Page 64 of Spin The Bottle
“And what’s that?
“If you sat on my lap,” I say, smiling as I rake an arm around her waist, pulling her up.
“Aiden, no.” She gasps, pushing my arm away. “I can’t sit on your lap.”
“Why not?” I ask her.
She rolls her eyes. “Just sit still, idiot.”
I raise my brows at her, wincing when I feel that cold liquid on my face again. “You’re not getting a tip if you keep talking to me like that.”
She laughs and lifts an eyebrow. “And what tip would that be?”
I laugh, my heart jumping in my chest. My girl knew exactly what kind of dirty joke I was about to make. I stare at her in awe as she wipes that green shit on my face. It’s cold and itchy, but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
“There,” she says when she’s done. “You’re gorgeous, darling.” She says in the worst southern accent I’ve heard.
“So are you.”
She wipes her hands on a rag, and I just stare, admiring her beautiful face, her eyes a close match to the green painted on her skin, except for the golden specks in them.
She turns, grabbing a small camera from her table, facing it towards me.
My eyebrows raise. “Are you taking a picture of me?”
She looks at me from behind the camera. “Stay still.”
I let out a laugh, giving her a smile until the shutter goes off. “I didn’t know you took pictures.”
She shrugs, pulls out the Polaroid, and gives it a shake. “I prefer being in front of a camera rather than behind it, but yeah.” She glances at me. “My parents had stacks and stacks of photo albums and I always loved going through them. So I decided to take more pictures.” She tucks her leg underneath her. “Most of them are of my plants.”
The mention of her childhood brings an odd feeling to my stomach, wondering what it would be like if I had a different family, a different life. “Let me see,” I say, gesturing to the Polaroid in her hands.
She holds it out, grinning when we both look at my green face covering the picture. “I look as bad as you do,” I tease, nudging her.
She shakes her head, scrunching her nose. “You look worse.”
I grab the camera from her hands, turning it over until it’s facing us, and wrap my arm around Leila. I pull her into me and bring our lips together. The shutter goes off, and when I pull out the picture, I can’t stop staring at it. She’s so beautiful, even with her face painted green. “This one’s mine,” I tell her, pocketing the picture.
“Why do you get to keep it?”
The smile on my lips belongs to this girl and this girl only. “I want to look at it every day,” I admit.
When she looks at me, her lips twitch in a smile, and she lets out a sigh. “You’re going to make some girl so happy one day.”
A weird feeling settles in my stomach at her words. “What about you?” I ask her, my brows dipping. “Don’t I make you happy?”
She parts her lips, both of us staring back at each other, but before she can say something, her stomach rumbles, and she freezes, and her eyes widen when she looks up at me. “You heard that, huh?”
I nod. “You hungry?”
She shrugs. “I’m fine.”
I glare at her. “When was the last time you ate?” I ask her, anticipating her response. After what happened in that doctor’s office, I’m not letting her ‘forget’ ever again. She shrugs, which makes me mad because I hate that she’s not taking care of herself. I sigh, get up from the couch, and head to her kitchen.
“What are you doing?” she asks, peering at me from the couch.
“Making you food. What do you have?” I ask, opening her fridge. Nothing. That’s what. Besides some fruit, eggs, some veg, cheese, and two bottles of beer, the fridge is empty.
