It’s Sloane’s voice that breaks the night.
“I think we’re officially best friends now,” she says.
“Oh yeah? Do you want to go do karate in the garage?”
Sloane grins at her feet. Her dimple is a shadow in the porch light. My heart is still turning over when her smile fades.
“I lied, by the way,” she says.
I wish she’d return my gaze, but she doesn’t. She can’t bring herself to. So I take a second to memorize the details of her profile, because I know the hardest part is coming, just like it did last year, just like it did in the restaurant.
“Lied about what?” I ask.
The delicate column of her throat shifts as she swallows.
And then her head turns, just enough to give me her eyes and a melancholy smile that tips up one corner of her lips, the faint trace of her dimple coaxed into view.
“Boston. I wasn’t there for a meeting.”
Her words echo in my head, and before I can absorb them or ask what she means, she hikes her bag higher on her shoulder and walks away.
I don’t just hate this part. I fucking loathe it.
“See you next year, Butcher,” she says, and then she slips into her car and disappears into the night.
I lied too, I want to say. But I just don’t get the chance.
12
PUZZLES
SLOANE
“M ore boobs.”
“Seriously?”
“More. Boobs.”
I look down at my black dress and back to the laptop screen where Lark has her hands under her breasts, pushing them up.
A deep sigh passes my lips. My heart has been hammering for the last hour.
And just think! Only another hour to go.
My heart rate doubles.
“Go big or go home, Sloaney!” Lark chimes through the laptop speaker. “Boobs!”
A conflicted groan rumbles in my chest. “Okay…”
“That’s the spirit!”
I huff an unsteady laugh and head to my luggage to get what Lark calls the ‘emergency dress’。 It’s a curve-hugging, vintage-inspired oxblood velvet cocktail dress with black scalloped lace detailing that skims the low-cut neckline. It fits like a second skin. I change out of Lark’s view and slide on a pair of simple black pumps, taking in my reflection in the floor-length mirror next to the TV. I feel like a retro movie pin-up girl. With a deep breath and a final slide of my hands over the ripples in the soft fabric, I step into view of the camera.
“That’s the one,” Lark says with happy claps as she bounces on the edge of her bed back in Raleigh. “One hundred percent. Hair down. Do some old Hollywood waves. Gold star! Two gold stars! One for each boob.”
She totally would gold star my tits if she was here in the room. She’s always carrying around gold star stickers, mostly for the children she works with as a music therapist when she’s not on the road performing, but she’s not afraid to whip them out for adults too.
“Are you nervous?” she asks as I pick up the laptop and take it to the bathroom with me so I can start on my hair.
“No, of course not,” I deadpan as Lark raises a skeptical brow on the screen. “I’m fucking terrified.”
And excited. And rattled. And a little bit nauseous.
It’s been almost eight months since I’ve seen Rowan in person. For the first six months, we talked nearly every day, in one form or another. Sometimes just short texts. Sometimes just a meme, or an article the other person would enjoy, or a funny video. Sometimes, they were long video calls. But lately, since he’s been working on opening a second restaurant location, it’s tapered off. Though I respond right away when he messages, it sometimes takes him a week to send back a short reply.
Superficially, it seems like the ideal situation for me. There’s less pressure. I’m not used to having people around. Even when Lark and I became close at boarding school, it took me a long time to be comfortable around her. She’s kind of like Rowan in the way that she wore me down, worming her way past the defenses I’ve held around my solitary nature. Her light is unstoppable. It pierces through every crack. And now, after the years that have passed since we met, I miss her whenever she’s gone.
Like I miss him.
“He’s going to be floored by those boobs,” Lark says.
I snort a laugh. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” My smile quickly fades as I plug in my curling iron and run some styling cream through my hair with my fingers. “I need more to go on than just tits.”
“You have murder too, he likes that.”