of lazy summers and bike rides in the sunshine.
Only now they’re dark.
They’re almost navy and he glances at me with them.
“You.”
Before I can respond to that though, he detaches himself completely from her, takes that big, bad, seductive hand off her neck and asks, with slight annoyance and surprise, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Even though more important things are at stake here, far more important things, I still breathe out a sigh of relief when he moves away from the girl he was kissing.
But I can’t be relieved, can I?
He was kissing a girl.
A girl who isn’t my sister.
“What the fuck am I doing here?” I ask, frowning, stumbling over my words. “What the fuck are you doing here? Who is she? Where’s my si –”
“Can you give us a minute?”
Arrow swallows up my words when he speaks and for a micro-second, I think he’s speaking to me. But he’s turned his head and his eyes are directed at the girl.
I finally glance at her as well.
She’s drunk.
That’s the first thing.
The second thing is that even though Arrow’s moved away from her, she’s still leaning into him.
It bothers me.
That she’s still attached to my sister’s boyfriend.
But I guess it’s more for balance than anything else.
“Can we please go back to the kissing?” She giggles slightly, completely ignoring my presence and staring up at Arrow with dreamy, drunk eyes.
The word kissing makes me tighten everything on my body.
But before I can protest, Arrow speaks. “I think we’ve had enough of the kissing for tonight. You should go.”
“But I thought we were having such a good time and you know…”
She trails off to run her hand down his chest, her fingers hooking around the locket he wears.
So he wears a locket, a silver thing he never parts with.
His dad gave it to him when he was six or something. And like his sun-struck hair and tanned skin, his locket shines in the sunlight. It shines with his sweat when he’s had a workout, or he’s played a really grueling game.
It was shining the day I saw him for the first time in that yellow/orange kitchen.
And I dig my nails in my palms when I see this girl toying with it.
“You’re drunk,” he tells her, disengaging himself from her.
“I’m not.”
She hiccups then, proving herself a liar.
“I beg to differ.”
“I’m –”
“That’s why you thought we were having a good time.” He leans a little closer to her, as if to impart a secret. “We weren’t. So as I said, you should go.”
She frowns, looking peeved. “But I –”
“Look,” he sighs, the annoyed lines around his eyes getting deeper. “I’m flattered. Okay? It’s always flattering when a girl throws herself at you. Even as drunk as you clearly are. But as I said to you before you attacked me with your mouth, I don’t fuck drunk girls so you should go before I say something you might not like.”
Hold on a second.
Just please… hold.
Did he say fuck?
Did he actually say fuck?
Before I can process that, the girl, who is so drunk that she can’t stand upright, somehow gets her spine up. Her foggy eyes suddenly become really alert and sort of vicious. “And what exactly will you say if I don’t leave?”
“If you don’t leave, I’m going to have to tell you the truth.”
“And what is the truth?”
Arrow’s answer is to sigh again.
Like he doesn’t wanna do it but he will. And he does.
“The truth is that you’re drunk as fuck and maybe that’s why your kissing is all tongue and no mouth. And it feels like I’m drowning in a pool of saliva. But I don’t think that’s the case. I don’t think your kissing is all tongue and no mouth because you’re drunk. I think you kiss that way even when you’re sober and can actually see who you’re kissing. And I think that’s because you’re kind of an over-doer, aren’t you? Too much perfume. Too many moans. You like to go the extra mile and generally, I appreciate it, going the extra mile, doing the extra work. But I don’t appreciate that when I’m choking on tongue.”
He shrugs then, all casual like. “And that’s why you should leave. Because if I tell you all that I think it might hurt your ego a little bit.”
Silence follows his truth-telling speech.
Well, as much silence as you can get in a crowded bar.
The girl is the first to gather her senses. “I… What…” She looks at both of us in a wild,