Page 86 of Hot Tea & Bird Calls
She’d met her match.
Not trusting what she wanted to say, she tugged her runners on in a clumsy sprint out her door, through the living room, and outside. Ajay and Elise’s voices barely registered as she left the door open in her dash to jog the neighborhood until she was too tired to even spell the word pussy.
21
Monday night was for tweezing. Not Skye’s brows, since she’d tackled that last weekend. But her stained-glass pieces were developing beautifully. She’d hand-cut enough varied sheets of glass to assemble Forever Fuchsia leaves together by tweezer.
It was meticulous.
And time-consuming.
Not to mention dangerous. Without her protective gloves, her hands would be scraped up by the pointy shards.
Skye absolutelylovedit.
It was the closest feeling to spending a day outside. Trapped off in her ventilated secret room, assembling her secret art for her secret commission to her once-fake girlfriend—another secret.
Working on this piece also served as a good distraction from her phone. Celene’s‘God’and‘How can I use these?’responses to her photos were positive indicators. She’d sent unrelated, not-naughty messages while out shopping with Nadine on Sunday, and Skye replied with shots of anything inspiring from the Woodmere Art Museum.
Skye sending seductive pictures of herself hadn’t come up again.
Shutting her eyes, Skye tried to shush the doubtful voices. Did it count as sexual harassment, as they hadn’t been asked for? But theywereunmistakably naughty.
She deposited the tweezers and a shiny leaf on her desk. It still shocked her to have a girlfriend at all, let alone it being Celene Vale. She could only assume Celene liked the photos, as the woman didn’t shy from expressing animosity. It was sort of hot.
“Wow,” Skye said to the compartment’s wooden walls. Never before had she considered a sharp temper in a dossier for an ideally passionate match. Yet she pondered there, suddenly too warm, recalling Celene losing her cool once Elise brought Skye into their argument.
Her phone buzzed loudly on the desk’s edge; Skye caught it before it fell to the floor. At 2 a.m., she expected no disturbances. Then, she checked the notification, and her work time lost all significance.
Celene – 2:02 am
Are you alone?
Skye’s jaw dropped. Okay, this was the equivalent of a ‘You up?’ message. She quickly pushed her delicate items into tidy piles, removed her gloves, and switched off her lamp before scrambling out of the trap door, back onto her loft bed. After sliding the door closed, she found the fortitude to respond.
Skye – 2:07 am
I am.
Celene – 2:08 am
I can’t stop looking at your pictures.
I’m alone, too.
“Oh, say less,” Skye whispered as she washed her hands in her bathroom, then ran a hand towel under the faucet to pat her neck. She’d run a fever, and nothing even happened yet.
Skye – 2:16 am
I was worried you didn’t like them.
Skye locked her bedroom door and kept only the lamp underneath her bed switched on for minimal, atmospheric lighting. For what, Skye could guess; she knew it’d be well worth the forethought. She scaled her ladder two rungs at a time and lay on her covers, absently twirling fingers into her curly bangs.
Celene – 2:20 am
Skye, stop. Of course I like them.
They distracted me all day.
