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“Why don’t you put your nipples away?” she suggested.
I didn’t care that E had a front row view to my Nilla Wafers, but I was more concerned with the honey in my hair. That was going to be a bitch to shampoo out.
E cleared her throat aggressively.
“I know my nipples are showing, ok?!” I shouted.
Everything turned into slow-motion. The second the word ‘nipple’ left my mouth, I became acutely aware of a presence approaching me. It stopped when I had raised my voice.
And to add insult to injury, I turned to face whoever was there, not thinking about the state of my dress. Or undress for that matter.
My breath ditched me like a bad prom date.
“Jake…?”
Chapter 7
Lucy
Portland
“I’m going tostart keeping a journal of the shit situations you keep getting yourself into.” E’s voice carried from the bathroom where she was currently working on my shirt in the sink. “Glad I brought my travel dish soap,” she commented.
Yeah, that was weird. “And why do you have a baby bottle of Dawn with you?” Maybe I didn’t want to know.
I heard her scoff. “Do you know what they do to the cups and stuff in hotel rooms?” She sounded disturbed that she even had to mention it.
“You mean the ones that are in theprotectiveplastic wrap?” I countered.
“They make you think they’re clean,” she justified. “I can’t believe you don’t think of these things, Luce.”
I chose to ignore the jab at my expense. “Is the honey coming out?” I hadn’t bothered to put a clean top on yet, but instead was reclining on her bed with a pillow hugged to my middle.
E came out of the small adjacent room. “Yeah, just leave it here until it dries,” she offered.
“Thanks.”
“So do you want to circle back to your original claim about liking ‘nerd stuff’, as you so affectionately called it?”
I rolled my eyes. E had two sides to her. If she wasn’t being a helicopter-tough-love-I-know-what’s-best type, then she morphed into what I liked to call her ‘Corporate Cathy’ persona.
Put me in a room full of colicky babies and it would be more palatable than listening to her ridiculous phrases like ‘circle back’, ‘close the loop’, and ‘alignment’. I mean, why the hell were these buzzwords always so physical in nature?
“No, I will not ‘circle back’, E. We’re not on Wall Street. We’re in a hotel and if you haven’t noticed, I’m in nothing more than my leggings and bra. Hardly the time to use such word abominations.” I yawned, the effects of the day catching up with me.
Pulling out one of her labeled baggies, she placed it on the desk and laid her shoes out just under the piece of furniture.
“Ugh, could you not organize in front of me?” I complained.
“The door is over there, you know the way out,” she fired back.
Sighing, I apologized generically.
“Why don’t wecontinuewith your claim about liking nerd stuff.” E made a conscious effort with her word choice. “Did you just google stuff or did you watch anything or…what?”
I filled her in on the animated conversation I was a part of on my flight. And I even admitted that I had gone down a bit of a rabbit hole after I had watched Jake and Liam’s panel interview.
“What’s that look supposed to mean?” I sneered, glaring at her like she was looking at my face for the first time.
