Page 32 of Unsaid Things

Chapter Fourteen

“Lance gave him cash? And then he just left?” Megan froze with a soapy paintbrush in her hand, brown suds all over her palm, to gape at Abby.

“Yeah. He’ll be back though. I couldn’t tell how much Lance gave him, but it couldn’t have been more than maybe sixty bucks.” Abby sat on the edge of the counter next to the kitchen sink while Megan cleaned up after working on the painting Abby was modeling for. It featured her hands surrounded by two other pairs of hands, each progressively darker in tone. Posing with three people, two of whom were large football players, made for some awkward contortions. They ended up with Abby kneeling on the floor with her hands on a table draped with a neutral silver cloth, one guy standing off to the right with his hands around hers, and the other guy off to the left with his hands surrounding them both. The guys were awkward about it at first, not wanting to touch each other that much or for that long, but Megan and Abby kept chatting and cracking jokes. Eventually they all relaxed enough that it wasn’t too bad. Hopefully the next session would be less awkward. And it would be the last one.

Megan stopped staring at her, returning her attention to the paintbrushes that still needed cleaning. She shook her head. “Man. I still can’t believe he’s back at all. I didn’t think we’d ever see him again.”

“Me too. I didn’t want to see him again.”

Megan made a sound in her throat. Abby wasn’t sure what that meant, but decided to take it as agreement, because anything else would piss her off right now. “I’m not surprised he’s after money, though,” Megan said.

Abby sighed. “Yeah. Me either. I wonder what he wants it for.”

“Drugs?”

Abby considered that. That had occurred to her too. She shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe. Who knows? He won’t tell me anything. If he can’t deflect a question, he just refuses to answer it. It’s maddening, but I can’t force the information out of him. I don’t really care, honestly. I just want him to go. And not come back.”

Chris came into the kitchen, clutching his chest, a look of mock-pain on his face. “I’m wounded, Abby. Why do you want me to leave and not come back? And this is my house!”

He came up behind Megan, placing a kiss on her cheek. She turned her head to kiss him on the mouth. The somber mood in the room lightened with Chris’s antics and subject change.

Abby shook her head, chuckling. “Not you. I’m happy for you to stick around. And you know I’d never try to kick you out of your own house.”

With an arm still around Megan’s waist, he lifted his head, his hazel eyes twinkling. “Nah. You just steal my roommates. You can’t have this one back, though.”

“That’s okay. I’m happy with my current roommate. He’s messier, but he doesn’t get hungover as often.”

“Hey!” Megan reached over and smacked Abby’s thigh, leaving a wet handprint on her jeans.

Abby laughed. “You know I love you, Megs. If you got desperate, we could find a two bedroom, and you could move in with Lance and me. But I’m not trading back. Chris’d just have to deal with living with Matt on his own.”

“Aw, man. Don’t sentence me to that. Dude’s been moody as fuck since he came back after Christmas.”

“Oh, oh, oh!” Megan’s eyes widened, and she clutched Abby’s leg, making another wet handprint since she’d gone back to washing her paintbrushes and not bothered to dry her hands.

“Hey! You’re getting my jeans wet! It’s cold out!”

Megan rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a baby. You’ll dry before you leave. Shut up and listen to me. You’ll never believe what happened last weekend.”

Chris snorted, suppressing laughter and drawing Abby’s attention for a minute, but when she looked at him he just shook his head. She refocused on Megan. “What happened?”

“Matt brought a girl home. From the club we all went to, except you and Lance decided to be boring.”

Abby made a face. “You know I don’t like clubs. They’re too loud and everyone’s drunk and grabby.”

Megan waved a hand. “That doesn’t matter right now. Anyway, so Matt was fine at first, but then got all pissy after a while. We figured he’d bail on us, and he did. What we didn’t figure on was walking in on him and some chick half naked on our couch when we got home.”

“What? Oh my God.” Abby had seen Matt with girls at parties and stuff since the summer, but he’d never had anyone over that she knew of either when Lance had lived here or since Megan had moved in before fall semester.

Megan nodded her head, her brown curls swinging wildly, her brown eyes wide and gleeful. “Yup. He was shirtless and grinding against her. She had on a dress, but a few tugs and she wouldn’t anymore.”

“What did you do?”

Chris broke out laughing. “She asked her to model for her paintings.”

“You didn’t.” But Abby knew that was totally something Megan would do.

“Of course I did. She’s exactly what I’d been looking for and didn’t realize it. And she agreed. She’ll be coming over on Saturday. I’m kind of surprised she’s not here now, actually. She’s been over most days this week. Her name is Hannah. I like her. She agreed to model for me, so she’s got my stamp of approval. Matty’s been really quiet about her, though. He won’t give me anything but the most basic info. I’m not sure what the deal is there, but I hope it works out for him.”

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