Page 51 of Dirty Roulette
“Umm...” She leans over the armrest, unzipping a small pocket. It’s a tube of lipstick, the same shade she wore last night. “Here.” She slaps it into my palm.
“Okay, pull the ice away.” She does as she’s told, and I push her tangled hair to the opposite shoulder. “Lean a bit.” Her eyes roll, and I take the tip of the tube and rub it into her neck.
“Ow!” She smacks my hand away. “That hurts!”
“Do you want me to help you or not?”
“Yes!”
“Stop, and lean your head back.”
She grumbles under her breath and I take the tip of the lipstick and twirl it around to break up the blood vessels I popped. Goddamn, she’s a pain. After a couple of minutes, I put the ice pack back on her neck and held it there. The condensation drips down her shirt, and it’s soaking wet.
“What did Brittni post?” She asks and her opal eyes take a quick glance at me, then back to her fingers where she’s picking at her cuticles.
“I’ll deal with it.” I peel the ice off, and she leans her head as I push the tip of the lipstick back on the hickey, working it in circles.
“But Charlie...”
“Stop...” I press the ice against her neck. “At some point, you’re going to have to tell her. Why can’t you get that through your stubborn skull?”
“You don’t get it.”
“You’re being a pain right now.”
“And you’re an ass for giving me a hickey.”
“You could have told me to stop at any time.” My head is shaking, and she’s silent again. Carve the word asshole on my forehead, but I’mdoing her a favor because I care about her more than I’d like to and more than she knows. Someone’s gotta tell her like it is.
“I’m sorry. I’m mad about the hickey.” She bites her bottom lip. “Is it bad that I really liked it?”
“Last night?”
“Yeah.”
“No, I had fun too.” I peel the ice back, and the blood vessels are clearing up, turning into a shade of pink. Scrolling through videos in the middle of the night sometimes teaches you interesting tricks and I finally get to try out one that actually works. “Okay cutie, we really need to tell Charlie. How many times have you two fought and didn’t talk for weeks straight, but legit came back to each other? You two are superglue on steroids.”
“But it’s you,” she says.
“Who cares if it’s me? She’ll get over it, and I’m not going to sit here and tell you I regret giving you this hickey.”
“But this is going to change everything.”
“How?”
“What if Charlie does get over it and we don’t work out? Neither of us will be friends again.”
“Who says we won’t be friends?” I huff, I get where she’s coming from, and her pouting puts a brittle ache in my chest. “It’s only going to change if you choose it too and I don’t want anything to change either,” I tell her.
After another round of ice and putting enough pressure on her neck, the mark fades into her soft skin tone as if last night was erased. I place the bag with ice water and the lipstick on the table. Snatching my phone I put it into camera mode. “Look.”
She takes it and rubs the tips of her fingers where the mark was. “How did you know how to do that?”
“Magic.”
“Screw you.” She lifts the phone at an angle, flips the bird, and snaps a picture.
“What the hell are you doing?” She twists around in the chair, leaning over it at the same second I try to catch it out of her hand.
