Her mother was still awake, a movie playing on the TV, and Eva bent down to say hello to the sleepy Spaniel that trotted over to greet her.
“It’s early,” her mother said with a tut, eyeing Eva in disapproval. “I thought you’d stay out longer. Have fun with your friends.”
“I told you I wouldn’t be out late.”
“Still. Did you have a good night, at least?”
Eva tried not to think about Lily Cross’s dark eyes, the heat of her mouth, the imprint of her fingers on the bare skin of Eva’s thigh. “It was all right. I’m going to shower and get to bed. Don’t stay up too late.”
Eva bent down to kiss the top of her mother’s head before retreating up the stairs with Franklin in tow. He curled up in his bed beside her desk as Eva grabbed her pajamas from the foot of her own. A glance in the mirror as she waited for the water to heat up revealed her cheeks were still flushed, her eyes wild, and Eva knew, as she stepped beneath the spray, that she was slick between her thighs.
Eva felt like she’d been betrayed by her own body, and she ignored the ache as she washed the scent of Lily’s perfume from her skin. She wished she could wash away the memories as easily, wished she’d never been weak enough to let it happen in the first place.
What had she been thinking?
She wasn’t thinking, clearly. Eva knew she should’ve stayed away from Lily, and look what had happened! Stupid.
Come January, Eva would keep Lily at arm’s length, lest things get even more out of hand.
At least she had two weeks reprieve.
All Eva had to do was stop thinking about Lily, and everything would be just fine.
Gritting her teeth, Eva tried to push the thoughts away as she climbed beneath her sheets. She tossed and turned for an hour before giving up on sleep entirely, reaching for the phone on her nightstand.
As Eva often did when she felt down, she gravitated toward her message thread with Molly. The stab of guilt was unexpected—she hadn’t done anything wrong tonight. Hadn’t made any kind of commitment to Molly. Had brushed her off, in fact, earlier that night, by declining to meet up face-to-face.
Eva shouldn’t feel any kind of way about using her to forget about Lily. If they were friends—real friends—her unfortunate mistake would be something Eva would tell her, that they’d laugh about, that Molly would tease her with for the foreseeable future.
But Eva couldn’t tell her. Couldn’t admit to the weakness that had overtaken her. How could Eva explain kissing someone she claimed to dislike?
Eva couldn’t even explain it to herself.
Hope you had a good night,Eva tapped instead, sending it to the number Molly had given her earlier. It was a long shot—Molly was probably still out enjoying herself. She could even be tangled up with someone beneath the mistletoe. Eva knew she had no right for the thought to bother her, especially considering where her lips had been a few short hours before. No right, and yet her stomach twisted with dread. If Molly found someone else, would she stop talking to Eva?
Annoyed, Eva tossed her phone back onto her bedside table. That had been meant to make her feel better, not worse.
It was just the alcohol, she told herself, rolling onto her side and closing her eyes, willing herself to believe it.
She wouldn’t feel any of this in the morning.
Chapter 12
Lily woke with a killerhangover.
She reached blindly for her phone to check the time and groaned when the screen remained black. She’d neglected to put it on charge the night before.
Plugging it in, she wandered downstairs, in need of some water for her painfully dry throat. Lily had fuzzy memories of the previous night—too many drinks, a lot of dodgy dancing, some questionable choices on the karaoke machine at the bar they’d gone to once the staff party had wound down—and no idea how Mei had ended up passed out on her couch.
“Must’ve been a crazy night,” Lily said to herself, filling a glass to the brim and hoping it might ward off the pounding behind her eyes.
And then she had a flash of memory from earlier in the evening—Eva, pressed close, Eva, with her mouth on Lily’s—and the glass slipped from Lily’s grip, shattering on the kitchen floor.
An inhuman groan came from the direction of the couch. “You know, if you wanted to wake me up, Lily, you just had to poke me. No need to start throwing things.” Mei appeared in the doorway a moment later, her hair sticking up in all different directions. She glanced at Lily’s face. “You okay?”
Lily was far from okay.
Lily was spiraling, Lily was remembering Eva. Outside of the bar, the challenge in Eva’s eyes as she’d invaded Lily’s space—how Lily hadn’t been able to let it go, instead rearing up and kissing Eva, hard.
