“I…” I’m dying to cut the tension in the room, the heaviness. “I thought you were going to ask for pancakes,” I admit, wishing I had something more eloquent to say, or that I had just kept my mouth shut and let him leave. Wishing I had the headspace to determine if I was giddy, or confused, or mad. But all I can let myself think about right now is pancakes. One kiss, and his lips have completely warped my mind.
Asher’s mouth tips up into a smile. “I was.” He’s walking backward toward the door, not taking his eyes off of me for a single second. He shrugs as he says, “But then you kissed me.”
A defiant little huff of air escapes me.
“I’m still open to pancakes, though.” He grins.
I can’t remember the last time I was lacking a witty comeback for Asher. What do I want to say?You shouldn’t have kissed me?I shouldn’t have kissed you?Come back here, so I can kiss you again? I fear it would be the last one. Only seconds pass before he’s slipping through the bathroom door, a whispered “good night” gliding into my room as he glides out.
What the hell happened tonight?
DAY 25
Sidney
It’s one o’clock before I finally decide that starving in my room would not be a great life choice. Even if it would teach Asher a lesson. I bet most girls don’t complain about being kissed by Asher; letting myself starve would be some next-level payback. But I don’t have the dedication to starve myself, or the luxury of avoiding Asher indefinitely, when we live in the same house. Controlling when I see him is probably the best scenario I can ask for.
Asher is always sticking his clothes into random loads of laundry, so there’s always a pile of his miscellaneous clean clothing sitting in the little laundry room between his room and Sylvie and Greg’s. Maybe he does his laundry like that on purpose—if each of us thinks it’s a mistake, we just fold the few pieces, and by the end of the week Asher has a full load of clean laundry. I wouldn’t put it past him, it’s sort of brilliant. So I’m not surprised to see a little stack of his T-shirts when I open the laundry room doors.
I suppose I don’t need an excuse to talk to Asher—kissing me with no warning last night seems like excuse enough—but it wouldn’t hurt to have one. Just in case he has no intention of addressing the elephant in the room. Sigh. I still miss Edith. If Ihave to, I’m not above throwing his laundry at him and claiming that’s the only reason I came. As I make the harrowing six-foot journey to his bedroom, I hope I won’t have to resort to the drive-by laundry-bomb method. Laundry flinging seems immature, even for us.
I knock at Asher’s door, but it’s quiet. Probably I should just take his clothes back to the laundry room. But something makes me twist the knob and go inside.Dump them and run,my brain screams. The rest of me has different ideas, though, because my heart knows I’m not here for laundry. If my brain was in control, I wouldn’t have stayed in my room half the day, thinking about all of the reasons kissing Asher is a train wreck waiting to happen.
Mainly, the fact that Asher’s only looking for summer fun. And there’s nothing about me that would make me think I could handle a friends-with-benefits kind of situation. We’re barely friends, for one. As far as I can tell, Asher goes from one girlfriend to the other, every school year. Every summer he seems to be fresh off a breakup. That’s months of dating. I mean, sure, I have a horrible track record with guys, but I don’t keep them around long enough to smash their hearts.Monthsis heartbreak territory. It’s crying-in-your-room-wondering-what-you-did-wrong territory. How-am-I-going-to-face-him-every-day-or-see-him-with-someone-else territory. My pulse is thrumming in my ears just standing in his room, thinking through all of this again. Asher Marin isn’t just some guy who wanted to kiss me.Twice.He’s the guy who has been finding ways to get into my head, and get back at me for years. There’s no way there isn’t something else going on here.You were so so stupid, Sidney.
I walk into Asher’s room, past his bed—rumpled and torn apart, like a wild animal slept in it—and set his clothes on the chair next to his dresser. It’s clean and white and tall. And covered in his things.
I poke around the cluttered surface—at the little bottle of cologne I can’t help but lift to my nose, at the brown leather wallet that he never carries because he hates the way it feels in his pocket. I open his top drawer and the left side is stuffed with wads of gray and black and red, the black elastic waistbands stopping my hand from reaching down. On the right is his toothbrush, a black comb, and two bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Are the bottles in the shower just decoys? Apparently Asher doesn’t 100 percent trust the truce, either.Smart boy.Maybe he knows how addicted I am to his body wash, and that I’d never tamper with it, and that’s why it has no decoy. I’m pretty sure I’d protect that body wash with my life.
