Page 46 of Carved in Ice (Made of Steel 3)

I looked down at my sweater and jeans. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

“It’s girls’ night.”

“I know…” I let my voice trail off. Did she want me to put on a dress and stilettos and pretend we were the cast of Sex and the City? That wasn’t happening. I broke a pair of chopsticks in half.

“So you have to put on pajamas.”

I laughed. “It’s not a slumber party.”

“I’m pretty sure junk food, pajamas, and reality TV is the definition of a girls’ night.”

“Really it’s probably going out and getting wasted. But alas I’m not allowed to leave the apartment.”

No response.

“Is the whole junk food, pjs, and TV thing what you usually do with your friends?”

“Um…yeah.”

The awkward silence made me look back up at her face. Liza stared down at the ground instead of at me.

A pang of guilt seared through me. Had Liza ever had a girls’ night before? I wasn’t really one to talk. The number of friends I had were limited at best growing up. Kins had been my first real friend in years and she thought I had moved back home. All Liza and I had were each other now. There was no reason for me to act like a stuck up bitch. Besides, I wanted tonight to be fun. “Your friends know what’s up,” I said. “Let me get out of these uncomfortable clothes. I’ll be right back.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely. What show did you have in mind?” We started walking down the hall together.

“Well, we have a few options," said Liza. "American Idol, Real Housewives, The Bachelor…”

“I’m really good with whatever. How about you choose.”

“Are you sure?” She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

“Mhm. I’ll be back out in a sec.” I walked into my bedroom and closed the door behind me. The only time I ever seemed to go in here anymore was when I needed clothes. I expected my room to be dusty and depressing, but it wasn’t. The bed was even made, which I hadn’t remembered doing. Weird. Regardless, the room felt empty. Eli’s room felt lived in, even without him there. It felt like home. I smiled to myself as I quickly changed into a pair of plaid pajama pants and a tank top.

I wanted to give Liza whatever girls’ night she'd dreamed up in her head, but I really needed to talk to her about how Eli was doing. Maybe she’d have an idea about how to sneak me out of here so I could go visit him tonight. And I definitely needed to team up with her to uncover V’s secret identity. I had a list a mile long and none of it involved watching Real Housewives and gossiping like teenagers.

I laughed out loud and it sounded sad in the empty room. Technically I was a teenager. But I had never really felt like one. Not in an "I’m an old soul" sort of hipster way. Just in a "my childhood was robbed from me" kind of way. Maybe tonight would actually be fun.

Regardless, I needed to give her a little bit of us time before I started asking her all the questions I needed to. It seemed like a fair compromise. When I walked back out, Liza was sitting on the couch in bright pink flannel pajama bottoms and a matching top. There were cute little panda faces all over them. She had the top buttoned all the way up to her neck, which couldn’t possibly have been very comfortable. But she looked happy enough.

There was a box of chocolate doughnuts already opened on the coffee table and there were two cases of Mike’s Hard Lemonade. I didn’t know much about girls’ nights, but this was definitely not a Sex and the City kind of girls’ night. This was one for teenagers who didn’t really like the taste of alcohol yet. Which was technically me. But there was no way I was drinking tonight. My headache had only just gone away from last night’s escapades.

“How’d you score those?” I asked as I sat down next to her and lifted up a chocolate doughnut. I was down to eat dessert first at least.

“I’m 23.”

“Oh. Right.” How did I not know that?

&n

bsp; She laughed. “Shut up, slut, you had no idea how old I was.”

Slut? Rude. I laughed it off. “Yeah, I guess we never really talked about that.”

“Well, you’re eighteen. But I only know it because of the background check I ran on you after we first met. Although, your birthday is coming up in a few weeks. The big one-nine.” She winked at me.

Why was she being so weird? “Yup.” I didn’t want to talk about my birthday. It was the last thing on my mind.

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