Page 21 of Allured By Her

“Tommy was that kid who went to the bathroom and when he came back you know he didn’t wash his hands,” Sydney said, peeking over the back of the couch and making a face.

I shuddered and realized that I should have brought up something else.

“What’s Tenley’s house like?” Lark asked, pouring some coffee for herself.

“Oh, it’s nice,” I said, going to the fridge for more milk to make another latte.

“And?” Lark said. “Details.”

I should have just taken a few covert pictures and sent them to her. Ingrid had also sent me a ton of questions via text, and I’d kept things vague for her too.

“It’s decorated really nice. She’s got some pretty vintage furniture. I thought she’d be into more modern stuff, but there was nothing from IKEA in there,” I said. Not even the bookshelves. They were mismatched but worked together. Tenley had a beautiful eye for decorating and seeing how things that you wouldn’t think would go together did.

“Huh,” Lark said. “Looking at her I would have thought she’d be into boring and beige. No color. No flavor.”

“I know,” I said, pouring milk into the frother. “It was a surprise.”

“People can surprise you,” Lark said.

“Yeah,” I said, not looking at her.

Lark must have sensed my reluctance to talk further about the night before, so she moved on to other things that didn’t involve Tenley. That didn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about Tenley. Wondering what she did on the weekends. Would she pick a book from those shelves and drape herself on the mustard velvet couch with a cup of tea steaming beside her as the soft afternoon light filtered through the curtains? Why was I picturing this in such great detail?

“Mia?” Lark said.

“Huh?” I asked her.

“I asked you if you’ve started the book club book,” Mia said. We’d finished our brunch and were now just hanging out as Sydney read in the library guest room. Sydney was great, but it was also really fun to have time for just me and Lark. If I’d been paying attention to her and not writing fanfiction about Tenley in my mind.

“Oh, no. I have a different book I have to finish first,” I said. The book Tenley had given me, that I couldn’t wait to start.

“Need more coffee?” she asked when I yawned again.

“No, probably just a nap,” I said, covering my mouth as my jaw cracked with another yawn. “Having to smile in front of terrible people from high school was exhausting.”

“I bet,” she said. “You couldn’t pay me to spend even five minutes with the mean girls from high school.” Lark had gone to some super fancy private school, and it sounded like a hellish experience. The stories she told me sometimes sounded like they came from some TV drama.

“Still haven’t told her you’re a giant lesbian have you?” Lark said.

“No, and I’m not going to, if I can help it. I don’t want to make things weird,” I said.

“Oh, I’d say it’s already pretty weird,” Lark said, snorting. “Wouldn’t be me pretending to be heterosexual for a girl from high school.”

“It’s not like that,” I said, but it was exactly like that.

“It’ll be a funny story you can tell down the road, I suppose,” she said.

“Yeah, definitely,” I said, yawning again. Lark pulled me to my feet and shoved me down the hall to my apartment with orders for a nap. I fell onto the couch and completely passed out until I woke up at 6 p.m. wondering what the hell happened.

So much for my afternoon of reading.

* * *

“There’s your fake girlfriend,” Lark said, bumping against me to get my attention on Monday morning.

I looked up to see a fresh-looking Tenley setting her bag down at her usual table before sauntering over to get in line. She made eye contact with me and gave me a little wave. I nodded back at her and went back to what I was doing. What was I doing again? Right. Latte. I was making a three-shot latte.

Lark practically shoved me toward the register when it was Tenley’s turn to order. She had another crop top on today, this one was short sleeved, and she’d paired it with ripped-to-hell jeans that were more holes than fabric.

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