It's All Relative(87)

Kai was apparently going into detail about this Louis person, because aside from a couple of “yeahs” and “oohs,” April was silent. Jessie was pretty sure that Kai worked with a Louis, and wondered if he was talking him up to April just to distract her from the fact that Kai and Jessie hadn’t seen each other in a while. Jessie thought that was probably the reason for the redirect. Kai wouldn’t want anyone delving too closely into their relationship or lack thereof.

After another couple of minutes, April finally said, “Okay, have fun.” She paused, then rolled her eyes. “Okay, I’ll tell her. Bye.” After ending the call, April started watching the show playing on TV. Curiosity was eating Jessie alive. Kai had obviously meant her there at the end.

Biting her lip, she stared at her friend. She didn’t want to seem too eager about a message from her cousin, but she desperately wanted to know what he said. When April finally looked her way, Jessie raised an expectant eyebrow. April sighed. “Kai says hello.” She mumbled the message, like just telling Jessie that much was putting her out.

Jessie wanted to sigh in contentment, and daydream about the words coming from Kai’s mouth, not April’s. She couldn’t though. She couldn’t look lovesick over her cousin around anyone, least of all April. Jessie managed a nonchalant shrug as she twisted back to the TV. “That was nice of him.” Not looking at April, she carefully said, “We’ve been too busy to talk much lately. How is he?”

Her heart hammered in her chest as she waited for her friend to respond, but instead of answering her, April stood up. “I have a mani-pedi to get to.” She indicated the kitchen with her thumb. “Harmony has all the details for next weekend.” With that, she strolled to her bedroom.

Jessie was silent as she watched her leave. April was going to stretch out the argument between them for as long as she possibly could. Hopefully things got better soon; Jessie didn’t think she could utter, “I’m sorry I was a bitch,” one more time. Maybe the trip next weekend would help. Harmony had had the brilliant idea to strengthen their bond with a girl’s ski trip. They were all going to Harmony’s favorite lodge, deep in the Arapaho National Forest.

With a sigh, Jessie decided to let April sulk for now. She knew she couldn’t rush the repair of her friend’s hurt feelings, and April had a right to feel slighted; Jessie never should have spoken to her the way she had. Besides being a little too eager with a cute boy she liked, her roommate hadn’t done anything wrong. This upcoming trip was probably the best thing for their relationship.

Walking into the kitchen, Jessie found Harmony chowing down on a bowl of cereal. Jessie went through the mechanics of preparing her own bowl while Harmony flicked the edge of the piece of paper she was holding. It looked like a hotel reservation confirmation.

“I got us a double at Mountain Inn Resort.” Her pale eyes were sparkling as she said it. Harmony loved skiing. She’d already been up a few times for day trips and was really looking forward to an entire weekend of skiing with just the girls. “This is going to be great, Jessie!”

Jessie smiled at her friend’s enthusiasm. “I’m sure it will, Harm.” Sitting beside her, Jessie suppressed a sigh. She’d be hours away from Kai. The distance shouldn’t really matter, since they weren’t speaking anyway, but there it was, just the thought of how much physical space would be between them put an ache in her chest. At least her girlfriends would help fill the space, assuming April stopped being mad at her, of course.

Harmony gave her a concerned look, like she’d heard her internal sigh. With a tilt of her head, she asked, “You all right?”

Jessie let the sigh escape as she dunked the tiny Os floating in her bowl of milk. She wished she could confess everything to Harmony. It would be so nice to finally talk about her confusion with someone, but how do you explain something that awful to a friend? Sure, it wasn’t as if she was lusting over a sibling or anything, but still, they were first cousins, and what was going on with them was so much worse than idly thinking a relative was cute.

“Just thinking about…stuff,” she muttered blandly.

Not about to let that comment go, Harmony put a hand on her arm. “Boy-stuff or April-stuff?”

Jessie wasn’t sure how to answer her, so she shrugged. Harmony frowned. “Jeremy didn’t call you, did he?”

Harmony leaping to that conclusion, made Jessie’s eyebrows shoot up her forehead. She vehemently shook her head. She supposed it wasn’t too weird for Harmony to think her troubles stemmed from Jeremy. Jessie had been with him for a while, and really, their break up hadn’t happened all that long ago. Jessie just hadn’t thought about him in so long that he seemed like someone buried in her ancient past, not someone she’d been considering moving in with less than six months ago.

“No, Jeremy might as well have dropped off the face of the earth for what little I think of him. And I definitely haven’t heard from him.”

She was grateful for that; Jeremy was a complication she didn’t need right now. Harmony studied her as she took a spoonful of cereal. Around her food, she asked, “Is it because of that Simon guy? He called again by the way.”

Jessie groaned and dropped her head back. “Goddamn it.” Lifting her head, she began violently digging into her cereal. “I told Grams I didn’t want to be set up with anyone, then she got one of her newfound friends to get her son to ask me out.” Her spoon clinked angrily against her bowl. “And now he won’t stop.” Jessie had politely turned him down three times already. She was sure he was nice guy and all, but he wasn’t what she was looking for at the moment.