Point of Retreat (Slammed #2)(34)

“Ugh!” She throws the rest of the stars on the floor and turns her shirt right side out. “You’re such a jerk, Will! You have no right to keep these here!” She pulls her shirt over her head and turns to Reece. “And when the hell did you get a roommate?”

Reece just stares at her, still wide-eyed. He has no idea what to make of the scene going down before him. Lake walks back to the center of the room and grabs a small handful of stars, then turns and rushes toward the front door. Reece steps aside as she moves passed him and goes outside. We both watch as she crosses the street, stopping twice to pick up stars she drops in the snow. When she shuts her door behind her, Reece turns to me.

“Man, she’s feisty. And cute,” he says.

“And mine,” I reply.

***

While Reece is cooking us lunch, I crawl around the living room and pick up all the stars that scattered. After I think I have them all, I take the vase to the kitchen to hide it in the cabinet. If she can’t find it, she’ll have to speak to me to ask me where it is.

“What are those, anyway?” Reece asks.

“They’re from her mother,” I say. “Long story.”

She might find them too easily if I hide them in such an obvious spot. I move the cereal again and place the vase right behind the tequila.

“So is this chick your girlfriend?” Reece says.

I’m not sure how to answer his question. I don’t know how to put a label on what’s going on between us. “Yep,” I say.

He cocks his head at me. “Doesn’t seem like she likes you very much.”

“She loves me. She just doesn’t like me right now.”

He laughs. “What’s her name?”

“Layken. I call her Lake,” I say as I pour myself a drink. A non-alcoholic drink this time.

He laughs. “That explains your incoherent rambling last night.” He spoons some pasta into our bowls and we sit at the table to eat.

“So, what’d you do to piss her off so bad?”

I rest my elbows on the table and drop my fork into my bowl. I guess now is as good a time as any to fill him in on the last year of my life. He’s been my best friend since we were ten, minus the last couple of years or so. We kind of grew apart after he left for the army. I still trust him, though. So I tell him everything. The entire story. From the day we met, to her first day at school, to our fight about Vaughn, all the way up to last night. When I finish, he’s on his second bowl of pasta and I haven’t even touched mine.

“So,” he says, stirring his pasta around in his bowl. “You think you’re really over Vaughn?”

Out of all the things I just told him, that’s what he focuses on? I laugh. “I’m absolutely over Vaughn.”

He shifts in his chair and looks at me. “Just tell me if this isn’t cool with you, but…would you care if I asked her out? If you say no, I won’t man. I swear.”

He hasn’t changed a bit. Of course this is the one thing he would pick up on out of my entire confession. The single girl.

“Reece? I could honestly care less what you do with Vaughn. Honestly. Just don’t bring her here. That’s one rule you can’t break. She’s not allowed in this house.”

He smiles. “I can live with that.”

***

The next few hours are spent finishing homework and studying the notes Vaughn left for me. The first thing I do is re-write them and throw her original notes away. I hate looking at her handwriting.

I’ve cut my spying down to about once an hour now. I don’t want Reece to think I’m crazy, so I only look out the window when he leaves the room. I’m at the table studying and he’s watching TV when Kiersten walks in; without knocking, of course.

“Who the hell are you?” she says to Reece as she walks across the living room.

“Are you even old enough to talk like that?” he asks.

She rolls her eyes and walks to the kitchen and takes a seat across from me. She puts her elbows on the table and rests her chin in her hands, watching me study.

“You see Lake today?” I ask without looking up from my notes.

“Yep.”

“And?”

“Watching movies. And eating a lot of junk food.”

Of course she is. It’s Sunday. “Did she say anything about me?”

Kiersten folds her arms across the table and leans in closer.

“You know, Will. If I’m going to be working for you, I think it’s a good time to negotiate fair compensation.”

I lay my notes down on the table and look at her. “Are you agreeing to help me?”

“Are you agreeing to pay me?”

“I think we could work out a deal,” I say. “Not with currency, of course. But maybe I could help you build your portfolio.”

She leans back in her seat and eyes me curiously. “Keep talking.”

“I’ve got a lot of performance experience, you know. I could give you some of my poetry…help you prepare for a slam.”

I can see her thoughts churning behind her expression. “Take me to the slam. Every Thursday for at least a month. There's a talent show coming up at the school in a few weeks that I want to enter, so I need all the exposure I can get.”

"An entire month? No way. This reconciliation between Lake and I better happen before four weeks! I can't go through this for a whole month.”