Both outfits go flying as she tosses them behind her and practically dives onto her bed. She’s a human hurricane, throwing expensive clothes around like they’re nothing but cheap oil rags. I jump to the side as a high heel soars toward my head and bounces off the wall.
“Can you help me instead of just standing there?!” Danica barks, and I kneel down to root through the clothes on her floor.
“Is this it?”
She launches off the bed, snatches the skirt from my hand, and disappears into the closet. “Don’t go anywhere!”
I groan and sit on the edge of her mattress, dreaming of a hot shower and the leftover pizza waiting for me in the fridge. I smell gross, I’m starving, and I’m stuck in a bubblegum-pink jail cell. “What are you dressing up for?” I ask, and Danica shouts from her closet.
“Mike’s taking me out tonight, remember?”
Judging by the way my throat closes up, no, I didn’t remember. Mike and I haven’t spoken since Wednesday, except for a text conversation we had when he messaged me to ask for my Deadzone Four username and Luke’s email address. I gave them to him and thanked him profusely for doing such an amazing thing for my brother.
Are you sure you don’t want a beta code too? he asked.
You just want me on your team, I joked, remembering the way Kyle screamed as I slaughtered him and all of his little dickhead friends.
Of course I want you on my team. You’re on my team in the zombie apocalypse too.
If that team involved Danica, I was pretty sure I’d rather get eaten alive. But I kept her name out of the conversation. You’ll have to clear that with Luke. He already has a bug-out plan.
What is it?
And so I told him about Luke’s zombie apocalypse plan, and we discussed the pros and cons, and in the end, he made me promise I’d save him from the zombies.
Okay, I finally relented. I’ll save your sorry ass from the Walkers.
I smiled as I waited for his text, and I laughed when it finally came through.
Thank you.
You’re welcome.
“I wonder where he’s taking me,” Danica calls from the closet, and I stop fiddling with the buckle of one of the heels in her mountain of misfit shoes. “I hope he takes me to this seafood place across town. That guy from Alpha Sig took me there three weeks ago, and their lobster risotto was so good.”
I’ve never had lobster risotto in my life. In fact, I don’t think I’ve even had regular risotto. What the hell is it? Like, rice?
“Yum,” I say before catching a quiet yawn in my hand.
“Oh, Hailey, you have no idea. It was so good, I just wanted to die.”
“Sounds amazing,” I say, my stomach growling even though I don’t even really like rice. Or lobster.
I eye the pink quartz clock on her wall, wondering how it’s only seven o’clock when it feels like midnight passed hours ago. “What time is Mike picking you up?”
“Any minute!” she shouts as another top flies out of her closet.
I look down at my own clothes—an oversized navy-blue sweatshirt and a pair of mom jeans that smell like sausage-infused dog breath.
“Okay,” Danica says as she reappears in her room. “How do I look?”
The golden sequins of her draped top catch the light in just the right way to accentuate her soft curves, meeting a tight fuchsia skirt that is long enough to be decent, but short enough to be suggestive. Long copper hair that she must have spent hours straightening falls over her exposed shoulders, meaning that she must have skipped her classes today. Again. Her makeup is just as flawless, and even the way she stands seems professional, like she’s ready to walk onto a runway built just for her.
“You look beautiful,” I say, and Danica frowns.
“You think so? This skirt just feels so—”
The doorbell rings, and her eyes go wide.
“Oh my God, I’m not ready!”
I lift a tired eyebrow. “You look—”
“I look like shit!” She bulldozes me off her bed. “Answer the door. Tell him I’ll be out.”
My clothes suddenly feel a whole lot grungier; that dog-breath smell a whole lot smellier. “Uh—”
“Go!” Danica orders, forcing me out of her room and slamming the door behind me. The doorbell rings again, and I stare across our apartment at the white front door and sigh.
One heavy footstep after the other, I make my way down the hallway, through the living room, and to the door. I straighten my sweatshirt—for God knows what reason—and swing the door open.
And there Mike stands, flowers in his hand, a nervous smile on his face. His hair is trimmed and styled, with only a few rebellious pieces escaping onto his forehead.
“Hey,” he says as I run my fingers through my own short curls.
“Hey.”
“Hi!” Danica peeps from the other side of the room, and I turn around just as she careens past me and into Mike. She throws her arms around his neck and kisses him on the lips before lowering down from her tiptoes. She’s wearing the same sequined top, but an even shorter fuchsia skirt, and I stand off to the side wondering exactly how many fuchsia skirts she owns.
“Wow,” Mike admires as he takes a look at her, and she spins around, her face lighting up like a one-thousand-watt bulb.
“These are for you,” Mike says, handing her a big bouquet of red roses just as I start to walk away. “And these are for Hailey.”
I turn around to see him holding a small bouquet of orange sunflowers, white daisies, and purple wildflowers. He smiles and extends his arm, and I just stand there staring.
“Why?” Danica asks, and Mike’s eyes and mine both swing to where she’s standing with her brow furrowed at the tiny bouquet in his hand.
“Why what?” Mike asks.
“Why’d you get flowers for Hailey?”
Her narrowed eyes lift from the sunflowers to me, like the answer will burn itself into my forehead or something. I’m fidgeting under the heat of her gaze when Mike says, “Because I thought it would be a nice thing to do?”
“You thought it would be nice to get flowers for my roommate?”
“She’s your cousin,” Mike reminds her. A baffled line etches into his forehead at the attitude Danica is copping. “I used to get them for your mom . . . What’s your problem?”
Watching Danica change her attitude is like watching winter turn to spring. I can’t see the moment it happens, but then there’s suddenly no ice in her voice. Only blistering sunshine. “No problem. I was just wondering.” Her megawatt smile is bright and pretty right before she coils her arms around his neck again and gives him a lingering kiss on the cheek. “You’re so sweet. I love that about you.”
Her feet drop back to the floor, and she shoots me a first-degree burn of a smile before telling Mike, “I’m going to go put these in some water.”
I’m watching her walk away when Mike steps toward me and extends the flowers again. “I thought they might remind you of home. Most farms have sunflowers, right?”
I stare up into kind brown eyes, and then down at sunflowers even bigger than the ones that used to grow outside my bedroom window. Eventually, I take the bouquet and muse, “The ones back home aren’t nearly this pretty.”