I stare at her for a moment, crushed beneath the weight of my feelings for her as rain patters softly against the windows. Somewhere down the hall, a door slams shut, and it breaks me from my trance. “You up for a lazy Sunday?”
She bites her lip, and I’m instantly worried she’ll say no.
I clear my throat. “Unless Ethan’s with you?” I ask, praying like hell he’s not.
Tatum shakes her head, and a drop of rain falls from the end of her inky black locks. “No. He went back to school this morning.”
The punch of relief I feel at the news is sharp and shameful, a stark reminder of how I want what I can’t have.
Stepping aside so she can come in, I study her face as she passes, searching for any sign of how she feels about the fact that Ethan’s gone and she’s here. Does she miss him? Is she relieved?
But I find nothing. She’s unreadable. A blank canvas. Suddenly, this girl I’ve known for years is as indecipherable to me as a foreign language, and I wonder when things changed and why.
“So, if we’re having a lazy Sunday,” she says, turning to me. “Who’s boss?”
I cross my arms over my chest, leaning against the doorframe as a smile plays over my lips. Lazy Sundays are one of the things we made up in high school. My mom was always working and never around. For some reason her absence hit harder on Sundays, so Tate would come over and we’d spend the day inside doing whatever we wanted. Eventually, it evolved into flipping a coin to see who got to dictate the day’s activities.The bosscould choose whatever they wanted, and the other had to honor their every whim.
“Flip for it?” When she nods, I add, “Let me grab a coin.”
I jog back to my bedroom, heart racing at the prospect of spending the day with her. I grab the coin we always use from my top dresser drawer and head back out to find her perched on the couch in my living room.
She glances up at me when I approach, and I hold the coin out, making a show of it as I toss it in the air and slap it on the back of my hand, stretching it out to show her.
“Heads!” she squeals, and I laugh.
Little does Tate know I’ve used a double-sided coin for years. The few times I won were at her insistence she flip it with a coin from her pocket, and she’s yet to make the connection.
“Damn. Looks like you win.” I sink the coin back into the pocket of my joggers. “So, what’ll it be? Romcom marathon? Baking ’til we drop? You get whatever you want,” I say with a grimace as if the thought pains me, when in reality, pleasing Tatum brings me far more joy than is probably normal.
“Anything?” she asks, drumming her pretty little fingers against her mouth.
I reach out and tuck a dark lock behind her ear. “Anything.”
“This is ridiculous,” I mutter, trying not to move my face too much as the sticky concoction Tate slathered all over my skin tightens like plastic wrap.
The pungent scent of bananas and honey fills my nose, and I can feel a massive glob of something threatening to slide down my temple onto the couch.
“Stop talking,” Tatum scolds, lying beside me, her head resting against the top of the couch cushions, and her own face covered in the same homemade rotting fruit mask.
“I think I just ate a gnat.”
Tate stifles a giggle before shushing me. “You’ll crack it, and then it won’t work properly.”
“And what exactly is it supposed to be doing?” I ask, ignoring her instructions to stay silent. “Besides making me smell like banana bread?”
“It moisturizes and brightens the skin.” She reaches out and pats me on the hand in consolation. “Just trust me and let all the natural vitamins and antioxidants work their magic.”
I huff and lie there for a moment longer before I hear a knock on the door. Frowning, I pluck the cucumber slices from my eyes that I’d already shifted so I could see, and rise from the couch, heading toward the sound.
“Now you’re really gonna ruin your mask,” she mutters from behind me as I swing the door open to find Chris and Jace standing in the hallway, eyes wide with shock as they take me in.
“Who is it?” she asks.
“Just the guys,” I call out, before turning back to them. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Jace pinches his lips shut, vibrating with silent laughter as Chris smirks and says, “We came to check on you when you stop answering our texts, but I can see now there was no need to worry. Is this what you do in your spare time, Lambert?”
“You know, I always wondered how you got that subtle glow at practice,” Jace chimes in.
