Page 5 of The Lipstick Flip

“It’s not final? It’s not fucking final, Noah? How the fuck is it not final?”

“I—”

“Because it felt pretty fucking final when you made me sign the fucking divorce papers!” My voice slipped at the end, nearing a shout. I dragged it back down to a whisper. “What the fuck did you do?”

That outrageously fucking expensive foundation or concealer or whatever the fuck it was couldn’t hide the red rising in his cheeks. Red eyes, too. But no tears. His gaze was hard and dry and bright, and for a moment, he looked the way he did the first time I saw him with a fever—about five seconds before he puked on our brand-new sofa.

And I knew what it meant. “Jesus Christ. You’re worried your dad will be mad?”

“I’m worried—” And he said the word like I was an idiot. “—he’ll cut off my trust.” He raised his chin. It was classic Noah-spoiling-for-a-fight. “He’s always looking for an excuse. And it’s my money.”

“It’s not your fucking money. It’s your great-whatever-the-fuck-grandpa’s money, and you just like spending it.” My chest was tight. “What do you mean he’ll cut off your trust?”

“What do you think I mean?”

I nodded. “Great. Fucking fantastic. And what’s your long-term plan?”

He stared at me.

“So, what?” I asked. “We can’t ever get divorced because you don’t want Dad to turn off the tap?”

“I’ll figure something out.”

“You’ll figure something out. This is so fucking Noah, you know that?”

“I don’t know why I’m supposed to feel bad for having money.”

“You’re not supposed to—” But this was how he always did things. He changed the fight. He made it about something else, something I couldn’t win. “You lied to me.”

“I didn’t—”

I clapped my hands, and Noah flinched. A small—very small—part of me shrank down, but that yawning red place in my head didn’t care. “You. Lied. To me. You took those fucking papers, and you said we were done, and you walked out of my life. You fucked me over, Noah. Again. Which must be some kind of world record.”

“You didn’t even want to get divorced,” Noah mumbled. But he couldn’t meet my eyes.

“You are un-fucking-believable.” I smoothed my hands against my jeans. The day’s grit—dirt and plaster and dust—felt shockingly rough under my palms. “Here’s how this is going to go. First thing tomorrow, I’m calling a lawyer, and he’s going to call Daddy’s lawyer, and shit is going to get real. Better pull out as much cash as you can, dumbshit, because the gravy train is about to stop.”

“The gravy train?” he asked, and I could hear the ew in his voice.

“Go fuck yourself, Noah.”

As I pushed open the door, he said, “I won’t let you sell the house.”

Cold air swirled around my legs. I flattened my hand against the steel of the door; rough spots in the paint scratched my palm.

When I turned, Noah shrank down—only a little, but impossible to miss. His chin lifted again, though, in that fight-me-or-fuck-me look.

“It’s our house,” he said. “My dad gave it to us.”

For a moment, the only thought in my head was: what the fuck is wrong with you? But it had a distant, buzzing quality. And the cold air was still flooding in around my ankles. I let the door fall shut, and the thud-click of it settling into the frame was muffled, a long way off.

“If you tell my dad,” he said. “I’ll make everything take forever. I’ll fight you for the house. I’ll fight you for the truck. I’ll fight you for every tool in your stupid toolbox. My dad has good lawyers. Do you have any idea how much it’ll cost you? I’ll have you out of that house before the end of the day tomorrow. I’ll have every door boarded up. Every window. And then what’s going to happen on New Year’s Eve? What’s going to happen on your stupid Instagram?”

The chilliest part of my brain was awake now. The cop part. Watching him through cop eyes. The way he hugged himself. The way his weight moved back onto his heels. How he’d painted his nails in Christmas colors, and now those nails were digging into his arms.

“Or,” Noah said.

But that was it.