I’m not sure what I’m looking for—maybe I’m just in snooping withdrawal—but just before I close the drawer, I notice the little box. I trace my finger over delicate veins of gold foil that run across the blue box, and I know I shouldn’t, but I pluck it out and pop the lid off. There’s a necklace inside—a pretty one, with charms and beads and a long dangling chain—and I suddenly wish I hadn’t opened the box or this drawer, or his bedroom door. Because I came in here looking for answers, and now all I have is more questions. Just one question, really: Does Asher have a girlfriend? He and Jordan broke up, but that was months ago—plenty of time for a new girl to come into the picture. I think about all of the sweet things Asher does—whywouldn’the have a girlfriend? And what else don’t I know about him? But more importantly, why do I even care? And why did he kiss me?
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I close the dresser drawer before pulling it out. It’s just my mom reminding me that the parents will be gone for dinner tonight and we’re on our own. Below my mom’s text is one from Kara, and then, as if written in neon, I see Caleb’s name. My fingers move faster than my brain when I start typing.
It’s at least a minute before the shimmering three dots appear, letting me know he’s replying. My stomach clenches. I’m not sure if I’m worried he’ll say no, or that he’ll say yes.
Ugh. This is the problem with being in a small town. Our options are limited. And I suppose I shouldn’t be picky when I haven’t talked to Caleb since I told him I just wanted to be friends. But this is what friends do, right? Friends hang out. They swoop in when you need a rescue. And right now I really need to get out of this house.
I text him my new address. As I shove my phone back in my pocket, I realize I’m still standing in Asher’s room. And I don’t know why it feels like I just did something wrong when he’s hoarding jewelry (and maybe girlfriends), but suddenly I feel like I might break out in hives if I stand in this room for one more second. And when I pass through the bathroom to my room, I can’t help but glance at the mirror. The lipstick is sitting on the counter, but the mirror is empty. The last three weeks feel like a quickly fading dream.
I’m laying clothes out on my bed when there’s a knock on the bathroom door. It isn’t locked, though in retrospect maybe that was stupid of me. “Come in.”
Asher walks in slowly, with his hands shoved into his pockets. His face is almost blank, unreadable. My brain wants to scream,Why did you kiss me? Do you have a girlfriend? Is this all a giant joke to you?But all my mouth says is, “Hey.” I’m surprised by how normal my voice sounds. My hands keep grabbing at pieces of clothing, picking up and putting them down, moving things around on my bed just to keep from being still.
His eyes roam over the clothes strewn about my bed, and then to me, in the ratty shorts and tank top I always wear straight from the shower. He looks me up quickly from my toes to my eyes before saying, “Going somewhere?”
I toss aside the shirt I was holding. “Just the Cherry Bowl.”
“The movies haven’t changed yet, they’re the same all week.”
I know this; it’s why I wasn’t thrilled Caleb suggested it. Well, part of the reason. “I know, it’s not a big deal.”
“You really want to see the same movies twice in a week?” He tips his head to the side, like he’s examining me. “Tell Kara to find someone else. Come with me to Trevor’s house. Game Night 2.0, you can have your own game piece and everything.”
“I’m not going with Kara.” There’s a long stretch of silence, and I know I should fill it with the information the look on his face is telling me he wants, but I can’t make myself do it. Things feel too weird. There’s a tangible sense of aggression radiating from him as he looks over the clothes strewn around my room, and I have to fight to push away the guilty feeling rising up in me. It’s completely irrational.Ihave nothing to be sorry for.
“You’re going with Caleb?” Asher’s brows are twisted in annoyance, and he says his name like it’s something sticky he found on his shoe. His hands move from his pockets to his head, gripping the back of his neck like he has a headache. “Since when?”
“Since this afternoon?” My voice is rough and harsh, and it matches the scowl on Asher’s face.Why does this feel like an interrogation?
