Gia scoffed, waving a hand at me. “You know I’d never make you choose.”
“I know.” Smiling at her, I gave her space to catch her breath and steady her emotions, the way she needed.
As she wiped her nose, she nodded and swiped at the remnants of her tears before exhaling a deep breath.
“The Quest has been so weird because on one hand, it’s been really great for you. To see you come out of your shell and put some of that behind you. But there’s so much stuff I can’t—” She chewed her lip, shaking her head as she thought about it. “Their world has so much darkness in it that I’m still scared of losing you. Even though I can’t let my fear keep you from living your best life. It’s probably what you experience with me. Since you can stop me from meeting spam callers in the forest, but?—”
“You did not!” I gaped at her, but when she didn’t contradict me, I put my face in my hands. “Gia, I swear…”
She shrugged, grinning when I looked back up at her. “What! He took me to dinner twice and aggressively ate my pussy first. I told you that’s all I needed.”
Shaking my head, I gaped at her. “You’re unhinged.”
“And you love it.” She smirked.
I squeezed her hands, the heaviness of our conversation eased by her natural ability to make my world brighter.
And I hoped she understood how true it was when I said, “I really, really do.”
When we got back to the apartment, I gathered the few items I’d used the night before and unzipped my suitcase to put them away, spotting my freshly washed clothes from Alice.
She’d offered to take care of them while I’d been at Pendragon over break week, assuring me she’d switched her detergent, so lemons no longer overpowered the laundry.
Beside it, my dirty laundry bag had opened and a few items had spilled out. I shoved what I needed to repack inside, eager to get back to Pendragon. As I wheeled my suitcase out the front door, a thought stopped me in my tracks. I dropped to my knees and unzipped my suitcase again.
Gia came up beside me as I hunted through my clothes. “What’s going on?”
“I need to find it.”
The chances of finding it unwashed and intact, were slim, but I swore I’d seen a flash of denim shoved beneath my dirty laundry bag. And to my surprise, the shorts I’d worn to the diner that day, when Max wrote out my list of Skills and Assets, weren’t with my freshly washed clothes. They must’ve fallen out of the dirty laundry bag, but I didn’t find them smooshed at the bottom of my suitcase like I would’ve expected.
Slightly rumpled but refolded, they’d been tucked in the side pocket of my bag.
I hadn’t done that.
Digging inside the front pocket of the shorts, I racked my brain to figure out what he’d done, and when he’d done it, hoping I was right aboutwhy. I snagged the napkin and pulled it free of the shorts, holding it tightly between my palms.
I stared up at Gia, who watched me carefully, and held it out for her to see. It wasn’t much proof, but I had to believe that Max’s hints had been leading me to find it. A reminder of moments between us where he’d found the truth in my lies.
His way of telling me he needed me to do the same for him.
As I unfolded the napkin, my hands shook.
“Oh my god.” Gia knelt beside me. “Did he do this?”
I nodded, staring at what he’d added next to the crayon.
Tears filled my eyes again, this time with relief, and a quiet laugh escaped me as Gia read aloud what he’d written that day under the Assets column.
“Those boobs, those hips, and loves milkshakes…” She tilted her head, lips pursed. “He called you out.”
“Hesawme.”
I read through the rest of the words.
Skeptical…
Logical…
