Page 105 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
God, did my heart stumble in my chest or what?
Liv shot me a look from where she now stood between Jules and Siena.
I scribbled down the answer.
“You’re super competitive, hey?” Jules said, her voice teasing.
I jerked my head up with a frown. “No.”
She shot a look at the pen I was white-knuckle gripping. “Uh-huh.”
The following questions seemed to blur together, and it wasn’t because I wasn’t paying attention. I was. Someone had to steer this train wreck of a team, obviously. Siena and Jules were getting more and more buzzed across from us, and Dove’s answers weren’t hitting the mark often.
No, they blurred together because I was focusing on stupid little things.
Not enough to neglect writing down the right answer, but enough to sidetrack me.
For instance, the way Dove’s hair spilled over her shoulders, shifting whenever she laughed.
The way she drummed her fingers absently against the tabletop as she thought through a question, yelling out wrong answers confidently, glancing at me hopefully.
Or the way Siena kept looking at her with this open, interested expression, the same look Jules was shooting across the table at me.
God, what was wrong with me?
Dove could talk to other girls. She couldflirtwith other girls. We weren’t anything. I had zero right to feel any type of way about it, and even if I did (which I didn’t), this wasn’t the time or place to turn into some jealous freak.
We still had the entire trip ahead of us.
“You’re spiraling, Ellis,” Liv whispered in my ear, suddenly appearing beside me, away from Dove. “You’re making it very obvious.”
Shut up, I chanted in my mind. Shut up, shut up, shut up.
Liv poked my ribs before shouting something absurd as an answer to the host’s next question, and I blinked. I’d missed it. What had they even asked?
Somewhere deep in my chest, there was this splintering feeling under the weight of too much going on. I just needed toget a grip. To act like someone my age would act. But how? I’d never been very good at that. I needed—
“Want to come to the bar with me for a top-up?” Jules asked, appearing beside me, her hand brushing my elbow in a way that made my spine go ramrod straight.
I shot to my feet so fast the stool scraped loudly against the floor.
Everyone looked at me. Dove’s brow furrowed.
“I… uh, bathroom,” I blurted.
Without waiting for an answer—or any offers to go with me—I made a beeline for the glowing bathroom sign. It practically pulsed like an escape route.
I ignored Liv’s cackles behind me.
DOVE
Tip #16: A pillow wall is a placebo. Side effects include racing pulse and zero efficacy.
While I wasn’t the fastest person at the table when it came to throwing out answers, Ellis was certainly the one who answered the quickest and with the most confidence. Most of our suggestions were spoken with an air of question in our voices, and though Liv wasn’t visible to our table, she didn’t hesitate to throw out her own wild answers.
Ellis took it seriously, and she was obviously competitive. Fiercely so.
When I had first offered to help fill in the answers, she had snatched the pen from me with an intenseI’ve got thisthat had me biting back a smile and yet another wave of attraction. Maybe four days ago, I would have found that reaction annoying; maybe I would have scoffed at it. But now… fuck, now it was just endearing.
