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I narrow my gaze to try to decipher if there’s a secret message behind her nervous questions. “Is this about me falling asleep in your bed? Because if so, I swear I didn’t mean to. It’s a bad look, but believe me when I say I wasn’t trying to pressure you or anything. It was an honest mistake. I guess I was so comfortable and I didn’t realize I was that tired. So when—”
“You think…I mean consider it a nonissue.” She places her hand on my arm, the comforting warmth seeping into my skin. “I didn’t think you were taking advantage of me. If anything I…well, it’s not important. I’m sorry if you’ve been worrying about this all day.”
I close my hand over hers. “Well since I’ll be on the committee with you, I’d consider the worrying worth it. We should probably talk about our game plan over the weekend.”
“Yeah, about that…I have plans. Raincheck?”
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
Kenya
Cameron and I pull into my driveway one after the other. The awkwardness hasn’t left me because I know what I did even if he doesn’t. As much as I would like to analyze our encounter at town hall, he doesn’t give me time. Cameron rushes out of his car to open my door. The gesture goes a long way to buffer my awkwardness from this morning.
“It looks like your grandmothers stopped by.” He points to the empty spaces where their vehicles used to be.
“Yeah, they probably didn’t want to be around for me to interrogate them about my missing furniture.”
Although I can feel his questions, he doesn’t voice them. Neither of us makes a move from my car. We stare at each other, his pull is almost too strong to ignore.
Honk!
We jump at the sound of a horn behind us. Jazzy rolls her car to a stop behind mine. Her face is a little too gleeful for my liking. She jumps out of the car and rushes over to us.
“So, Kiwi, who is this?” Jazzy says in an exaggerated voice.
“Cameron, this is my best friend Jasmine, aka Jazzy.” I attempt to stem the ordeal ahead of me.
“Cameron, you must be Kiwi’s new tenant.” She steps back to admire him from head to toe. “I knew Glamma had good taste but she really knocked it out of the park with you.”
A light blush tinges Cameron’s cheeks. “Uh, thanks.” He peers between us, a battle raging behind his eyes. With a decisive nod toward his rental, he says, “Kenya mentioned she had plans this weekend. I’ll leave—”
“Before you do, can I get a tour of your studio? Kiwi was supposed to from forever ago, but busy schedules and all that.”
I glare at Jazzy for prolonging this encounter.
Although he wears a perplexed frown, Cameron shrugs and leads the way. “Follow me. I haven’t done much to the place as it was fully furnished when I moved in and I’m pretty low maintenance. Oh, and Kenya still uses the studio for her work.”
“She does?”
Behind Cameron Jazzy elbows me and raises her eyebrows. In a whisper I swear the heavens can hear, she says, “First of all, how dare you not tell me how hot your tenant is. And second, please tell me you are finally trying to retire that V-card of yours by making moves on this guy.”
Cameron stumbles on his way to his door, but stops short. He turns to us and after a glance at my darkening face, he offers, “Maybe it isn’t such a great time today after all. You probably need to get ready.”
“Yes!” I jump at the excuse he lobs my way. “With all the makeup we need to use, it will take us up until we need to go.”
“Wait… I have a great idea. Do you have plans this weekend?” Jazzy jumps in completely ignoring my bulging eyes and hints to leave.
“No…”
“Then why don’t you join us?”
“Jazzy, I’m sure Cameron isn’t interested in what we’ll be doing.” I nudge her to get her to leave the topic alone.
“Have you asked him?” she challenges. Without giving me a chance to respond, she continues. “I didn’t think so. We’re going to a conference where cosplay is heavily encouraged. I’m going as Perona from One Piece and Kiwi here is going as Yor from Spy x Family. Oh, maybe you haven’t heard of them?”
I drop my face into my hands. Although we haven’t talked about those characters specifically, I suspect Cameron would be a perfect attendee at the conference. He reads the source material.
“I’m very familiar with the manga and anime. Are you a subbie or dubbie?”
