“He’ll be mad.”
“He won’t.”
He will.
I undid the clasp and slid my bra off.
“Mad’s not the word . . .”
A violent spray of water shot up my nostrils, and I awoke. Coughing and sputtering, I looked up to Skye standing over me holding an upturned water glass. I blinked confusedly at her as the last drops drained and hit my forehead in delicate splats.
“Your boyfriend is in the hall,” she said, shaking the glass to thoroughly empty it.
I wiped my face on my sweatshirt sleeve. My hair was wet and sticking to the sides of my face and my pillow was drenched.
“Who, Leland?” I asked.
“I can think of no other.”
“Leland’s not my boyfriend.” He had now seen my tits though. So that was perfect.
I peered around Skye to glimpse the spiral at the end of the entry vestibule, hoping I wouldn’t see him. But he was really there, lifting a guilty hand in greeting.
My eyes narrowed in anger.
Lustwas not the emotion we agreed on him channeling intomy brain before I went to bed.
* * *
He stood across the way, his back to the two low-slung, tan lounge chairs overlooking the arcade. The first rays of soft morning sunlight filtered in through the skylight, and to add to my embarrassment, I was wearing Leland’s beige hoodie. I’d slept in it, and now he was staring at it, trying to figure out what it meant.
He was in black sweats and a loose running tank, annoying me with his slow blinks. His chest, shredded masterpiece that it was, was far too visible through his low-cut sleeves. A few moments passed before I registered the loud beating sound was my pulse and regained the sense to stop looking so intensely at him.
Skye hovered protectively over my shoulder, snacking on a baby carrot and preventing Leland and I from saying what needed to be said. Things like:What the hell was that dream?andI don’t know, Ember, why’d you take your bra off?
My hair dripped down my front.
“Why are you wet?” Leland asked.
“Probably because we’re low on clementines,” I responded, turning back to the small wire fruit basket on Skye’s desk to confirm.
“Clementines,” he said, not understanding.
“I pelt them at her,” Skye said cheerfully. “For her reflexes.”
Yep. I pointed a backward finger over my shoulder at her. It was her favorite way to wake me from naps that were really daydreams.
“So youpoured wateron her?”
“You said it was urgent!”
“Ember,” he sighed, wisely giving up on this. “Can I talk to you in the hall, please?”
“Depends.” I folded my arms over my chest. “Is this going to beahappyconversation?”
He knew what I meant.
Happywas the emotion we’d agreed on before bed.Happy, we’d said, and a striptease was not one of the potential consequences he’d listed. I thought I’d be picking wildflowers alone on a hillside or something.
