I raise an eyebrow at Avery. “You’re tipsy on a weeknight.”
“I’m not.”
“Your ears are red.”
His face grows red, too. To glimpse Avery, disheveled and handsome, minus his glasses, one wouldn’t be blamed for thinking he’d drop some toxic frat-guy cockiness on them. Instead, he’s down-to-earth and capable of blushes in front of a girl he likes. I stand and link arms with him, leading him toward The Hole.
Before I step through, I turn toward Jack. “Thanks for the pizza. Unless it was poisoned.”
“Too painless,” Jack says from the kitchen, without looking up. But there is humor in his voice.
Meh. This is allPirate Duke’s fault. I can’t do anything of an R-rated nature with him—I don’twantto do anything of an R-rated nature with him. But I do not want to be at war with my neighbor forever, either. How do I make this truce long-standing while maintaining a healthy distance?
As I ready my sofa for Avery, I pin him down with a look. “What is going on with you?” I whisper. “She’s engaged. This isn’t like you.”
“I’m boring,” he whispers back. “I’ve been boring and playing it safe my whole life. I want a fiftieth anniversary someday, too, Penny! Maybe I’m not on my way there because I’m always doing what this thinks is right instead of this.” He points to his head and then his heart. And then he pushes the sofa up against the wall right under The Hole and flops onto it before I’ve had a chance to fully tuck in the sheet.
I frown. If this were literally any other guy, I’d think he was thinking with neither of those things. But this is Avery.
“Besides,” he says, yanking the blanket from my hands, “I’m not trying to sleep with her. I just like being around her. Okay?”
“Whatever you say, Drunky McDrunk.” Who am I to judge, when my own personal life is such a disaster?
It isn’t until I’m back in my bed that a very bad thought surfaces, and I launch myself into an upright position. The glitter. There will be no truce if he uses that shampoo or shower gel.
Avery is snoring on the couch. Though we’ve still got the sheet up to cover The Hole, there are places along my pockmarked disaster of a wall that have punctured through to Jack’s side, so I can tell that his apartment is as shadowed as my own. I tiptoe to the sofa and step up on it, straddling Avery’s prone body and gingerly pulling back the sheet.
Jack is sleeping on his side on his own sofa. The moonlight reveals his hard jaw, sleep-slackened in slumber. He didn’t shave, so it’s covered in stubble, and his arm is flung over his eyes. He doesn’t look like a human disco ball…yet.
I stare at his shadowed bathroom door longingly. There’s no way for me to leapfrog over him and get to his shampoo.
He didn’t shower earlier, so he’s definitely going to in the morning. But maybe he’ll reach for a fresh bottle, since there was so little shampoo in there to begin with?
Maybe.
I’m awoken by my own mumbling, and by a strange feeling. I open my eyes and stifle a scream, but it emerges anyway as a choked squeak.
The morning light in my bedroom is faint, trickling in through the open space between my curtains. Jack is leaning over me on the bed, his face looming close, his hands braced on the mattress, bracketing my shoulders. His skin…sparkles.
I draw the covers up over my nose to hide the hysterical, fear-tinged laughter bubbling up within me.Please be a dream.“I know what you are,” I whisper, visions of an iridescent teen vampire flashing through my mind.
Jack leans closer until his face is just two inches from my own. I can feel his breath on my face, minty with the promise of retribution. And then he opens his mouth.
“Sleep with one eye open.”
My eyes widen, and he straightens, walking out of my room without another glance.
I worry my lip and sidestep a woman walking her dog, my sneakers eating up the space between my apartment and my office without me noticing.
That wasstupid. Glitter allowed for no plausible deniability. I should’ve gone with something subtle. Like the bird-crap-fire-escape thing he did.Or you could’ve bowed out of the game, like Rochelle said.
Whatever! It’s done now.
I’m so wrapped up in my thoughts that I almost miss the big white trucks unloading lighting equipment and a whole lot more in front of my building.
I text Margie, and she responds right away: she’s on my floor. With all that’s been going on, I’d forgotten the show was filming in my office sometime this week. I rush to the elevator, eager to tell her about the development with the apartment, but when the doors open, I crash into someone.
We both drop our bags, bend to retrieve them, and speak at once.
