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"Wouldn't be a child anymore now, would he?”
“No,” she agrees with an eye roll. “He's probably getting drunk in an STD-riddled frat house. Or watching busty, blonde, visually impaired porn.”
God, I can’t comprehend how she lets all the shit said about her, said to her, go. How she stands there, cracking jokes and smiling like they don't affect her. If someone said that about Kate or Amelia, she'd land herself in jail defending them. But when it comes to herself? She's so nonchalant it kills me.
Pink lips twist into a pout as she gives me a little chiding shake. “It's okay. It was just some horny teenager.”
I grunt.
“I'll start wearing them if that makes you feel better.”
It's my turn to roll my eyes. “You should wear them because you're gonna walk straight in front of a bus one day if you don't.”
“I'm not that bad.”
“You almost walked into a lamppost yesterday.”
“I did not!”
“Yeah, you didn't, because I saved your pretty ass.”
Luna suffocates a laugh, pretending to scowl at me and failing miserably. I trace the smile she tries to hide with my thumb, grateful for its appearance, however reluctant. I didn't see much of that last night.
It's as though we both have the same thought, both remember last night, both acknowledge the lingering elephant in the room, at the same time. Face dropping, Luna clutches my t-shirt a little tighter, thumbs tracing the neckline.
I bend to brush my lips against her knuckles. “You feeling okay today?”
“I'm good,” she lies, smile strained. “I just really want to speak to Amelia.”
“You wanna check if she's awake before we leave?”
Luna answers my question by making a beeline for the door, almost ripping it off the hinges in her haste to creep across the hall. She inches towards Nick's room, balancing on the balls of her feet as she stealthily nudges the ajar door further open, both of us wincing when it creaks ever so slightly.
The sight that greets us draws a soft 'aw' noise out of Luna, her bottom lip poking out in a pout, wide eyes glancing between me and the bed. Nick and Amelia lie passed out in his bed, curled up beside each other, heads so close they're sharing a pillow, one of Nick's hands resting on the slender, pale thigh draped over his lower half, the other loosely tangled with hers.
Nick. Cuddling.
Jesus.
It takes a physical effort to restrain myself from taking a picture to tease him with later, or to whip out whenever he denies the fact he's head over heels for the girl. Stopping Luna is even harder; her twitchy fingers are halfway to the phone in her pocket when I stop her. “Don't meddle.”
A harsh glare and an elbow to the ribs are what I receive for that intervention. “I'm not going to meddle,” she insists, her second lie of the morning. “But this needs to happen. Look at them.”
Gripping the back of her t-shirt, I drag her away from the door before she loses her internal battle and goes full paparazzi. “Come on, trouble.”
“Spoilsport.”
* * *
Nick is right.
Lurking outside a lecture hall, a steaming hot chocolate in one hand and a herbal tea that tastes like grass in the other, waiting for my girl who isn't technically my girl, I guess I am pretty pathetic.
Rolling my shoulders as much as the fucking boulder of a bag weighing me down will let me—Luna didn’t want to bring her overnight bag to class, so I brought it for her—I blow a strand of hair escaping from my braid out of my eye. I got reamed by the boys when they spotted it this morning; Ben chased me out the door singing the Pippi Longstocking theme song while Cass called me Elsa. Luna flipped them both off, told them to kiss our asses, and reminded them which one of us had a hot, naked blonde in their bed last night.
So modest, my Luna.
When the lecture hall door finally swings open and I catch sight of a tired blonde drowning in oversized clothes, I suddenly forget about the ache in my shoulder, the hair in my eye, and the minor burns scalding my palms. Luna doesn't spot me straight away, too wrapped up in talking to her professor, and even from a distance, the conversation looks awkward and strained.
