Erin McCarthy - Sweet

Seeing us together did something weird to me. I sucked in a breath, heart pounding, and I tried to laugh, but it came out sounding louder than I intended.

“I’m Riley Mann, and I approve this message,” he said. He didn’t seem to notice I was acting like a freak.

“That’s because you look good and I look scary,” I told him.

“Yep.”

Of course. I had totally walked in to that one. I shoved him. “Send that to me, jerk.”

“Send you the picture you don’t like?”

“I didn’t say I don’t like it. Just that I resent that you look better than me.”

“Get used to it. Now you’d better wash that off your face before I have to scrub you with turpentine.”

“Sounds hot.” I hadn’t thought about the fact that the paint was drying. Rushing to the bathroom, I took to my face with exfoliant. I ended up beet red with raw skin, but the paint came off.

Riley stood behind me waiting his turn. I was so determined to get the paint off quickly I didn’t even protest that he was just lingering in the doorway watching me. It occurred to me at one point that he seemed to be looking at my butt, but given that his expression never changed, it didn’t seem to have much impact on him.

I turned to him. “The sink is yours.” I looked like I’d been slapped with a wet noodle, my skin stinging, but I was paint-free.

“Can I use that stuff?”

“You want to exfoliate?”

“I want the paint off.” He picked the tube off the counter. “How do I use this?”

“You rub it on,” I said dryly. “Then wash it off.”

“Can you do it for me?” He held the tube out to me.

If it was any other guy, I’d think this was some sort of awkward come-on. But this was Riley. He might as well be asking me to pop his pimple or dig out a splinter for him. There was nothing even remotely sexual in his expression.

Maybe he didn’t like blondes.

Maybe he liked exotic brunettes.

I wondered what I would look like with dark hair.

Then I mentally grimaced. Stupid. That’s what I would look like with dark hair. Like a desperate chick trying too hard. What the hell was wrong with me?

Slapping scrub on his face, I rubbed it vigorously into his skin, trying not to make eye contact or think about the fact that I was thinking about what kind of girl he thought was hot.

“I’m not going to suggest nursing as a career for you,” he commented. “You don’t exactly have a gentle touch.”

Lifting a washcloth—one of mine, I might add—I rubbed off the lotion. Hard. “Do it yourself if you don’t like the way I do it.” Or maybe get a brunette to do it.

Ugh. Why was I being a crazy bitch? I threw down the washcloth and nudged past him. “Excuse me.”

“Sure.” He held up his hands. “Wasn’t trying to block you. You going to bed?”

“Yes, if that’s okay with you.” Bitch just kept right on rolling out of my mouth, and I couldn’t seem to stop it.

“I have no opinion on it one way or the other.”

Which was exactly why I was so annoyed. I wanted him to have an opinion about me. About bed. About me in bed.

“Good night.” I paused in the doorway and forced myself to be rational. “Thanks for painting the kitchen.”

“Gee, it was my pleasure,” he said, eyeballing me in the mirror.

Yeah. That was the most obvious sarcasm yet. Because I knew I was being a dick, I just retreated to my temporary room. Where I did something really ridiculous. I opened the picture that Riley had sent me and I stared at the two of us as I lay on the bed, fully dressed, lights off. Over the drone of the air-conditioning I murmured to myself, “Riley Mann,” and then felt like the biggest middle school dork that had ever existed. I didn’t crush on guys. They crushed on me.

So what the hell was wrong with me? I checked my menstruation app on my phone to see if I could blame the sap attack on hormones, but no such luck. It was a whole week until my period.

Rolling on my side, I did something equally as bizarre. I forwarded the picture to Rory with the label “Roomies.”

She texted back a minute later. LOL. Tyler wants to know what dope you two are smoking. U look like you like each other.

No drugs. Just paint fumes.

Did you paint the kitchen???

Yep.

Wow. Awesome.

Yeah. That was me. Feeling awesomely stupid.

I deleted the text from Riley with the mustache picture in a moment of owning my power.

Which was lame because I knew that it was still there in the text I’d sent Rory.

It wasn’t hot in the room, but my body felt like it was heating from the inside out. There was no way I could get undressed without risk of extreme arousal. I lay there, phone on my chest, legs crossed, reciting Bible passages about death and destruction to myself until I finally fell asleep.

