“Hey. Right. What’s up?” I pressed my cheek against the rug in an act of submission to whatever righteous onslaught heaven was about to deal me for being a bad kid. I probably deserved it, whatever it was. Julian Pike was the single most kind-hearted human being on the face of the earth, and anyone who made him nervous deserved to rot. Fucking Julian. Why couldn’t it have been Boris?
“Eloise?” I cringed, shaped a string of compound cuss words that didn’t leave my mouth. Eloise. He was definitely nervous. “Sweetie, could you kindly tell me where you are and that you’re not dead? Your father has been up all night worrying about you,” he said slowly, sugarly, sounding earnest. He was not being earnest. The father he was referring to was Boris, and Boris was a huge advocate for me “experiencing my youth uninhibited.” He always went on about measured indulgence in “whatever my spirit told me to pursue,” which included all the nonsense I’d tangled myself in, the fight club that didn’t happen, and my habit of disappearing for a night whenever I was too tense to be home. Boris sure as hell wasn’t worried. He wouldn’t be worried until two days from now. Julian, on the other hand? The fact that he was framing it this way stung like a boot to the face. He was being polite, which meant he didn’t want me to feel yelled at, which means he really ought to be yelling at me. Which of course yanked the bubblegum off the hole on my Hoover Dam of guilt. It sloshed out cold and soaked my insides, and I was drenched in it.
I gritted my teeth. “Oh, man. Look, I’m sorry, I’m sleeping over at a friend’s house. I thought I’d texted you. Must not have. Sorry about that. Wouldn’t want Boris to worry or anything, I really wouldn’t,” I said, but I felt myself trail off.
Silence buzzed on the other end.
Me running away to live in Cuba with a washed-up rock star would’ve sounded more plausible than me sleeping over at a friend’s house.
Julian didn’t ask who those friends might be, thank God. He went quiet for a moment, and after an agonizing breath, he cleared his throat, sounding as dad-like as can be. “Well, then. Are you having fun?”
“Oodles,” I said.
Daisy cackled.
“When will you be home? Will you need a ride?”
Yates, from the top of the stack, hiked her voice up an octave higher that it usually was. “I’ll give her a ride! She’ll be home tomorrow! Thanks, Julian!”
A weary half chuckle from Dad’s end. “Right. Okay, well. Text me if you need anything at all, Lamby.”
Lamby. Yikes.
“Capisce. Gotta scram. Love you,” I said, and I hung up directly after. I released the phone. It clattered to the floor beside my cheek.
“If he isn’t the nicest guy! He’s so chill about things. Envious,” Yates yawned. She repositioned herself on top of Daisy and made herself comfortable, which triggered a line of impressively prickly cuss words out of Daisy. For some reason, I hadn’t thought that pretty girls could curse like the rest of us. Misconception noted.
“Language,” Yates said breezily.
“Life is hell,” Daisy snapped.
I coughed into my shoulder. “Says the chick in the middle of the stack.”
Jing swung her feet off our girl pyre. She popped upright, slinked across the room, and slid open her closet door, and there was a rustling, a shuffling of fabric against fabric. A thunk as something hit the bed. Her voice, when she spoke, had royal gravity to it. Genuine confidence. “Sideways. What’s your dress size?”
“Why?”
“We’re going out. You’re still in crusty booze smelling clothes from yesterday. I wagered you might want to borrow a dress,” she mused. There was a swish sound as she pulled more fabric from her closet and flung it on her bed.
“What, that new slasher flick you keep going on about? The showing was at eight thirty,” Daisy said. “Why get dressed so early?”
“Because it’s already seven o’clock, Daze. Did you losers not notice it get dark outside?”
“Kind of hard from down here,” said Daisy with a groan. She writhed under Yates, which drove her elbow into my guts. I jolted, but didn’t shove her back. Even with her cheer abs, Daisy was smaller than me, and accidentally snapping her in half wouldn’t bode well for this newfound friendship. Assuming this was a friendship.
“Right,” I said. “Yeah. I’m not your dress size.”
“We’ll see.” Jing leaned down beside us. A lock of her bleach-blond hair dangled by my cheek. Then, with a sneer, she seized Daisy by her shoulder and her waistband and hurled her off me, sending Yates toppling in her wake. Yates and Daisy hit the ground beside me with matching sounds of pain. Jing took me by the hand and hauled me upright.
“You’ve got a helluva arm,” I said.
“I know,” she replied. She cocked her brow and gestured behind her. “Now, try this on, would you?”
The dress was mighty tight. Mighty tight and very short. Dangerously short.
I’d seen Jing in this dress before. When she wore it, it barely touched her. The bloody violet velvet always drifted a half centimeter over her skin and fell around her knees in a loose, easygoing line. It made her look elegant. On me, it was tight. It fit snugly over my ribs and my stomach and my hipbones, and the knee-length hem was suddenly thigh length, and only just. Spaghetti straps threatened to snap.
Daisy and Yates had their hands clasped over their hearts.
“Jesus, Sideways.” There was an element of genuine awe in Daisy’s voice. Her eyes fixed on my torso, and I shifted, crossed my arms over my chest. The braids on either side of my head swung off my shoulders and dangled down my back. Daisy leaned closer. “You’re kind of a babe in that, you know. You could get so much dick in that dress,” she said. She smacked her lips. “Making me question myself, girl.”
Ha, no. “Getting dick has never been a big concern of mine,” I snapped. Well, getting girl dick, maybe, but whatever. Wasn’t what she’d meant. I crossed my arms over my chest and rocked back on my heels, made a point of not looking in the mirror. Looking in the mirror felt like a potentially catastrophic move.
“Daze, get it right. Sideways is dressed to be a lady-killer. She’s a lezzie magnet,” Jing drawled, and she rotated her pointer finger in little circles. Spin for me.
Stupid. This was stupid. My body was obedient, nonetheless. I pivoted, half expecting all the seams to pop, and Jing let a smirk flash across her face.
“Erm. Jing. Should you say that word? Isn’t it a tad inappropriate for a straight girl to say that sort of thing?” Yates cocked her head to the side and knotted her brows. She slipped her pinky between her lips and gnawed on the nail. “I feel like it is.”
Jing shrugged. She leaned back against the vanity table and watched me for a long moment, evidently satisfied with herself. She narrowed her eyes a touch. Bit the corner of her lip. “Probably,” she said.
“Jing,” Yates started, but she trailed off.
“I don’t know, man. It’s, whatever,” said Jing. She leaned back, stretched her arms above her head, and gave me a look that sank somewhere deep in my core. Wordless, with feline fluidity, she turned her back on us and plucked up a vial of lipstick. She uncapped it and leaned toward her reflection, pressed the rouge to her bottom lip.