Annoyed, I scrunched up my face, and Sydney squeezed my hand, still wearing a huge smile.
“Here, Ally, you’re cold. Please take my jacket. I really think you should eat more carbohydrates. You’re so thin and beautiful, but it’s good to have some extra weight in the winter.”
Sydney threw her head back and shook it in a silent laugh. When she lowered it back down, a tear escaped her eye, and I brushed it off with the back of my hand.
I couldn’t tell what kind of tear it was. A happy tear? A sad tear? Maybe a little of both. All I knew was I never wanted to make Sydney cry again, because her face full of any tears would be too much for me to handle.
“Jack,” Allison said, clearing her throat, “I’ve really liked hanging out with you over the last few weeks. I’d like for us to go out. Like on a real date. Outside of school and outside of the library.”
“Yes,” Jack quickly replied with clear and distinct confidence. “I’ve been wanting that since the moment I laid eyes on you, Ally. You’re the smartest, sweetest, and most hygienic girl on this campus. I would love to take you out.”
Sydney lifted her arms and jokingly sniffed her armpits, but that beaming smile stayed plastered on her face. It quickly dropped when smacking noises began from the front seat of my car.
“Do me a favor, Peters,” she leaned in and whispered, pointing to a toolbox set in the corner of the garage. “Pick up a wrench and knock me unconscious. I can’t live with myself if I hear my brother lose his virginity.”
I smiled and lifted my hands to cover her ears. “Can you hear me?”
She shook her head and whispered, “Now’s the time to tell me to go to hell, Peters. Your big meat paws are thick. I can’t hear shit.”
“You smell like mayonnaise left out in the sun too long, Sinister.” I started off with a childish low blow just to test her. She smiled, flashing me a thumbs-up.
“One of your breasts is bigger than the other.” Her left.
Another thumbs-up.
The smacking noises grew at a steady pace, and I made a note to have Jack detail it later. Pressing my palms down against her ears, I closed my eyes. Because if DJ couldn’t hear and QB couldn’t see, the next words out of my mouth wouldn’t be real.
“I love you, Sydney Porter.”
When I opened them, she gave me another thumbs-up.
Then she said, “I loathe you too, Gray Peters.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I opened my eyes to a dark room and a ceiling sprinkled with glow-in-the-dark stars. Moving my body in a slow snow angel-like formation, I inhaled a breath of relief.
I was the only one in Gray Peters’s bed.
A low snoring sound came from the floor below me, and peering over the edge, I saw Peters lying in a fetal position on his rug. He’d pulled all the covers off the bed, leaving me totally exposed. I gently tugged his bedspread back up, and he stirred.
“Sydney?”
“No, it’s Fernando… Go back to sleep or I’ll roll off the bed and smother you.”
He laughed and sat up straight. Holding his head, he let out the low groan of a severely hung-over twenty-something. “Jesus Christ. What happened last night?”
I tugged up the rest of the covers and turned on my side. “The question is what didn’t happen last night, Peters, and for the record,”—I flipped a finger between him and myself—“we didn’t happen.”
“I know,” he said a little half-heartedly. “Can I get on the bed? This hard floor is leaving my hip sore.”
Before I could answer hell no, he jumped in bed and pulled the covers up. I nudged him with my elbow, and he fell back out.
“I should go home.” I sat up and realized I was wearing a large white T-shirt. “Shit. What happened to my dress?”
He raised a hand above the mattress edge and pointed to a skintight blue dress, now cut into long strips, in the corner. “You came in here complaining about societal pressures on women to wear uncomfortable sausage tube casings, then grabbed a pair of scissors off the desk and started cutting from the crotch up.”
“What? No way.” Reaching down, I made sure I still had on my underwear. “Were you in here? Oh my God.”
He laughed and let out another painful moan. “No, Allison came in here with you. She helped you cut it and then found a T-shirt in one of my drawers. Then you put on a pair of my socks, grabbed my sunglasses, and slid across the living room floor with Allison, singing Beyoncé.”
“I would never.” I gasped, and he laughed harder. “Beyoncé?”
“Trust me. You did. Fernando got it on video. It’s probably on YouTube now. He’s been big into YouTube since his DJ stardom.”
I lay back in bed, and Peters released a whimper like a man who’d just lost a bar fight.
“What are you wearing, Peters?” I peered back over the edge, but I still hadn’t quite adjusted to the room’s darkness. “Do you have clothes on?”
“A T-shirt and boxers.”
I lifted the covers. “Fine, get in… No touching.”
A second later, Peters hopped into bed, and I’d made a wall of pillows between the two of us as a barrier. Despite using four pillows, there was still one for each of our heads.
“You’re like a girl with all these pillows. Allison would be envious. Speaking of, is she still here? How’d she get home?”
“I gave Jack your keys,” he said casually, turning on his side. “He took her home. They were sucking face all night.”
I reached a hand through a crack in the pillows and pinched his ass.
“Ouch,” he hissed, flipping over on his back.
“Why the F would you do that? How the hell am I supposed to get home… in only a T-shirt and my heels?” I growled and slammed my head back on the pillow.
“Relax, Sinister.” He sat up and flipped on his phone. “It’s four AM. I’ll take you home in few hours.” He rubbed the back of his neck, flexing his biceps. I knew he wasn’t trying to show off, but his muscles had egos of their own. When he lowered his hand, he dropped it on my ankle and gave it a quick, tender squeeze. “Are you thirsty? I need water.”
I jerked my leg back. “Sure, water would be good. Just make sure you give me a fair score on the pussy scale this time.”
“Fucking hell, Sydney. I told you I have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t do that. I swear on my grandpa’s grave.”
Letting out an exhausted sigh, I nodded, but he couldn’t see me as he left the shadows and opened his door. When he came back, he flipped a reading light on by his desk, introducing a dim glow into the room. Then he handed me a bottle of water and slid back into bed.
“You should see your hair right now.”
He smiled, and I frowned, noticing his looked perfect. I lifted a hand to my rat’s nest, trying to flatten it down.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s just me. Do you remember anything from last night?”
I looked down at my red, chaffed knees. “I remember crawling out of the garage when it was clear Jack and Allison were steaming up the place.”
I thought back on the night, trying to concentrate through my stormy head. “I remember taking shots with Fernando while discussing our mutual love of brie cheese and pinot noir. Who knew Fernando had such a sophisticated palate?”
Peters laughed and clinked his bottle of water against mine. “To new comrades,” he said, then took a drink. I gave him a small smile, but inside, I was filled with dread. In less than twenty-four hours, word would get back to my dream assassin, and Peters and I would go right back to square one.
“I don’t think we can be friends after today, Peters.” I leaned across him and set my bottle on the nightstand. “You don’t understand. I fucked up big time, and the entire campus is going to hate me. I can’t say why, but trust me. You’ll know.”
He looked down and played with the edge of our pillowcase Berlin wall. “Let’s just cross that road when we come to it, Porter. Until whatever you say is going to happen actually happens, let’s just be civil with one another.”