Page 32 of Heidi Lucy Loses Her Mind
“Unnecessarily hot,” I mutter.
Don’t ogle the pretty man, Heidi.
“Why are you shirtless?” I say with a sigh. I think it’s best if I address the most pressing issues first.
“Hang on,” he says. “What did you say?”
“I said ‘Why are you shirtless—’”
“No,” he cuts me off, and a strange expression crosses his face, one I’m not sure I’ve seen before. It’s a smirk, the kind my brother used to give every girl he met before Gemma came into his life—self-assured, bordering on cocky, and undeniably flirtatious.
Why is he smirking at me? And why do Ilikeit? Because I do. But I don’t like cocky men.
And yet as that smirk grows even more prominent, my stomach flips.
“Before that,” he goes on, completely oblivious to my internal dilemma. “What did you say before that? Did you call mehot?”
Time to lie through my freaking teeth.
“No,” I say. “I said—” I break off, casting around desperately for phrases that rhyme withunnecessarily hot.All I can come up with area mercenary snotanda messy fairly lot,both of which are less than helpful.
“You did. You said I was hot,” he says, and even through the video chat I can see his eyes sparkling. For some reason, this makes him inordinately happy.
“Fine,” I say, stomping my foot. “Yes. That’s what I said.” I refuse to let myself be embarrassed about this. I have too many other things to worry about. “Physical attraction is a perfectly normal occurrence, Soren. There’s nothing strange about it.”
“Sure,” he says comfortably, running one hand through his long hair. “I just didn’t realize you felt that way aboutme.”
“I don’t,” I say. “It was a momentary thing.”
“That’s too bad,” he murmurs, and my stupid stomach flips again.
“Anyway,” I say.
“Wait,” he says. His voice is more normal now, and that smirk melts away into something that looks like concern. His eyes narrow. “Were you crying?”
My jaw drops. “How could you possibly know that?”
He points at me through the screen. “Your eyes are red.”
I squint at my picture in the corner of the screen. “I don’t think they are.”
He shrugs, which only serves to draw my attention back to his stupid muscles. “They look red to me. Why were you crying?”
The tears prick at my eyes again. “It’s nothing. It’s stupid. I’m just overwhelmed. And kind of freaked out, I guess. By Carmina and the voicemail I left you.” I swallow down the guilt that rises like bile in my throat. “I keep thinking that maybe I knew she was going to die, and I could have done something to help.”
“You can’t blame yourself for this,” he says.
“I know,” I say with a sigh. “I know that. I still feel bad.”
“And crying isn’t stupid,” he goes on. “It’s healthy. You’re allowed to cry.”
I don’t tell him the truth: that I’m done crying. That crying has never done anything for me; it’s never fixed my body, and it’s never made me feel better.
So I took all of those tears and channeled them into productivity instead.
Soren clears his throat, probably because I’ve been silent for too long. “Well, show me the envelope,” he says.
Yes. The envelope. Good.
