Page 112 of Cinder
Frankie lets out a sharp laugh at the same moment the cue ball cracks hard into the triangle, scattering color across the table. “Bullshit.”
Remi’s eyes drag over me, taking in the heels, the jeans, the top. “You don’t dress like that for no reason.”
“I'm dressed like this because you told me to wear something cute!”
“We said cute,” Frankie says. “Not ‘I want my man at home losing his mind’ cute.”
Heat creeps up my neck. “He’s not losing his mind, and he’s not my m—”
“Mason says otherwise,” she shoots back.
“Colt, too,” Remi adds, leaning her hip against the table. “Apparently, he’s been weird about you for weeks.”
I grab a cue stick, buying myself a second. “Weird how?”
Frankie grins. “Hovering.”
“He doesn’t hover.”
“He hovered at Sunday Roast,” she says immediately. “You got up to grab a drink, and he tracked you across the bay like you were about to fall into a well.”
I line up a shot but miss it.
“That’s not hovering,” I mutter.
Remi smiles faintly. “And then at the rink?”
I don’t look at her, instead signalling to Chip for some drinks.
“He watched you the whole time,” she says. “Even when he was playing. And when he took you skating? Jesus, girl. The first time I did that with Mason, we ended up in the firetruck, and—”
She pauses, realizing we’re both looking at her with wide eyes.
“—and he… very professionally showed me all the equipment.”
We both scoff, and then I roll my shoulders, looking back down at the pool table. “You’re both reading too much into it.”
“Are we?” Remi raises a brow.
I glance up to see they’re both looking at me now, waiting. I exhale, tapping the end of the cue lightly against the floor.
“Okay, it’s not…nothing,” I say. “But we’re just—we’re figuring out where the lines are.”
Frankie makes a face, then leans in to take her shot. “That sounds like something has happened.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I say quickly.
Remi tilts her head. “Penny.”
I hesitate, because I can feel it sitting there, right on the edge. The thing I’m not saying but want to share. That we’ve kissed and that I like him. A lot. And I’m terrified.
But I’m also very aware of how private Evan is, and how much of his life stays contained. So I tread carefully.
“We’re just a bit closer than we were before.”
“That is the vaguest sentence you’ve ever said,” Frankie replies.
“It’s the only one you’re getting… I don’t wanna mess anything up,” I add. “For him—or Elle.”
