Page 48 of All Her Broken Pieces

I groan. “I forgot to delete those.”

“Do you wear makeup often? You look very pretty in this,” she declares, holding up my phone for me to see.

“I was babysitting my four youngest sisters, and they wanted to see who could do the best makeup. To make it fair, they decided that they would all use me as their canvas.” I gesture to the picture she’s holding up on the screen. “That one was Erin’s. She’s nine.”

“Wait, there’s more?” She keeps scrolling through as she peruses all the looks my sisters gave me. “Sweet baby Jesus, this one is really good. The contouring is fantastic.”

I glance at the screen to see which look she’s referencing, “That one was Ella’s. The whole thing was her idea. She’s obsessed with makeup and hair. She’s thinking of cosmetology school, but I’m not sure my dad is going to go for that. He wants her to go to college.”

“I hope he changes his mind. She has real talent. I’d let her do my makeup.” Studying my photos a little longer, she leans into me and asks, “Any other photos you don’t want me to see?”

“Nope.”

“Good, now let’s look at your browser history.”

I look at her unblinking, not the least bit fazed. “Have at it. Just don’t close out any open tabs. I don’t want to lose anything.”

“Damn, there are like a hundred open tabs in here. Don’t you organize this shit? You know you can make folders and categorize all this, don’t you?” She scrolls through my open tabs before getting bored and opening a new one as she types in “pornhu” before I stop her.

“Whoa, hellcat, don’t type any more letters, please. I told you Lizzy uses my phone, remember?”

“I figured a certain website would come up if I started typing that, but it didn’t.”

‘Yeah, I don’t look at that on my phone.”

“But you do look at it?”

“You’ll have to use your next truth on that one,” I taunt with a wink.

Her eyebrows furrow briefly before she hands me back my phone. I can’t stand to see the hurt look on her face, and it’s clear that my teasing jab didn’t land like I intended.

I cover her hand in mine, holding it briefly, as I take the phone from her. “I do watch it from time to time, but not on my phone. I have a computer the girls don’t have access to, so I use that.”

“Oh. Why did you tell me that?”

“I saw the look on your face when I didn’t offer it up initially, and I didn’t want to give you a reason to doubt me. I was trying to be playful. Sorry if it didn’t come across that way.”

“It’s fine. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Anything else you want to know about my extracurriculars?”

She hesitates briefly before asking, “What kind do you watch?”

“I’m not picky, usually whatever is trending. I’m extremely visual, so just seeing it does it for me.”

Her cheeks flush as a pink hue creeps up her neck. If she keeps shifting on my lap, I’m going to have a problem. “Might want to stop all that wiggling unless you want me to get hard, sweetheart.”

She shoves my chest. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Your turn, gorgeous, truth or dare?”

“Truth.” She spits the word like venom. Deciding to start out her first truth with an easy one, I ask, “Do you prefer books or movies?”

A genuine smile crosses her lips, and I’ve clearly touched on a topic she’s passionate about. “Books will always be better than movies. In books, you get all the inner dialogue. You get to know everything that character thinks and feels without relying on a mediocre actor only known for their looks to convey all that subtext. And you get to decide what all the places look like. And those can change the second time you read it. In movies, you only get to rely on the words that are said and any body language used for subtext.”

“Not everyone picks up on nonverbal cues.”

“Exactly.” She’s animated as she continues speaking, her ass wiggling on my legs as her hands gesture wildly making her point. “There’s no guessing how a character feels when you’re in their point of view, their inner monologue shares everything. And some books give you multiple points of view so you can relive the same scene through each character’s viewpoint. But when that scene is translated onto film, it’s as though you’re piecing it together at the same time.”

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