I have to pause with wide eyes upon finding him.
“Reed!”
He has the bottle of green hair dye in his hands, and he’s trying his hardest. Even still, it’severywhere.
“Oh my god, Reed,” I exclaim as I grab towels from the closet. “Tina is going to kill you.”
Reed grins sideways at me. “She loves me too much for that.”
I laugh at him, the innocence in his big blue eyes. “This—why didn’t you wake me up? I told you I would help.”
“Didn’t want to wake you,” he shrugs.
“I mean, we could blame this on Kamden and get away with it, but—” I throw the towels on the floor. “Give me this and sit on the toilet—and then search how to get green hair dye off of walls.”
Reed obeys with the biggest smile, his tall, lanky body still so awkward as he moves to the toilet and sits backward. I wrap a towel around his shoulders and in his lap, and he already has his phone out, trying to find how to clean the mess.
“You realize you needed to bleach your hair first, right? Like, this is going to be a tint of green. Not neon,” I tell him.
“I have spray, too,” he says. “This was just the base coat.”
I smile at him through the mirror and shake my head. “You are going to make the best Joker tonight. If only we could find your Harley Quinn. Or Batman. ”
Reed scoffs. “Me? Find someone? You’re speaking fantasies. Especially with the band. It’s hard to meet anyone that isn’t just with me in the hopes they’ll get their picture taken.”
“So maybe someone who’s already used to that,” I suggest.
Reed frowns at me. “Yeah, okay.”
“But also, I hope they’re the grumpiest of grumps.”
A quiet chuckle leaves him. “Yeah, yeah,” he agrees. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“When are you going to find someone?” he asks. “I thought maybe you had already by the way you’ve been this week.”
I pause for a second. “What do you mean?”
Reed shrugs. “You seem happier, is all,” he says, and I feel my brows narrow.
“How so?” I ask.
“Usually, when you smile, I can see the ghosts behind your eyes,” he explains. “The last few days, they haven’t been there.”
“Wow, those new meds must be working,” I say, and Reed laughs.
“No, I mean it,” he says.
“Maybe I mean it,” I say as our eyes meet. “Go ahead. Laugh. Sometimes, those meds are all that keep me from digging my own grave.”
His smile softens. “Andi…”
I sigh heavily and drop the brush. “Ask it then,” I tell him.
“Have you met someone?”
“Ah…” I start painting his hair again. “Something like that.”
