She looks up at the wooden beams and black ceiling with tiny dotted lights to make it look like the night sky before answering me. “Do you think I could have a few friends over this week?”
“Here?”
She looks down at me and smiles. “Well, duh.”
I chuckle while I think of an appropriate response. “To do what?”
She shrugs while saying, “Hang out.”
I lift myself out of the pool and sit next to her. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable having a load of teenage girls in my house, Maya.”
She raises a brow at me. “There’ll be boys, too.”
“Hell. No.”
“Come onnn. Lacey’s dad always lets her have parties,” she whines with a pout.
“Whoa, you never mentioned anything about a party.” I stand and walk over to the shelves behind us that have towels lining them
Just the thought of a bunch of rowdy teenagers in my house possibly trashing the place makes me cringe.
“I though
t that was obvious with the whole ‘can I have a few friends over.’”
I throw her a towel and she catches it and stands up, wrapping it around herself. “No party.”
She crosses her arms over her chest, holding her towel in place. “Fine, no party, but what about having a few friends over to chill by the lake or use the four-wheelers?”
“No four-wheelers, those things cost money and I’m not being sued if one of your friends decides to injure themselves by being idiots.”
Her face lights up. “So I can have some friends over to the lake?”
I sigh but reluctantly answer, “Yes, but a few, not everyone in your class.”
She throws her arms around me. “You’re the best!”
“Yeah, yeah,” I mumble with a grin on my face as I push her backward, watching as she careens into the pool with a huge splash.
I laugh as she splutters, her gaze pointed at me.
“I take that back,” she yells as I walk out of the room with extra swagger in my step to get changed.
I chuckle to myself as I grab a shower and pull on some sweatpants and head toward the kitchen, but my mood starts to turn sour the longer I’m left alone. My mind is never far away from Amelia and wondering what she’s doing right at this moment.
Why would she text me saying she missed me if she wasn’t going to reply? And if she misses me so much, why the hell won’t she take my calls?
Putting a bag of popcorn in the microwave, I turn when Maya walks in, her hair still slightly damp. “I’ll get you back for that,” she says, opening the fridge and peering inside. “Water, water, water… why haven’t you got any soda?”
I pull out the popcorn bag, opening it up before I empty it into a bowl. “I don’t drink that crap.”
“I do.”
I shrug. “You’ll have to deal with it until we go to the grocery store.”
She walks over and grabs a handful of popcorn. “Fine, but I get to choose a movie.”
“I am not watching 22 Jump street or 13 going on 30 again.” As I pick up the bowl off the counter, I see a flash of something from the corner of my eye out the window. I hand Maya the popcorn and tell her to go ahead and pick a movie as I step out onto the patio, immediately feeling like someone is out there.