Banks cocks his head. “You are the bougiest of the three of us.”
“Can’t disagree,” I say easily, wanting to smile. But I keep replaying the way Sulli looked at Banks.
It stays with me as we all gather the rest of our overnight things. I lock up Booger, and we make the short trek to room 4.
When I open the door, the verdict is in.
One bed.
A full.
Not even a fucking queen mattress could come out and save this situation.
Banks and I sweep the room quickly for recording devices in the lamps and drawers, while Sulli drops her Patagonia backpack on the ground.
Coming out of the bathroom, I see her tear down the blankets and inspect the state of the sheets and mattress. “Um…fuck, what is that?” She inspects a stain with a cringe, then catches my gaze. “Hey, if you don’t mind, Kits, I think I’ll take the floor.”
“That bad?” I ask.
“It’s beyond fucking gross.” She assesses the room. “There’s enough space for all of us to crash on the ground, I think. I can grab the sleeping pads from the Jeep.”
“I’ll do it,” Banks says. “You said you wanted to shower.”
She must have told him that when I was grabbing the key.
She smiles, her cheeks and neck reddening. Absentmindedly, she runs her fingers through her hair but tugs on a tangle. “Yeah, thanks…I need to shampoo this mess.”
“Looks pretty to me.”
“Pretty dirty.”
“Nothing wrong with that, mermaid,” Banks says before he leaves.
She stares faraway at the closed motel door, at his shadow. And as soon as she turns to me, her smile falters. “What…?”
What expression am I even making? Horror? Concern? Jealousy? Some unknown emotion that keeps ravaging my insides? My stomach has coiled into a tight fist.
All I can say is, “You like him.”
It slams into me now more than ever before.
She really likes Banks Moretti. My friend.
That’s a good thing, Nine.
Sulli bends down to her duffel, resting near a dusty nightstand with a broken digital clock. “Yeah, I thought that was fucking clear when I told him it’d be cool if he took my virginity.”
What is air?
I’m barely breathing.
But I walk closer to Sulli. “I meant that you like him as more than just a friend.”
Her brows pinch, staring at the discolored carpet. Then she takes out a toiletry bag. Standing up, she faces me and steals her hat back, taking it off my head. “So what if I do?” She fits on the baseball cap. “It’s not like he likes me as more than a friend.”
I frown.
She doesn’t think Banks likes her?
Really?
I shift my weight. Sulli hasn’t realized he’s blatantly flirting with her. How? How is that fucking possible? It’s so obvious, it smacks me in the face on a daily basis.
She tries to read my screwed-up expression. “What?”
I should tell her the truth.
Tell her Banks finds her hot, attractive, the sun that sets the earth on fire. But I can’t make my lips form those words.
I just slowly nod.
She nods a few times back, her head hanging. “I’m gonna go…” She jabs a thumb to the bathroom, then treks there without another word.
Fuck.
Immediately, I feel like shit for letting her believe something that I know to be categorically untrue.
I’m worse than an asshole right now. It’s tearing me apart.
And I can’t unwind time.
When Banks returns to the motel with an armful of sleeping mats, our eyes collide together, and guilt is written all over me. No way can I scrub this away.
Tensely, I sit down on the edge of the stained mattress.
Banks slowly lowers the sleeping mats on the floor like they’re tiny bombs. He glances to the cracked bathroom door where the shower turns on. Water pouring.
And then he focuses on me. “You and Sulli had a fight?”
I shake my head, massaging my hands. Running my thumb over the calluses on my palm. My mom has the same habit of kneading her hands. I thought we shared the trait because we shared Muay Thai. Her pro-fighting days left her hands tender and aching. But I never went pro like her, and when we both slowed down competing, me as a teenager, her after I turned ten—we both kept the quirk.
Banks rests a hip on the wall, arms crossed. With the gun holstered on his waistband, a toothpick between his lips, all he’d need is the hat to be the cowboy. What he once joked he was among me and Thatcher.
He surveys me. “You look like someone told you you’re not allowed to talk to