and bars and stuff.’
‘We can definitely work with that.’
‘Good.’
Restless, charged energy swirls around us, making me squirm.
Grabbing my laptop, I pull open a new document, something to engage my interest, something for my hands to do, something I should’ve done already.
One set of fingers flying across the keyboard, the other reaches for my useless notes.
I feel Heath watching me, and I glance up to find him frowning, lips parted, but I butt in before he can ask what I’m doing. ‘You got a plan?’
‘Oh, honey.’ Just like that, his frown melts away to make room for a grin. ‘I always have a plan.’
It’s two days later when my phone chimes – and provides zero clarification, just the ambiguity I’ve quickly learned my fake boyfriend has a penchant for.
Salt Lane at eight.
I’m sighing at the time – and cursing my narrow window to get ready – when another text comes through.
Need you in blue, baby.
I stare at my screen for ten minutes too long before I force myself to put my phone down and leave its general vicinity.
I’m behind the ornate vintage screen that separates my bed from the rest of my studio, ripping into my wardrobe in search of everything blue I own and cursing Heath for not specifying a shade when my doorbell rings.
Once, then again a moment later, followed by a flurry of impatient knocking that has me grumbling curses beneath my breath and answering the incessant summons with a hard yank and a brusque ‘Jesus, what?’
Two sets of wide eyes, one dark brown and one bright blue, blink at me. ‘Is that how you always answer the door?’
‘I wasn’t expecting anyone.’ Least of all the duo dancing on my doorstep, shimmying like a pair of overexcited puppies. ‘How do you guys know where I live?’
‘Magic.’ Curling a hand around my doorframe, Imani cocks her head like she can’t fathom why I’m confused. ‘Heath texted you, right?’
‘He did.’ My gaze flits to Matilda and narrows when her megawatt smile threatens to scald my eyeballs. ‘Didn’t realize it was gonna be a group affair.’
Both girls only smile brighter. ‘We tend to come as a package. You’ve been getting off easy lately.’
A mercy that ends tonight, apparently.
Without waiting for an invitation, the girls push inside my apartment, filling it with chatter and laughter and, after digging out a portable speaker from the small backpacks they each have hanging off a shoulder, the soft crooning of an indie playlist. Bottles of wine appear on my coffee table, mugs are snatched from the kitchen cabinet, make-up bags and hair tools and clothing is strewn across my living room, and though I wince at the mess, my proclivity for order is overshadowed by confusion.
‘You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here. ’
Clustered around my mirror, they look at me like it’s obvious. ‘Getting ready.’
‘Is that a group activity?’
Now they look at me like I’m stupid, a silent duh echoing off the walls. But they don’t let my obvious cluelessness hang in the air – Imani just finishes gathering her braids into a chunky claw clip while Matilda keeps smoothing moisturiser on her pale skin. ‘Do you know what you’re wearing?’
I don’t even know what’s happening. ‘Something blue, apparently.’
A pair of matching grins are exchanged so quickly I almost wonder if I imagined them. They move on so quickly, I decide I must’ve. ‘You want some wine?’
I nod, if only because a nice Pinot Noir might do something about the ringing in my ears. Accepting the mug Matilda offers, I tap the ring on my middle finger against the ceramic as I try to figure this out. ‘So Heath sent you to make sure I actually come out tonight?’
‘No.’ Imani twists to face me, holding up a burgundy eyeliner with one hand, beckoning me over with the other. ‘C’mere, I wanna try this on you.’
Tentatively, I cross the living room and sit cross-legged on the floor across from Imani, Matilda’s elbow brushing between my shoulder blades as she twists her vibrant hair around a curling iron.
‘Eyes closed,’ the former commands, and I obey just as long fingers adorned with pretty rings and prettier nails crook beneath my chin, holding me in place as she sweeps liner across my lashline. ‘Okay, open.’
As I do, I find Imani sitting back, surveying me, apparently pleased.
‘Pretty,’ she compliments with a wide, sincere smile. ‘You want me to do the rest of your make-up too?’
I nod, partly because I’m god-awful at make-up anyway, mostly because I get the feeling refusing isn’t really an option.
I sit quietly and I sip my wine, and I let Imani do as she pleases – which could very well be some interpretation of a clown, I consider, when the possibility of this all being one big elaborate prank briefly crosses my mind because I can’t quite fathom why else they would be here.
‘Heath really didn’t tell you to come over?’
Finishing styling her own hair and moving onto mine, Matilda yanks on a strand. ‘We already said no.’
‘Then why—’
‘Y’know,’ Imani cuts me off with a dramatic noise, ‘I’m starting to think that everyone who says you’re so smart has never actually had a conversation with you.’
‘Rude.’
‘We just wanted to hang out with you. Is that really so hard to believe?’
Rolling my lipgloss-slicked lips together, I refrain from answering.
I glance at my reflection just in time to catch the girls exchanging a look that isn’t quite as smiley as the last one.
Matilda sighs, one hand curling around my shoulder while the other sets her mug down on the coffee table. If there’s a follow-up to her long, breathy drawl of my name, I never get to hear it – I cut it off with a sharp ‘Careful.’
‘Sorry!’ Cringing, she snatches up her mug again, revealing the dark red ring left behind on the stack of papers she’d set it on. As she dabs at the stain with the hem of her shirt, she stoops to get a better look at the now-smudged writing. ‘What is it?’
I pray that the man-made blush carefully swept onto my cheeks hides the real one beneath it. ‘Just some notes for Heath.’
Cooing noises escape both girls, but the smile curling Matilda’s mouth doesn’t last long – it fades into a frown when, as she sets down the wine-stained pages, her gaze catches on a different pile.
A furrow forms between her brows as she scans the handwritten text again, then its printed twin. ‘These are the same.’
‘My, uh, handwriting didn’t work for him.’
That frown deepens for another second before realization wipes it clean. Lips parting, a soft noise escapes them as Matilda shuffles on her knees over to me, a lithe, freckled arm wrapping around my shoulders and squeezing gently. ‘I knew I liked you.’