Page 13 of Veiled in Brick

“Oh, for the love of all that is holy, I’m picturing it,” Liam said, staring straight at the ceiling with unblinking eyes.

“ZOEY!” Claire yelled.

“Don’t even get me started on the spanking—”

Liam snapped in a firm voice that he rarely used, “Zoey!” and I pressed my lips tight together. For a moment, he looked angry with me, but the expression he gave me was so fleeting that I could have imagined it for all I knew. All he said next was, “I don’t need to hear about him fucking you—okay?”

I questioned, “What, you don’t like James?”

“James is…fine.”

“Because that wasn’t the longest hesitation before answering a question like that in all of existence,” I retorted.

“Zoey,” Claire called to me once again, and I glanced in her direction. She asked me with half-lidded, exasperated eyes, “Are ya done?”

I huffed out a breath. “Mhm.”

“Back to the more important topic at hand,” Claire said, pointing at me. “You told him you want to see him again?”

“That is what you get out of this?”

She nodded, smirk ever-growing, and gestured towards my face in a circular motion.

“Growth,” she stated smugly.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No—God, Claire, fuck no.” I complained, pushing at the couch cushion beneath me to sit myself up better. “I’m not doing this; I don’t care how good of a lay he is—”

“Okay,” Liam spoke up, grunting as he stood once again. “As fun as this has been, I have class.”

He walked to the front door, and I asked, “Drink later?”

Liam responded over his shoulder, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be back around six. I’ll come by.”

I called out, “Bye!” and he shut the door behind him.

Claire pressed, “You were saying?” I pointed to the vase that sat on the kitchen table, and she snorted. “No way James sent them,” she said. “Just call him and ask.”

I felt my eyes widen. “Do you even know me?”

“Too well,” she quipped, “which is why I’m deciding this for you right now.” She rapidly tapped away on her phone for the second time this morning.

My voice gravely serious, I asked, “Claire, what are you doing?”

“Oh, nothing,” she sang in a high-pitched tune, placing the phone against her ear. “Hey, Jay!”

“Claire!” I yelled.

“Oh, I’m good,” she happily responded back to him. “Hold on a second—”

She extended the phone in my direction, fluttering her eyelashes in mockery of me.

I whispered, “If you think I’m picking up that phone, you’re out of your mind.”

She rolled her eyes, putting the phone back to her head, and said, “Zoey wants to talk to you. Her phone died; she lost her charger—long story.”

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