Page 98 of Heartstruck at Dawn
“I love you too. I’ll see you tomorrow. Try to get some sleep.” He babbled something I couldn’t understand. He sounded gone. “Nathan?”
“Billie?” It was Joel now. Nathan couldn’t even put two words together anymore. I was so worried.
“Joel, is he okay? He doesn’t sound good. Maybe he needs to go to the hospital and—”
“No, no, no. Don’t worry. I’ve got this. I don’t think I’ve seen Nate this wasted since high school, but he’ll be okay, I swear. It ain’t his first rodeo. He just needs to sleep it off.” Joel sounded confident about the situation, which reassured me Nathan was going to be okay. “Um—I have to go.” Joel yelled something to Nathan in Swedish and hung up the phone.
Shit.
“He’s going to be okay, Billie. Don’t worry. Joel will make sure of it,” she said, pouring herself more wine with a slight frown. The situation had stressed her too, but I could tell she was trying to seem put together for my sake. “Why don’t you tell me what’s up with Billy?”
Damn it. I hoped she would forget about it. But it’s Lily. Of course, she wouldn’t forget. “It’s um—really nothing, just—”
“Is he bothering you again?” she interrupted. “You can tell me.”
“No.” I didn’t even know what to tell her or how to even start talking about it. I just had to face the music. “Do you think it’s possible to have feelings for two people at the same time?”
Lily’s eyes went wide. “I do … think it’s possible. Why? Do you have feelings for Billy?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to, but—it’s been well—I don’t know,” I stammered and covered my face afterward. “What William did just now on TV … it was for me. I mean, it’s a sign he uses with me. Unless he’s doing that with a bunch of other girls, which wouldn’t surprise me but—”
“The lip-brushing thing he did?”
“Yes. And theyes,ma’amgesture.”
“What does it all mean?” she asked with a smile. She seemed strangely excited about the conversation. I thought she was going to tell me to ignore him or something of the sort. She didn’t.
“You know this song from Dave Matthews Band, Crash Into Me?” I asked. Lily nodded quickly, rushing me to continue. “It’s one of my favorite songs ever. And you know this part of the lyrics that says,touch your lips?” Lily nodded again. “Well, when we were at the cottage, he played the song with his guitar and stopped when he sang that part, insisting I touch my lips.” I smiled at the memory. “So then, we started using it as our little sign.”
Lily’s eyes turned into hearts.Stop! She wasn’t being helpful! She encouraged me to continue as she swooned.
“He’s been teasing me for months now. Every time he sees me, he brushes his lower lip, just like he did right now. He wants to see me do it, too. But I never do, of course.
“And the day Nathan and I made our relationship official, William sent me two magazines where he showed me how the paparazzi photos of him and Erin were actually old photographs.” I sighed. “You were right, Lily, about it all being fake. The other magazine had a small article talking about William and Erin’s breakup.”
I covered my face again with my elbows resting on my thighs for a second. “He was upset when I told him I was now officially dating Nathan. I was upset, too, of course. But I had already grown fond of Nathan—we were close. I felt like my heart was getting ripped in half.”
Lily kept gnawing at her lips.
“And, theyes,ma’amthing? What does it mean?” She wanted to know everything.
“He keeps insisting on how I’m always bossy around him. Which he—likes? I don’t know, I hadn’t seen him since before Christmas, and now that I saw him yesterday, I just—he always stirs things up inside me, and I don’t want to feel or understand whateverthatis, but I do, and then I feel guilty for feeling it.”
“Did you bump into him, or … ?”
“He heard me crying. You know how our bedrooms are next to each other … He just wanted to make sure I was okay.”
“Ah, yes. Billy told us how the previous owner had apartments 9A and 9B configured as a single huge apartment. The person who bought it afterward divided it into two again and sold them separately years later. I guess the walls that separate your bedrooms must be drywall.”
“I’m sure they are because I can hear him playing the piano and his guitar.”Every single night when he’s around.
“Do you think he can listen to you and Nathan having sex?” Lily bit her lower lip with acheekysmile.
“Lily!” I shouted with embarrassment. I’d never given any thought to that, but now that she mentioned it, I was mortified.
“Well, if he can hear you cry … I mean, aren’t the sounds kind of similar?” She laughed.
I threw one of the small throw pillows at her, but she kept laughing. “I’m not having sexever againwith Nathan at my apartment,” I said with a nervous chuckle.
