“But I brought my jammies!” He lifts a backpack in the air, and I manage a chuckle.
“I was promised a fort,” Kit says, and Rowan shrugs before shaking the blanket back out.
With Kit’s help, we pack up most of my things and build a fort even better than the one we had before. Mismatched bedsheets—some lavender, some pink polka-dot—are hung over couches and lamps and packed cardboard boxes, and the entire fort is full of comforters and pillows. Two tiny lamps illuminate the inside, and we camp out within the dryer-sheet-scented walls.
Kit credits her fort-building skills to her older brothers, who I suspect can also be credited with her willingness to cram herself into a tiny space with Rowan, Leti, and me. Even though we’ve only hung out a handful of times since her audition a couple months ago, I like her, and as long as she continues lacking any interest in Joel, I’ll keep liking her. She’s pretty and she knows it—but in a tough, impenetrable kind of way. She’s not sweet like Rowan or girly like me, but she’s got a sort of playfulness about her that is as feminine as it is tomboyish.
“I feel like I’ve been a horrible friend,” I say to Leti while he finally lets me paint his fingernails. He said it would be his birthday present to me, and I was twisting off the cap of the sparkliest, purpliest nail polish I own before he even finished his sentence. “What ever happened with that Mark guy?”
“Who?” Leti asks, not looking at all comfortable to be on the receiving end of what I insist is the most fabulous manicure he’ll ever get. He furrows his brows at the polish like it might make his fingers fall off, and he only half seems to hear what I’m saying.
“Mark. The fireman.” Leti raises his eyebrow and I say, “You met him at Mayhem a few weeks ago . . . dated for a while . . . We joked about him being hot enough to be Mr. February in the firemen’s calendar . . .”
“Oh!” Leti chuckles. “Mark, right. You know he wasn’t an actual fireman, right?”
Now it’s my turn to raise my eyebrow. Leti’s smirk sinks even deeper.
“I just nicknamed him that.”
“Why?” Rowan asks, and a mischievous spark glints in Leti’s eye.
“Because he put out a fire in your pants?” I ask, and Leti grins while shaking his head.
“Because he had a really big hose.”
“Oh my God,” Rowan says, and she and I break into a fit of giggles.
We’re still giggling when Kit, staring at a random polka dot on the wall of our fort, says, “I slept with Shawn.”
All of the sound gets sucked out of the room. Three sets of eyes lock on her and three jaws drop open. She glances at each of us, as if just realizing that she said it out loud, and gives an embarrassed smile.
“You slept with Shawn?” Rowan asks, and the apples of Kit’s cheeks redden.
“Not recently . . . It was a long time ago. When we were in high school.”
Rowan shares a look with me. She’s gone to a few of the band’s practices with Kit, and she’s told me how weird Shawn acts around her, but I know Rowan’s loyalty is to Shawn over Kit, so she chooses her words carefully. “Has he brought it up?”
Kit shakes her head. “He doesn’t remember.”
“Are you sure about that?” I ask. The girl code in me wants to tell Kit I think she’s wrong, based on what he said about her at her audition, but just like Rowan, I’ve been friends with Shawn for a lot longer.
“Why, has he said something?” she asks, and I can hear the dusting of hopefulness clinging to the edges of her voice.
I shake my head. “No, but . . .” I don’t even know how to finish that sentence. I don’t want to give her false hope, but I recognize something in her that I see in myself every time I look in the mirror anymore. A quiet longing for something lost. “But I think you’d be hard to forget.”
She gives me a smile that seems bigger than it should be, like she’s fighting to keep it on her face. “I didn’t look the same in high school. I was way more of a tomboy—T-shirts and flannels, less makeup, no tattoos or piercings, glasses.”
“Hot enough to sleep with,” Leti offers, and Kit gives another forced smile.
“Why don’t you say something to him?” I ask, watching as her smile grows both warmer and colder. It’s a troublemaker smile, the smile of a girl who grew up with four older brothers and knows how to take care of herself.
“It’s fun playing with him. I’ll tell him eventually . . . maybe.”
I chuckle, and Leti pouts. “Well, it’s official. I’m the only one here who hasn’t slept with someone in the band. Shawn, Adam, J . . .” He trails off on the ‘J’ sound, and we all know why. Shame colors his face, and his apologetic eyes swing to meet mine. “Shit.”
“Consider yourself lucky,” I say, taking one more purple swipe over his pinky before twisting the nail polish shut. “It looks like Rowan is the only one who got a happy ending out of it.”
When I sit back, she frowns at me. “Are you sure you don’t want me to invite him tomorrow?”