Secrets & Lies: Two Short Stories(13)

Neither of us had a good night’s sleep. B tossed and turned and even got up once to throw up a little. I stayed on the other side of the bed, trying to think of anything but Toby’s hurt face before he’d left the party.

I liked him. I liked him more than I’d liked a guy in a long, long time. Maybe ever. He was nice and funny and didn’t mind that I was taller than him. I know that should have been a little thing, but it had been a big issue in the past. Toby was the best guy I’d ever dated, and I’d f*cked it all up.

I decided I’d have the talk with B in the morning. Rip off the Band-Aid. But just as Wesley had promised, she had a hangover, and it was like normal cranky Bianca on steroids.

“Fuck,” she groaned with a hand on her forehead. “Why the hell did you let me drink so much?”

“You never exactly said no,” I told her, getting out of bed and heading to my closet to find clothes. “And you didn’t drink that much….”

“More than two beers is too much for me,” she mumbled. “God, Casey, will you stop making so much noise?”

“Sorry.” I shut the closet door as gently as I could. “B, I need to talk to you about something.”

“Can’t it wait? Maybe for a day when I don’t want to curl in a ball and die…. And oh my God, quit stomping! Just you walking around the room is making my head pound.”

I sighed and put my clothes on the edge of the bed. “Believe me, I wish this could wait. But—”

“Then wait,” she moaned.

B’s phone started ringing from the nightstand next to her head. She whimpered.

“You still have ‘Womanizer’ as your ringtone for him? Really?”

“I haven’t gotten around to changing it yet.” She rolled slowly and carefully onto her side and reached for the phone. For a second, I was seriously scared she was going to puke on my floor. But she didn’t. “Hey, Wesley,” she said into the phone. “What do you want?”

I changed out of my pajamas while she talked—which was mostly a series of mutters and grumbles. I’d just pulled my hoodie on when I heard her say, “Okay. Love you, too. See you in an hour.” She tossed the phone onto my side of the bed and covered her face with her hands. “Kill me.”

“I wouldn’t want to deal with the cleanup,” I said. “What did Wesley say?”

“His parents just got home. And they’ve invited me to a Christmas Eve lunch.”

“You could have said no.”

“I could’ve.” She sat up slowly, carefully. “But Wesley said they got me a gift and… I kind of should go. So he’s picking me up here in an hour. Which means I need your shower… and some coffee.”

“We don’t have any coffee.”

By the way B moaned, you’d have thought I’d just killed her beloved pet or something. I started to laugh, but she gave me a scathing look.

“Shower,” she said. “Now.”

“I’ll get you a towel.”

Once B was in the shower, I walked into the bathroom so I could brush my teeth and fix my hair. Part of me wanted to put off telling her about Toby, to wait until she wasn’t hungover and cranky, but the thought of Toby, of not seeing him, pushed me forward.

“So,” I said, just loud enough that she could hear me over the running water. “About what I was going to tell you earlier.”

“Please don’t shout.”

“I… wasn’t. But okay. So what I was going to tell you is… I’ve been sort of keeping a secret from you.”

“Casey, I can’t hear you.”

I gritted my teeth. “I was trying not to shout, but… but I’ve kind of… sort of… I hooked up with Toby.”

There was a long pause, then the water suddenly shut off and B poked her head around the shower curtain. “Toby Tucker?”

“Yeah.”

“When did that happen?”

“The night you and Jess picked me up from the bus station. That party. We kind of made out in the bathroom.”

“Wow.” She grabbed the towel I’d hung next to the shower and vanished behind the curtain. When she stumbled back out, she had the towel wrapped around her middle. “I can’t believe you’re just now telling me.”

“I was… I was nervous. I thought you’d be pissed.”

“Why would I be pissed?”

“Uh, do you know you? Everything pisses you off.”

B turned toward the toilet and started dressing in the clothes she’d left on the lid. We’d been friends for thirteen years, and somewhere in there, we’d both lost any sense of modesty around the other.

“You saying that kind of pisses me off, but the Toby thing? Why would that piss me off?”

“Because it’s against the Girl Code,” I said.

Bianca wobbled a little as she attempted to pull on her jeans. “Code? What Code? Who writes these stupid Codes?”

“Well, dating your best friend’s ex is usually a big no-no.”

“Wait—dating?” She turned to face me, one arm through her T-shirt. “You said you made out with him.”

“Well, we did… and then we went on a date. And then another. And another. And…”