I dreamed that a swarm of locusts had Riley’s face.

Which was perhaps the most deeply disturbing image I’d ever encountered in my life.

There is an inherent problem with lying about your location. You either have to invite everyone around you into the secret or you look like a psycho. Given that I didn’t want to admit to everyone I knew that I was supposed to be sweating with a nail gun in the backwater, I was just coming off as a raging bitch.

So not only was I not giving of my time freely to help others, I was being nasty to my friends.

Yay, Jessica.

“Don’t check in!” I snapped at Robin as we settled down into our lounge chairs at the water park.

“Why the hell not? Maybe someone can meet us here.”

“I don’t feel like dealing with people today.” I slapped sunscreen on my arms and tried to think of a better reason, but my brain wasn’t firing at full capacity after my stupid, ridiculous night of crap sleep, where Riley buzzed me in an erotic biblically inspired flyby. Effing disturbing. It was like I’d fallen into a B horror movie. I had half expected to wake up and find WHORE OF BABYLON scratched into my skin with a needle.

“Are you hungover? Because you’re acting like a whole lot of biotch.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m exhausted. I think I’m getting a cold.” Lie. Yet another lie on top of the already existing lie. Robin was my friend, and frankly I didn’t have that many tight friends. With Rory and Kylie gone for the summer, I was going to be lonely if I didn’t treat Robin just a little bit better.

As Robin tied up her dark hair into a bun and readjusted her sunglasses, I squirted more sunscreen on my knees. “Okay, the truth is I totally lied to my parents about staying here this summer. They think I’m building houses with a mission group in West Virginia.”

Her eyes widened. “Are you shitting me?”

“No. Unfortunately. I just couldn’t go home, but I didn’t really think about how hard it is to hide your whereabouts with social media. My parents aren’t exactly checking my profile page, but my brother does. I tried blocking him, but he told my mother and she made me re-friend him.”

“You tried to block your brother?” Robin looked amused by the very thought. “I should have thought of that. My brothers like to post pictures of obese hairy men on my page and tell me that’s what I’m going to look like at forty.” She studied her arms ruefully. “It’s the Latin genes. I spend half my life waxing hair off my body.”

Relieved that she didn’t seem horrified by me, I said, “So you won’t tell? And you don’t think I’m an evil human being?”

She shrugged. “No. I mean, who hasn’t wanted to avoid their parents at one point or another? And I was raised in a huge Latino Catholic family, and everyone is always up in your business. It must be nice to turn that off for a few weeks. I’m kinda jealous of you.”

“I guess everyone has their family drama.” I adjusted the yellow bikini top I was wearing, slipping the straps off so I wouldn’t get weird tan lines and tucking them into the cups.

“Yep. My grandmother is furious that I got a D in Spanish. She doesn’t seem to get that listening to her speak it and being able to understand it for the most part is totally different than writing it grammatically correct. I actually feel like I have a disadvantage because I had all this quasi-background info. But to her, it means I’m spitting on my heritage.” She sipped her water bottle. “It gives me a headache.”

“That does suck.” We were at the edge of the wave pool, and a million kids were tearing by, moms hollering at them to slow down. I picked up my fashion magazine and flipped idly through it, trying to find an article that grabbed my attention.

“Hotties, eleven o’clock,” Robin murmured.

I glanced up. I saw a lot of hair gel and mirrored sunglasses. There were three of them and they were checking us out. It was hard to distinguish one from the other with their bulky muscles and giant floral swim trunks. “I’ll let you take this,” I told Robin. “I’m not in the mood.”

“You’re not in the mood to flirt?” She sounded scandalized.

I had to admit, it was a rare occurrence that I didn’t want to meet new people. I liked hanging out, moving through a crowd, demanding that I be entertained. But today I just wanted to hide behind my sunglasses and scowl. “No. I’m not. Hey, when can you get me the typography piece?”

“Tomorrow. It will only take me an hour, then it has to dry for another hour or two.”

“Cool. Thanks.”

“Sure. Oh, here they come.” Robin sat up a little straighter, her red bandeau bikini top standing at attention.

“Hey, wassup?” Douche #1 said.

“Ladies,” Douche #2 said.