Page 13 of Up All Night

As if he realized, too, that we were too close, he hurried to drop his arm, taking several steps back.

I turned to face him, not sure what to say next. That was the longest we’d ever gotten along. If you wanted to call us competing as getting along.

“Thank you for what you did.” He pointed back over his shoulder with his thumb toward the stairwell. “My legs don’t feel as stiff.”

“You’re welcome.” I was glad he now understood my reasoning behind the race.

“Although don’t think this gets you off the hook for our feud.”

“Feud?” I asked, confused at what he was referring to.

He smiled. “Now look who’s repeating who.”

He had a really nice smile. One that I was looking forward to wiping off his face.

“You mean ‘Now look who’s repeatingwhom,’” I corrected.

But instead of his smile disappearing, he chuckled. “Whatever.”

“And if by feud you mean your morning wake-up call, it seems like this feud is one sided,” I said. “You think I’m trying to be an obnoxious neighbor, but I’m not.”

“So it comes naturally, then.”

I crossed my arms and narrowed my eyes at him. It was apparent that us being friends was never going to happen.

He crossed his arms to match mine. “You don’t count the dinner gift the other night as part of our feud?”

I dropped my arms and said in protest, “Yeah, but you started it.”

“Did not.”

Gosh, it was like we were a couple of children arguing over who should get in trouble.

I took a big breath trying to calm myself. The last thing I wanted to do was stand out here with him and continue to argue. I’d be the bigger person.

“I’m going inside now. I wish I could say I enjoyed this, but then I’d be lying.” Okay, so maybe I wasn’t that much of a bigger person. I reluctantly added, “And you’d better hurry back downstairs before your leg muscles cool down.”

And with that, I opened the door and shut it quickly behind me. I let my back fall against the door and slowly slid down until my butt hit the floor.

Just then Kate walked out of her room. Her eyes took me in, a sprawled-out mess in front of the door.

“Uh, is everything okay?” she asked, her eyes full of concern.

“Yeah,” I exhaled loudly. “Just had the longest day of my life.”

She kept walking toward me, assessing me like she wasn’t quite sure she believed I was okay. “Halle, you’re doing too much. You’re going to wear yourself out.”

“I’ll be fine,” I assured her. “It’s only three weeks.”

Kate was already in her pajamas, looking like she was ready to relax and talk to Jax until it was time to go to bed. Jax was her childhood best friend for whom she swore she had no feelings, but I wasn’t completely convinced. She insisted they’d been friends forever—and only friends. Because of his job, he traveled all over the U.S. and was hardly ever home, so they talked on the phone every night.

I wanted to be showered and in my pajamas, too, but that would require me getting off the floor, and at the moment, that seemed like a lot of work.

“It’s not just the next three weeks I’m talking about,” she continued. “You work two jobs that are demanding on your body.”

“What am I supposed to do? I need the money.”

She was lucky. She had a freelance graphic design business that she loved and did that during the day as well as teaching at the dance studio two evenings a week for fun.

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