She must have told him that when I was grabbing the key.
She smiles, her cheeks and neck reddening. Absentmindedly, she runs her fingers through her hair but tugs on a tangle. “Yeah, thanks…I need to shampoo this mess.”
“Looks pretty to me.”
“Pretty dirty.”
“Nothing wrong with that, mermaid,” Banks says before he leaves.
She stares faraway at the closed motel door, at his shadow. And as soon as she turns to me, her smile falters. “What…?”
What expression am I even making? Horror? Concern? Jealousy? Some unknown emotion that keeps ravaging my insides? My stomach has coiled into a tight fist.
All I can say is, “You like him.”
It slams into me now more than ever before.
She really likes Banks Moretti. My friend.
That’s a good thing, Nine.
Sulli bends down to her duffel, resting near a dusty nightstand with a broken digital clock. “Yeah, I thought that was fucking clear when I told him it’d be cool if he took my virginity.”
What is air?
I’m barely breathing.
But I walk closer to Sulli. “I meant that you like him as more than just a friend.”
Her brows pinch, staring at the discolored carpet. Then she takes out a toiletry bag. Standing up, she faces me and steals her hat back, taking it off my head. “So what if I do?” She fits on the baseball cap. “It’s not like he likes me as more than a friend.”
I frown.
She doesn’t think Banks likes her?
Really?
I shift my weight. Sulli hasn’t realized he’s blatantly flirting with her. How? How is that fucking possible? It’s so obvious, it smacks me in the face on a daily basis.
She tries to read my screwed-up expression. “What?”
I should tell her the truth.
Tell her Banks finds her hot, attractive, the sun that sets the earth on fire. But I can’t make my lips form those words.
I just slowly nod.
She nods a few times back, her head hanging. “I’m gonna go…” She jabs a thumb to the bathroom, then treks there without another word.
Fuck.
Immediately, I feel like shit for letting her believe something that I know to be categorically untrue.
I’m worse than an asshole right now. It’s tearing me apart.
And I can’t unwind time.
When Banks returns to the motel with an armful of sleeping mats, our eyes collide together, and guilt is written all over me. No way can I scrub this away.
Tensely, I sit down on the edge of the stained mattress.
Banks slowly lowers the sleeping mats on the floor like they’re tiny bombs. He glances to the cracked bathroom door where the shower turns on. Water pouring.
And then he focuses on me. “You and Sulli had a fight?”
I shake my head, massaging my hands. Running my thumb over the calluses on my palm. My mom has the same habit of kneading her hands. I thought we shared the trait because we shared Muay Thai. Her pro-fighting days left her hands tender and aching. But I never went pro like her, and when we both slowed down competing, me as a teenager, her after I turned ten—we both kept the quirk.
Banks rests a hip on the wall, arms crossed. With the gun holstered on his waistband, a toothpick between his lips, all he’d need is the hat to be the cowboy. What he once joked he was among me and Thatcher.
He surveys me. “You look like someone told you you’re not allowed to talk to her for the next twenty-four hours.”
I lick my dried lips, eyes descending to the sleeping mats. “I’ll help you unfurl those.”
Rising from the mattress, I get one step ahead before Banks intercedes and plants a hand on my chest. “First, tell me what’s going on.” Concern sinks into his brown eyes.
Making me feel like a sewer. Not just a tiny paper bag full of shit. A whole fucking shit-system beneath a city.
I spit out, “She doesn’t know you’ve been flirting with her.” It’s not what I need to say, but it’s a start.
The splash of water from the shower cuts through the brief silence.
Banks’ forehead is wrinkling in confusion. “You think this is some revelation, Akara?”
Now I’m frowning. “Wait.” I hold up a hand, my voice lowering. “You knew she doesn’t think you’re flirting?”
“Akara, how many fuckin’ times do I have to go over this?” He plants his hands on my shoulders. He’s five-inches taller, but somehow we feel the same height. His eyes connecting to mine. “You flirt with her. You’ve been flirting with her for years, and you keep telling her you’re just friends. So when some guy like me comes around and actually flirts with her—what the hell did you think she’s gonna think?”
I push his hands off my shoulders. I don’t know what I thought. All I know is this… “I haven’t been flirting with her.”
Banks steeples his fingers to his lips, but his eyes sink deeper into me. It feels almost penetrating. Excavating. I’m vulnerable under his gaze, and I realize it’s because he’s slowly coming to his own understanding. “Akara,” he whispers.
“She’s like my little sister,” I say quickly, though this time it sounds like I’m trying to convince myself. How much did her dad infiltrate my head? Was it full-on Inception? For how many years? She’s like your little sister, Akara. Protect her.
Shit.
Banks shakes his head repeatedly, almost angrily.
I feel that anger inside me. At myself. I’m so pissed at myself for making this unnecessarily complicated. I end up snapping, “What?”
“What?” He points at the ground and growls, “You love her.”
“As a friend,” I combat.
“A friend?” His voice is hushed but hot with pent-up annoyance like mine. “I’ve never had friends who are girls and teased them like you tease her—”
“Guys can have platonic friends who are girls, Banks. It fucking exists.” I spread my arms.
He crosses his. “Sorry, I’m just a little fucking lost here. First she’s your sister. Now she’s your friend. Is she going to be your cousin tomorrow? Should I start pulling out the cousin-kisser jokes—”
“Fuck you,” I say plainly.
“No, fuck you,” he whispers hotly close to my face. “I want to fucking shake you, Akara. Just accept the simple truth. It’s not gonna kill you if you do.”
It won’t kill me if I do.
His words somehow punch me backwards.
I sink onto the mattress and put my head in my hands. I’ve been flirting with Sulli? I think about how I stole her baseball cap, right after she clearly had a moment with Banks in the parking lot.
Shit.
Shit.
I’ve been flirting with Sulli. Every time she’s been interested in another guy, I’ve cut in…and teased her, messed with her hair and shoved her playfully.
I’ve flirted with her.
Will Rochester, her ex-boyfriend, told me to stop flirting, and I did back off my interactions with her because I didn’t want to ruin her first relationship. I couldn’t tell her why I was being standoffish, and when she found out, that almost cost my friendship with Sulli.
She broke up with him instead.
“Shit,” I mutter out loud.