Page 16 of Cross Checked
“If someone gets weird,” Aura continued, ignoring her, “we leave.”
“And if Cade Mercer looks at you like he wants to solve you with his mouth,” Charm added, “we observe respectfully for science.”
I choked on a laugh. “With his mouth?”
“It was the right phrase.”
“It was absolutely not the right phrase.”
Aura gave it consideration. “No, unfortunately, I think it was.”
“You’re both unwell.”
Charm leaned in and fluffed my hair with her fingers, smiling at me in the mirror like she could will me into being as fearless as she thought I was. “And yet you love us.”
I did.
That was the problem and the blessing and the thing that kept me breathing on nights when Luke’s name sat on my phone like a loaded gun.
I loved them so much it made the lies feel heavier.
Aura went back to her own makeup, pretending the conversation had not carved something out of the center of the room, and Charm resumed curling my hair while narrating her vision for my future as if she had been hired by a public relations firm devoted entirely to ruining my denial.
“I’m just saying,” Charm said, twisting a piece of my hair around the iron, “if Cade agrees to be your subject, you need boundaries.”
“I have boundaries.”
Aura’s laugh was immediate and deeply offensive.
I glared at her. “Excuse me?”
“You have theoretical boundaries. Like communism.”
Charm wheezed. “Aura.”
“What? Beautiful concept, but it frequently collapses under pressure.”
“My boundaries do not collapse.”
“Bliss,” Aura said, turning on her stool with mascara in one hand, “and the circle continues. You once apologized to a vending machine.”
“It took my money.”
“You said sorry.”
“It was broken.”
Charm patted my head. “Sweet baby angel disaster.”
“I’m older than you by three months.”
“And somehow still giving golden retriever with an ESPN obsession.”
I rolled my eyes, but the smile came easier that time. Fuller. This was how they saved me without knowing the whole story. Not with grand speeches or perfect advice, but with noise. With ridiculous insults and shared mascara and the casual assumption that tomorrow would exist because they had already made plans for it. They dragged me back into my own life one joke at a time.
And tonight, that life included Hockey House, Cade Mercer and an assignment I had no business being this excited about. Or a party on Athlete Row where the music would be too loud, the kitchen too crowded, the air thick with cologne and beer and the sharp electric feeling of a semester beginning before anyone had made enough mistakes to regret it.
Charm finished the last curl and stepped back with both hands on my shoulders. “There.”
