"Your lips," Mike calls after me, and I freeze in my tracks and look over my shoulder. His eyes lock with mine, making my heart jackhammer so violently in my chest that I'm sure both of us can hear it. I hold his gaze for as long as I can-a split second-and then I turn back around to finish escaping to the bathroom.
Chapter 24
In Mike's bathroom mirror, my reflection pokes her bottom lip, wondering if Mike could have been telling the truth: if maybe he thinks I have attractive lips . . . They're not particularly pink. They're not particularly pouty. They're not particularly anything.
Poke. Squish. Poke. Poke.
Amber eyes stare back at me, eyebrows knitting.
I have to pee. Smooth, Hailey, smooth. I close my eyes and shake my head at myself. I have to pee. In the history of awkward girls everywhere, has there ever been a more pathetic response to flirting?
Was Mike flirting with me?
I remember the look on his face when I glanced over my shoulder, and I continue prodding at my bottom lip while the edge of the sink presses a line into my shins-the price of being five feet tall in a giant's home. My reflection met me only after I scaled the sink like a miniature King Kong and roosted here, where we could frown at each other in earnest.
The past two days have felt like a nightmare and a dream.
Danica kicking me out: nightmare. Mike teaching me to play the drums: dream. Waiting for a call from my uncle to ruin my whole life: nightmare. Sharing a pillow with the only man who has ever made me spark: dream. Him telling me that my lips are hot: confusing.
Confusing, confusing, confusing.
It's not that I've never had a guy find me attractive before. I got asked out often enough back home, and I know quite a few guys found me pretty . . . Not Danica pretty, but . . . Hailey pretty. Small-town pretty. Hand-me-down pretty.
Definitely not rock-star pretty. Not pretty enough for Mike to look at me the way he did.
But there it was: that look. It's cataloged clearly in my mind, along with the way his eyes looked in the soft light of his bedroom last night, the way his hair stood up this morning.
My teeth punish my bottom lip as I continue frowning at my wild-haired reflection. My cheeks are a little too pale. My eyes are a little too big. My eyebrows are a little too thick. All of me is a little too little.
I'm uselessly trying to tame my hair with one of Mike's combs when the doorbell rings. My hand stills as the bells echo through the house, and I hear the front door open. Then voices: Mike's and-
I round the corner to the living room and see her: her perfect reddish-brown hair, her periwinkle cashmere sweater, the massive gift basket in her arms.
"What the hell?" Danica snarls while I stand there with a comb stuck in my hair.
"What are you doing here?" Mike asks, like it isn't the first time he's voiced the question, and Danica's eyebrows slam together as she scowls up at him.
"What is she doing here?"
"You kicked her out."
Danica's face whips in my direction just after I tear the comb free from my hair. "You told me you weren't sleeping with him! You fucking liar! You're such a fucking-"
"I'm not-" I start, but Mike's voice booms over mine.
"Don't you finish that goddamn sentence," he snaps, and the crazy look in Danica's eyes immediately clears. She stares up at him like a pit bull that's just realized it has a master, and Mike stares down at her like he'd like to see her put to sleep.
Danica, ever calculating, takes a moment to collect herself, and in that moment, she notices the couch. She takes in the messy sheets, the wrinkled blanket, the bed pillow on the end, and she snaps them together like puzzle pieces. The final picture tells her that I slept in the living room, that I'm not a threat, that Mike is still hers for the taking.
She makes a production of taking a calming breath and tucking her hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry." She locks eyes with me, and mine narrow. "I'm sorry, Hailey. I just get really jealous." She laughs to herself, softly at first, and then a full-on giggle. "Look at me, I'm a mess. I just-" She bats her eyelashes up at Mike. "I've just been going crazy over the thought of losing you. I know I should have brought this sooner, but-" She lifts the gift basket as an offering. "Look, I made you a get well basket. It has your favorite soup, and your favorite cookies, and-"
"I'm not sick anymore," Mike informs her mid-sentence, and Danica frowns.
"Did Hailey give you my card with the other basket?" she asks, and Mike lifts an eyebrow.
"You mean the one that she signed your name in? I know your handwriting, Danica. You had nothing to do with that card."
"But the whole basket was my idea! I-"
"What?" Mike interrupts. "You what? You want a medal for sending someone else to the store to throw shit in a basket?"
"Why are you being so mean?" Danica pouts, and Mike sighs and rubs a line between his eyes.
"I just don't want to do this anymore." He swings his finger between himself and my cousin. "There's nothing here. I'm sorry . . . I had a crush on you when we were kids, but that's all it ever was."
Something tells me I should give them privacy, that I should back away slowly and disappear. But I'm too busy watching Danica's knuckles whiten as she strangles the handle of her care basket, and then her viper eyes are pinning me in place.
"Is this because of her?" she snarls while glaring at me.
"No."
"Bullshit," Danica spits. She glowers up at him. "Do you think I'm stupid?"
"Why are you doing this?" he asks.
"Doing what?!"
"Fighting so hard." Mike's voice is tired but steady. "There's nothing here to fight for."
"Why do you keep saying that!" she shrieks. "You're only saying that because of her!"
"This isn't about her," Mike insists.
"This is ALL about her. Tell me you don't like her!"
"Danica-"
"Tell me you don't fucking want her, Mike! I'm not blind! You think I don't see it?!"
"This is about me and you-"
"Say it!" Danica's face turns red, her voice making my ears ring. "Look me in the eye and tell me you don't have feelings for my fucking cousin!"
Mike quiets, hesitating, and then his eyes find mine across the room. Danica is staring at him, and he is staring at me, and I'm holding my breath when he says, "I'm in love with her."
Chapter 25
I'm in love with her.
Someone gasps. Me? Danica? All I can do is stand there convincing myself that I couldn't have just heard what I think I just heard. Mike is standing by the door, his hair still a mess from a night spent on my pillow, and his brown eyes make the world fall away. He says it again.
"I'm in love with her."
My lips part, and a violent scream tears through the room. My eyes dart to Danica just as she chucks her gift basket against a wall, sending soup cans rolling in every direction. She continues screaming as she balls her fists, stomps her foot, and storms out of the house.
Mike looks at me, I look at him, and I don't know what to say, so I say the only thing I can. "You should follow her."
He scratches his hand through his hair, and my eyes beg him to go. I need a minute. I desperately need a minute. And when he gives it to me, closing the door behind him, I stand there trembling from my fingers to my toes.
There was no mistaking those words. He said them twice, just to make sure I understood them.
Mike is in love with me.
He's in love with me?
He's in love with me.
I sit down on the floor because my knees are too weak to hold me up, and I bury my fingers in my hair, trying to think. When? How long? Why? How?
Danica is going to bury me after this-absolutely bury me.
Mike loves me. He loves me.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry, so I just sit there staring at a spot on the floor. Sharing my pillow: it meant something to him. Asking me to go to bed last night: it meant something to him. A dozen "sweet dreams": they all meant something to him.
Our late-night phone calls. Our walk in the woods. The way he kept pushing his hat onto my head.
He loves me. All of it meant something, and not just to me.
When the front door opens again, Mike isn't alone. Danica walks right over to me, and from my spot on the floor, I crane my neck to stare up at her. Her makeup is smeared from tears that I'm guessing-hoping-didn't work on Mike, and when her hand drops in front of my face, I realize she's offering to help me up.
It's the scariest thing she's ever done.