“Fancy cars?”
“Don’t have one.”
“Please tell me you at least have a private jet.”
“I don’t think my parents have ever even been on a plane. The flights here were my very first time.”
“Oh, for the love. Some people should not be allowed to be rich.”
I shrug. “And apparently some people will kill to get rich.” I look back at the doors. Today the building looming over us feels vaguely sinister. Who else has been watching it, waiting? Are they still out there? Are they watching me, too?
“Yeah, that sucks for the driver. Well, I promise to think about him on our days off.” She pulls out her phone and texts furiously while I lean back and let the sun play on my face. The clouds are spotty today—it feels miraculous that there isn’t a total cover. I miss dry heat. I miss the way you can feel the air when you breathe it in, like the landscape is making you part of itself, entering you with every breath.
Sirus told me that in the fall they get Santa Ana winds like the desert. It’s his favorite time of the year; I can’t wait.
I look at Tyler. “You want to come to my brother’s house? He has a . . . television. And a swimming pool.”
Tyler stands, offering me her hand. “Yes. I absolutely want to. But today Scott’s over at Ry’s house. Something about video games. My car’s over here.”
She starts walking, and I hesitate on the steps. “You know, I think . . . I’m just gonna go home.” I feel shaky and nervous, and the thought of being around Ry doesn’t promise an improvement on that.
“Why? We have a day off!”
“I remembered I’m supposed to help my sister-in-law with some remodeling stuff.” She wants me to do the nursery. Working in pastels makes me want to strangle myself with pale-pink curtains, but she said she had something else in mind. We were actually going to plan it tonight since she’s at work all day. However, Tyler doesn’t need to know that.
“Yeah, but she can’t be counting on your help today because you had work! So you’re not missing anything you’re expected to be there for.”
I curse inwardly. She wasn’t supposed to figure that out. I can’t admit it’s because I don’t want to see Ry. It’s too weird. And it’s even weirder that I can’t stop thinking that it’s weird. It shouldn’t matter what his name is. It shouldn’t.
It still does.
“Can you just give me a ride home, please?”
She sighs. “Sure. But I am not happy.”
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Tyler drives away after making me swear to call if I finish early. I feel genuinely bad about lying to her, so I slip out of my heels and walk upstairs to the spare room. If I actually work on it, it wasn’t lying.
The room is completely blank, not even curtains on the window. Ideas for a retro polka-dot theme spin through my mind. Large circles on the walls, painted in contrasting colors. Circles cut out of Styrofoam and plastered to the ceiling, painted the same color but for a textural accent. Round-back rocking chair with a circular ottoman.
There’s nothing but potential here, and I can’t wait to get started. As much as I loathe the idea of wasting all of the work on a baby, I can have fun with this. And it will prove to Sirus and Deena that I should do the rest of the house, too.
I pull out my phone and call Deena. “Hey, I’m home early and wanted to start on the room. You said you had an inspiration folder?”
“Yes! It’s in the box marked ‘tampons and bathroom stuff.’ I didn’t want Sirus to see it.”
I laugh, cradling the phone against my shoulder. All of the boxes have been opened, and the one she told me about is empty. “Are you sure? There’s nothing here. What am I looking for?”
“It’s just a black binder, one of Sirus’s childhood scrapbooks. It has a lot of pictures of murals and ancient Egyptian art. I wanted to do a theme nursery.”
Oh, floods. She wants me to create the room I spent my whole childhood working on.
No. This isn’t a tomb, and it’s not mine. I can do it for her.
I pick up the box again, shake it. “I don’t see it anywhere. All of the boxes are open. Are you sure Sirus didn’t move it?”
“No, he’s not allowed in that room, he wouldn’t have. No one has been in there.”