“Honey, I’m home!” Cassie yelled. A familiar echoing thud filled my ears as she dropped her bags to the floor. “Where in the hell are you?”
“In here!” I called from the bathroom. My lashes fluttered as I tried to apply mascara without poking my eye out. I liked makeup, loved when someone helped me apply my makeup, but I wasn’t very good at doing it myself. Which was why if Cassie—the makeup guru—wasn’t around to help me get ready, I stuck with the basics.
“Aw, isn’t this sweet,” she said, resting her shoulder on the doorframe. “My little baby is all grown up, applying her own makeup and shit.”
“I even got my period last week, Mom,” I tossed back, my voice monotone. “I think I’m officially a woman.”
“What in the hell are you doing?” she scoffed, watching my reflection in the mirror. “Are you trying to remove your eyelid with that brush?”
See what I mean? Makeup and I weren’t all that great of friends.
Lipstick? Sure.
Blush? Yeah, okay.
Even mascara I could manage.
But anything else, I was pretty much incompetent.
“Give me that before you detach a retina.” She snatched the eye shadow brush from my hand.
I scrunched my nose. “What do you know about detached retinas?”
“I dated an optometrist like a million years ago and there was—” She stopped midsentence, taking in my narrow-eyed expression.
“Okay, if you want to be specific about it,” she amended. “I banged an optometrist a few times.”
“That’s better. Keep going,” I urged her.
“Well, there was an incident, and he freaked the hell out about my eye. Mumbling something about a detached retina.”
“Do I even want to know details?”
“If you don’t want to hear about how Wally’s giant penis poked me in the eye while he was com—”
“Yep.” I held up my hand, laughing. “I’m much better without.”
“I’ll tell ya one thing.” She smirked, resting her hip on the sink. “Wally was my first uncircumcised penis.”
I stared at her.
“What?” she asked, shrugging. “I felt like I was playing with one of those toys from the ‘90s. You know, the ones filled with water that would slip through your hands. I wasn’t prepared for the foreskin.” She looked off into space, thinking about God only knew what. “But once I got the hang—” She stopped, taking in my wordless expression.
Of course, internally, I was cracking up, but I knew Cass. Believe me, I had to disengage before she went any further. Because if she continued, we’d all know far too much about Wally.
“Geez, tough crowd,” she muttered, fiddling with my makeup and finding her choice in eye shadow color before gesturing to my eyes. “This color is all wrong, by the way. You have gorgeous blue eyes. You need something that’ll make ’em pop.”
She motioned for me to sit down.
I plopped my robe-covered butt on the closed toilet seat and waited patiently for her to work her magic.
“I was trying to do a smoky eye,” I admitted.
“Yeah, but these dark tones are all wrong,” she said, moving toward me with a color palette in hand. “You can do a smoky eye, but you need neutral tones. Otherwise, you’re just going to hide that spectacular blue.”
“Close ’em,” she instructed, brush held up close to my face.
I shut my eyes, sighing in relief. My best friend was home. Sure, we’d still managed to chat nearly every day through texts and short phone calls, but it wasn’t the same. Four weeks was a long fucking time.
“I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” she responded, a smile in her voice. “I’m happy you were actually going out and having fun while I was gone.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I peeked at her out of my left eye.
She flashed an are you serious? look.
“I go out,” I disagreed. “I go out all the time. I party like a freakin’ rockstar!”
“Yeah.” She snorted. “A very poor rockstar, who isn’t in a band anymore, and starts yawning by nine and just wants to be home drinking wine.”
“I’m not like that all the time,” I denied, laughing despite myself. “But seriously, you’re never allowed to leave me again.”
The brush swiped over my left eyelid in smooth, sure movements.
“I wasn’t even gone for a month, and I’m here for tonight. Anyway, you were a busy little bee with your new boyfriend.”
Boyfriend. It felt weird to hear someone else call him that. In private, we’d exchanged the boyfriend/girlfriend sentiment frequently, but we were still keeping our relationship very much on the down low at work. My choice, of course. Kline was more than ready to make us public to everyone, but I just wasn’t in that place yet.