“Now?”
“What are your work plans?” I asked.
“I’m planning on picking up where my father left off.”
“Real estate?”
He nodded. “What about you?”
I drew in a long breath of sweet, sticky air. “I don’t know. I just want to get through this summer, and then I’ll see where I’m at in September.”
“Not so certain about winning anymore?”
I wasn’t certain of anything anymore, but I didn’t tell Liam this. Instead, I stared quietly ahead of me, at the long lines of parked cars bathed in starlight.
“How are your bruises?”
I blinked at him. “My bruises?”
“From paintballing.” He glanced at my legs, which made me strangely self-conscious.
I frowned at his concern. “I’m healing quickly again.”
“Again? Was that not the case when you were away?”
“I wasn’t getting banged up much when I was away.”
As he beeped his car open, something flickered through his eyes-remorse, or maybe it was just the reflection of his bumper lights. I could feel him hesitate to follow me toward the passenger side. In the end, he must’ve remembered I wasn’t a date he had to impress, because he got behind the wheel while I opened my own door and climbed in.
As he pulled out of the lot, I asked, “How long have you and Tamara been dating?”
“We’re not dating.”
“Are you sure she knows that?”
“She knows it.”
I didn’t ask what they were doing if they weren’t dating. I was a virgin, not an idiot. They might not have been dating, but they were most definitely hooking up. My phone thankfully pinged with a message, tearing me out of my strange deliberations. When I saw August’s name in the message box, I smiled.
He’d sent me a selfie with some of his Army buddies. They were holding makeshift mics to their mouths-bananas. The picture was captioned: You’re missing one hell of a concert. How’s yours?
“What about you and August?”
I glanced away from my phone. “Me and August?”
“Are you together?”
“Me and August?” I sounded like a broken record. “No. We’re just friends.”
Liam’s features were smooth as stone. “Are you sure he knows that?”
“Of course he knows that.”
A sound scraped the walls of his throat, like a grunt, but not a grunt.
“What?”
“He just seemed awfully happy to see you, that’s all.”
“August used to babysit me, Liam. He’s ten years older than I am. Trust me, he doesn’t see me as anything other than a little sister.” I picked at a loose thread on the hem of my dress. “Were you hoping everyonein Boulder would dislike me as much as you do?”
His dark gaze leaped off the road and ground into mine
“Don’t put words in my mouth.” He didn’t talk to me after that, just drove way above the speed limit.
The pines hedging the roads blended together in an endless juniper-colored smear. Someone was in a hurry to get rid of his passenger. Not that I wanted to spend a single minute more than necessary cooped up in a car with Liam Kolane. Why was I in his car again? Right…because Everest had looked like he was enjoying himself
My cousin owed me big time.
When Liam came to a screeching halt in front of the inn, I pumped my door handle. Before jumping out, I said, “Thanks for the ride.”
Liam didn’t respond. He didn’t even look at me as I climbed out, and the second I’d shut the door, he was off, tires squealing against the asphalt road, taillights burning blood-red in the black night.
Ididn’t sleep. Not a wink. I tossed and turned and tossed some more. The night spun on a loop inside my mind. Every damn part of the night too, from my encounter with stupid Justin Summix, to my drive home with infuriating Liam Kolane. Tamara popped inside my head a couple times too, and even though I tried to picture her with acne and buckteeth, somehow she always morphed into a gorgeous siren.
Ugh!
I finally got out of bed at the crack of dawn. Although I didn’t want to overexert myself before the treacherous marathon the elders had set up, I hit the gym to stretch, and then I went to the kitchen and asked Evelyn for a high-protein breakfast. I mentioned I was planning on going for a run this afternoon. I didn’t clarify in what form I’d be running or the reason I was running, and God bless Evelyn, she didn’t ask.
She boiled three eggs, grilled fat slices of whole wheat toast, and fried two sausages. I took my breakfast back to my bedroom and ate on the small balcony, watching the sun rise and fill the world with color.
Trailing in the smell of fresh cigarettes, Lucy dropped by my room around nine, and it wasn’t to wish me good luck. She came to ask me to tidy the guest bedrooms.
“But I have to be at the headquarters at noon.”
My aunt had styled her red hair, and it fell in almost child-like ringlets over her milky shoulders. “Better hurry then.”
She swiped her fingers across my desk as though inspecting it for dust. She wouldn’t find any.
“What did you do with the potpourri jar?”
“What?”
“The mason jar I fill with potpourri. The one I put in every bedroom. What did you do with it?”
“Oh. It’s on the balcony. The smell is a little…strongfor me.” Which was true, but the reason I’d set it on my balcony was because the desiccated, flowery scent reminded me of Lucy. Sharing a roof was grating enough without the constant olfactory assault.
“The petals will rot,” she muttered as she traipsed to my balcony door and rammed it open. Heels clicking on the plywood floor, she scurried to recover her precious, eye-watering mix.