A few days had passed, and Ryan and I still hadn’t talked. We’d probably have to speak at some point, seeing as tomorrow we were leaving to go to the Sierra Nevadas. All four of us. There would be no singing “Kumbaya” with DeShane on this trip. He wasn’t even worthy of my burned marshmallows.
I pulled out my phone as soon as I clocked out for my second break. A text from Payton already sat in my inbox.
P: Could you pick up some Pepto on your way home? I’m dying over here.
J: What’s wrong?
P: The toilet and I are bffs today.
J: I’ll be home soon. Hang in there.
I wormed my phone back into my pocket and took my post at the Customer Service counter. Ryan walked up to the register, another freakin’ note in his hand. I’d done my best to ignore him. What else was I supposed to do? Let him stomp on my heart some more? Not happening.
“If you even think of handing that to me, I’m going to donkey punch you in the balls.”
He apparently had some sort of common sense because he backed away and scuttled toward the furniture section. Ugh. And I’d be spending my weekend with this douche. The good news: I’d at least be able to roundhouse kick his ass off a cliff and nobody would know. Well, besides Blake and Payton. But I’m sure Payton wouldn’t mind.
I got through the rest of the shift without Ryan bothering me. Even if I did want to know what he’d scribbled on that note, it didn’t matter. I’d figured out quickly that fuck buddies shouldn’t be a part of my vocabulary, something I should bring up with Dr. Ahrendt during our next session.
Jack strolled behind the counter at the end of the night, waiting for me to count my till. “Did you dye your hair?”
I pulled a strand in front of my face and examined it. Crap. My hair still had a tinge of red from the paint ballooning. My stomach curdled, and I had to work at pulling my lips into a tight smile. “A dye job gone wrong.” My thoughts went back to that night. The way his hands felt as they skimmed over my breasts. The feel of him inside me. The connection I thought we had made.
“Red looks very pretty on you.”
“Thanks, Jack.” I should probably pick up a bottle of blond dye when I went to buy Payton’s Pepto. Or maybe it’d be better to go back to my natural color. Whatever the eff that was. I hadn’t seen it since eighth grade, when I’d dyed my hair platinum blond because Joey Thompson told his friends during lunch that he only dated blondes. I shook my head and inwardly rolled my eyes. God, I’d been trying to please other people my whole life.
After work, I stopped at the supermarket and picked up Payton’s medicine. I perused the hair product aisle, deciding between Marilyn Blond and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Blond. Did they really have to make these names sound so…bimbo-ey? I eyed the brunette boxes and stared at myself in the mirror above the display. Would it really hurt to go back to my original color? Or something in the same range as my original, at least. What would Ryan think?
I paused. Damn, girl. Get it together. I shouldn’t need a man’s approval to indicate my worth. Especially one that called me a nothing to his ex he obviously wasn’t over. I left the aisle, deciding that I could re-dye my hair later when I wasn’t rushed by Payton’s toilet situation. After going through checkout, I made my way back to the apartment.
The putrid smell of puke assaulted my nostrils as I opened the front door.
Payton clung to the toilet seat as I entered the bathroom. Her auburn curls lay sweat-slicked against her scalp, and her pale complexion ranged between cotton balls and Colgate toothpaste.
“Are you okay?”
“Did you bring the Pepto?” she rasped.
I unwrapped the plastic, opened the bottle, and handed it to her. She chugged it and sat back against the tub, a pink mustache dribbling on her upper lip. I wanted to laugh, but this was so damn pathetic.
After a few moments of her eyes closed and some heavy breathing, she said, “I don’t think I’m making it camping this weekend.”
“I don’t think so, either. No big deal.” I didn’t mind taking care of my best friend, but where was Romeo? Holding back hair clearly fell under the relationship agreement. “Where’s Blake?”
“He’s sick, too. He’s at the frat.”
Yeesh. I balled up my fists at my side. No touching my face for the rest of the night, not when sickie here had the plague.
“Can I get you anything else?”
She shook her head, and her body melted into the side of the tub as she relaxed. Poor girl. Nothing worse than being chained to a toilet for the day.
I went into the kitchen and poured a glass of water and sat it at her side. “You sure you don’t need anything else?”
“I just wanna be alone. Thanks.”
Payton had this thing about people seeing her sick. She didn’t even like me being in a ten mile radius if she was puking. I got it. I didn’t want people seeing me at my worst, either.
“No problem. Holler if you need me.”
I left her in the bathroom and padded down the hall to my room.
My phone buzzed as I yanked the ponytail out of my hair and checked my reflection in the closet mirror.