“Everything good with you? You’ve seemed kind of out of it the last couple of weeks.”
Clearing my throat a little, I kept my eyes on what I was doing. I appreciated her concern, and I had a great deal of respect for her, but there was no way in hell I could be honest.
Jordy had graduated from high school three weeks earlier. I probably seemed off because I felt like I was going insane in my own house. Between having to avoid staring at him lounging around in little shorts all day and making up jealous scenarios in my head whenever I noticed he was texting someone, I couldn’t relax. But I only had to endure it until the start of fall semester. I could handle that. I’d handled a lot worse.
“I’m good. Just got a little too fucked up last night. It won’t happen again.”
“Alright,” she said, giving a little shrug.
While my back was turned, she rolled the chair over to the other side of the room and started rifling through the personal stuff I had on the table. She was always doing crap like that, but I didn’t mind much. It was her shop, anyway. I was pretty sure no one else would have taken a chance on me like she had, so I owed her a lot.
“I’m always amazed at how talented you are,” she commented. When I looked back, I saw she was flipping through one of my sketchbooks. Between clients when I didn’t have anything else to do, I would usually just draw. “Wow, this guy is in here a lot. Is he your boyfriend?”
Fuck. I’d forgotten that there were tons of sketches of Jordy in that one. I couldn’t risk doing it at home and getting caught, so I kept it here.
“No,” I answered quickly, then furrowed my brow. “Why would you think that?”
Barbie shrugged. “I don’t know, just the way you draw him. It’s tender, like you really find all his features beautiful.”Of course I found his features beautiful. He was the prettiest person in the entire fucking world. And probably the most unobtainable. For me, at least. “And you never reciprocate when the customers flirt with you. Even the cute omegas.”
“I guess,” I acknowledged. I’d dated and screwed around a little in high school, but when it got to a point where I was secretly comparing every potential boyfriend tohim,I figured it was less cruel for everyone involved to avoid it altogether.
“It’s funny to imagine someone as prickly as you being so smitten,” she added, smirking a bit. “But I can see why you might be, with this one,” she added, tapping a particularly detailed drawing I’d done of him in the gym outfit he’d always worn for running track. The school-provided shorts were already small, but he’d usually roll up the waistband two or three times when he put them on, making it even worse. His smooth, bare thighs were basically imprinted in my brain, a horny jumpscare that popped up when I closed my eyes.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I reiterated, embarrassed. And he absolutely never would be.
“Did I offend you?” She wondered, looking at me a bit oddly.
“Nah, I wasn’t offended,” I said. “It’s just…” My mind scrambled a bit, trying to think of a good lie.It’s just that I could get in a lot of trouble for being obsessed with my younger stepbrother.“He’s just a character. I was thinking about maybe starting a webcomic and I was playing with designs for the main character.”
“Oh,” she said. I could tell by her tone of voice that she’d bought it. I felt minimally guilty about lying directly to her face but that couldn’t really be helped. “Well, it’s a great design. You nailed it, like always.”
“Thanks.”
I nearly breathed a sigh of relief when she snapped the book closed and placed it back on the desk. Hoping the rest of theday would go without issues or chaotic events, I went back to prepping the space for my next client.
JORDY
STRETCHING AS Irose to a standing position, I started gathering up paint brushes. We’d just finished painting a piece of the set that would be used for a play later in the month. Our local youth center was always doing events like that to raise money for various charities and so they could provide resources to the community.
My dad had started bringing me there after my mom died, first to the grief counseling group and then later to the more social events. I’d made a lot of friends and had a lot of fond memories here, so I loved volunteering to help them out. My best friend, Dani, always came with me.
“And you know what he did then?”
“What?”
“Hefinallytold me he wanted to be exclusive! He asked me to be his girlfriend!” She squealed, death-gripping my arm and practically jumping up and down with excitement. Her black ponytail, tied up with a fluffy scrunchie, bounced up and down with her.
“That’s amazing, Dani. I’m really happy for you.”
I was kind of exhausted from barely sleeping, but I knew if our positions were reversed my best friend would have been squealing in excitement for me, so I channeled all my energy into forcing an appropriately thrilled expression onto my face. Plus she’d been hooking up with this guy for months, doing the casual thing, hoping he would eventually want to get serious.
“I know! He was really sweet, honestly.” She sighed, totally smitten. I didn’t blame her. I’d met Julio a couple of times here and there, and he was a pretty good guy. He’d gone to our school, but a few years ahead of us. He’d actually been in the same grade as Kieran. I wondered if they knew each other.
Dumping the paintbrushes into a large stainless steel sink, I flipped on the water to wash them. The atmosphere of the youth center was loud and hectic as usual, which I normally didn’t mind much. Today I just wanted to burrow under my blankets and hug my pillow and reflect on what had happened the night before. Even though I’d replayed it in my mind a million times already, I could stand a few hundred more. At least.
“We’ll take care of these!” Dave, a really nice older guy who helped run the center, waved at me as he jogged over to take care of the brushes. “You guys have done enough today. We really appreciate it.”
“No problem!” Dani assured him, all smiles and cheer and pure energy. But that was her default, really. It was usually mine too, when I wasn’t exhausted, running on fumes.
