Page 76 of Psync
“Don’t smear anything before I can take a picture!” She called after him.
“Aren’t you in a class right now?” Eli hissed into his phone.
“Do you need me to come over there?” Haruka was a master of ignoring questions he didn’t want to answer.
“I’m fine. It was just Alice.” Eli smiled softly. Overprotective didn’t begin to describe Haruka.
“Alice? What is she doing?”
“Honing her makeup skills.”
“. . . on you?”
“I thought it would be a good way to test my boundaries. It wasn’t that bad, actually.”
“Your boundaries are fine. I’ll see you soon.”
Eli’s phone beeped, informing him that Haruka had hung up.
What a pompous fuck.
He closed his eyes and tapped the back of his head lightly against the wall behind him. They had such a strange relationship.
Eli took a deep breath and went back inside.
“Okay, Alice, show me what you’ve done to me,” he demanded, reaching for the mirror she held in her hand.
“Be nice, I’m sensitive,” she said before handing him the mirror.
Alice? Sensitive? She seemed so sturdy and unflappable. Whimsical, yes, but not sensitive. Eli looked at Nate, who nodded subtly.
He braced himself. No matter what he looked like, he’d find something nice to say about it. Then he turned over the mirror and looked at himself.
Alice had made liberal use of her eyeliner, making his eyes look much larger than he was used to, but he couldn’t deny it looked good. She’d also gone to town with the color blue. She’d put an asymmetrical dusting of light blue eye shadow over his right cheek and layered it with darker shades of blue. The effect spread up the side of his face and curved over his eyebrow, spreading over most of his forehead. On his left cheek she’d written the work ‘beauty’ in a swirling cursive Eli couldn’t help but be envious over. On top of it all was an artful smattering of sparkling, opalescent sequins.
The effect was stunning. “Wow.”
“I know, right?” Alice clapped her hands happily.
“Holy crap, Alice, nice job!” Kate came over to examine Eli and reached out a hand to tilt his chin. Eli backed away—one morewrong, and Haruka was likely to ditch the rest of his class. “Oops! Sorry, Eli, I got carried away.”
“No worries.”
He took another look in the mirror. His face was absolutely beautiful.
Eli’s fingers crawled into his sleeves. How long did he have to wait before Alice would let him take it off?
Whoof
Eli grabbed his chest. What the . . .? He felt like he’d just been punched.
“What do you think, Haruka? Did I do good?”
Haruka stood next to Alice, his face devoid of all expression. “Hn.”
“He’s going to be beating people off with a stick when they see him.”
“Hn.”
