Fear and Laundry by Elizabeth Myles Page B

bare arm that I became self-conscious about the fact I was alone in his room with him, wearing only a tank top and my penguin pajama pants. I tucked my hair behind my ears and started nervously gathering lint pills from my pant leg. He seemed perfectly comfortable, though, stretching one leg out alongside mine and bending the other. I watched him take a swig of beer and then rest his arm casually on his bent knee.
    “Why’d you shave the beard?” I wondered aloud.
    “What?” He touched his chin. “Oh. Wasn’t so much a beard as a four-day record of laziness. But thanks for noticing...Why? Did you like it?”
    “It had a certain appeal,” I admitted.
    “Now you tell me,” he said mournfully, and passed the beer to me.
    ***

    “N ic.”
    I woke to feel Jake’s hand gently shaking my leg. “Nic,” he repeated.
    I realized my head was resting on his shoulder and straightened up quickly, blinking around. “Hm?”
    He smiled at me in his crooked way. “We fell asleep.” Across the room, the television was still on. Credits scrolled across the screen.
    “Oh, God,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
    “No big deal,” he assured me. “It was just for a little while. But we missed the end of the movie.”
    “I should go,” I yawned.
    “Hey. Wasn’t trying to run you off,” he said, but I was already walking rapidly to the door.
    “See you in the morning,” I said when I reached the hall. “Or in a few hours, I guess.” Technically it was already Sunday. Not giving him time to reply, I hurried away, back to the living room.
    When I snuggled back in beside Lia, she hardly stirred. Clyde 2, however, woke and punished me for disturbing him by stepping heavily across my stomach, complaining as he jogged away in the dark.
    I couldn’t get back to sleep right away. I kept seeing Jake’s face in my mind’s eye and feeling the ghost of his hand on my leg. His eyes weren’t the same color as Lia’s after all, I mused as I stared into the dark. I’d always thought they were, but...his were definitely lighter. Bluer.
    And he had cute lips.
    ***

    W hen I woke again, Lia wasn’t beside me. I heard sounds coming from the kitchen. Lia’s voice, slightly muffled, and what sounded like cabinet doors opening and closing.
    I went in and found her padding around fully dressed in jeans and a t-shirt but barefoot, with the kitchen phone pressed against her ear. Her hair was wet, dripping dark spots on her shirt, and I guessed she’d just showered. Clyde 2 trotted along behind her, mumbling disagreeably in cat-language. A plastic jug of orange juice sweated on the counter beside an open bag of Meow Mix.
    “Yes, Mom,” Lia said into the phone. “Alright. Yes .” Seeing me in the doorway, she rolled her eyes. And then, with one final affirmative, she hung up the phone. “That was Mom,” she said, pouring herself a tumbler of juice.
    “I gathered,” I said, raking my fingers through my slept-on hair. “Where is she?” I was amazed Elyse could be up and out of the house again already after getting in so late the night before.
    “The Ag Pee Center. They’re having some to-do and are short on volunteers.” She meant the Agricultural Pioneers Center, a sort of museum dedicated to West Texas settlement and farming history.
    “Lemme guess. She wants us to come help.”
    “Not ‘us,’” Lia said. “I told her I’d come down there for an hour, but made her promise to leave you alone.” She pulled a cereal box down from the top of the refrigerator. “You want anything?”
    I told her I didn’t and sat down at the table. So what should I do? I asked while she moved around the kitchen, fixing her breakfast and the cat’s. Sit around here and wait for her to get back? We were supposed to rehearse again today.
    “You can come with me,” she said as Clyde 2 dashed for his food bowl. “Take the exhibit tour or something. We can rehearse when I’m done, hang out, do whatever. I’m really sorry about