Page 28 of Eye of the Beholder
“I was just thinking the same thing,” I say. “But you’re probably safer in here than you would be in Lydia’s room. She purchased an arsenal of beauty products this morning.”
Mina groans and buries her face in her hands. “This is going to be a disaster,” she says.
I quickly pull out the chair from under my newly cleaned desk and gesture to it. Mina sinks into it.
“It won’t be,” I say as I sit on my bed, although I have no right to make that promise. “At the very least, you’ll come out of your shell. That’s what you really want, isn’t it?”
“I do,” she says with a sigh, setting her bag on the floor at her feet. She looks around again. Her eyes linger on the stack of my dad’s letters in the corner of the desk, but she doesn’t say anything.
I should have put those somewhere else. Like the trash can.
“So this is your room,” she says. “I only ever see it through window. I thought it would be more…manly.”
I frown. “It’s manly.”
“It is,” she says quickly, looking like she’s worried about offending me. “It’s just so…clean. I thought you’d be a slob. Aren’t guys slobs?”
I shrug. “Some of them, I guess.”
“I thought it would sort of stink.”
“It doesn’t stink!” I say.
“No, it doesn’t,” she says, only half paying attention to me now. “It smells like you. Like your cologne. And I thought there would be football stuff everywhere,” she says, still looking vaguely around.
“There was when I was five. Do you always give this much thought to my bedroom?” I say, grinning.
Her face turns bright red in an impressively short amount of time, and her eyes snap back to mine. “Of course not. I’m tempted to throw something at you for saying that.”
I snort. “You wouldn’t throw something at me.”
“No,” she says, smiling slightly. “Probably not. I’m too nice.”
“You are,” I say, nodding. “Now”—I gesture at her bag—“what did you bring?” I hesitate and then say, “It looks clunky.”
She picks up her bag and upends it, and the contents spill onto my soft carpet. Two big paperback books, a legal pad, a few pencils, and…a shirt?
I lean down and pick up the shirt. A glass bottle rolls out of it, and Mina’s face goes red again. She snatches the shirt from me, and I pick the bottle up instead.
“In case Lydia said something about my t-shirt,” she says, shoving the shirt back in her bag.
“And this?” I say, raising one brow as I hold out the purple bottle. “What is it? Perfume?”
She shrugs, her face still red. “Lydia texted me earlier and asked me to bring it.” She pulls it out of my hand before I can smell it.
“You don’t strike me as a perfume person,” I say, considering her.
“I used to be,” she says, slipping the bottle back in her bag. Then she picks up the rest of the items from her bag and stacks them neatly on the desk in front of her. I’m glad I cleaned it before she came. “I love perfume. It makes me feel put together. I just haven’t worn it in a long time.”
Since seventh grade, I’m willing to bet.
“Now, let’s focus,” she says. She taps the larger of the two books and stands up. She points to the desk chair. “Sit,” she says, and the bed sinks slightly as she sits next to me.
I look over at her. “You’re bossy.”
“So are you,” she says. “Sit at the desk.”
I sigh, resigning myself to my fate.
