“Well … no.” I shrug and then wipe a hand down my face.
“Here’s what you should do,” he says, leaning over the back of the kitchen table chair beside me. “Just rip off the Band-Aid. Tell them everything in one fell swoop. You have a guy for a roommate. You’re going to culinary school and not Vanderbilt. Any other secrets you’re hiding? Just come out with it.”
“I’m not hiding any other secrets.” I fiddle with the drawstring on my oversize pajama pants.
Liar. Liar, liar, pants on fire. I think about my attraction to him.
“Well, that’s what I think you should do anyway,” Ben says, standing and slapping a strong hand down on top of the back of the chair, like a gavel hitting the judge’s stand.
I feel like that is a metaphor for my life right now. A large gavel is about to slam down on top of me, and there’s nothing I can do about it because I caused it.
I know Ben is right, and I should be up-front with my parents about what I’m doing, but I’m also afraid of leaving this little bubble I’ve built for myself.
“Do you want me to make myself scarce?” he asks, walking toward his room before stopping and peering back at me.
“No. I’ll tell them everything,” I say with a groan.
He grins, a slow wink topping off his irresistible charm before he saunters into his room.
I’m distracted by my phone ringing where I set it on the counter, and I tear my gaze away from Ben’s backside as I reach for it.
“Hello?”
“Yes, may I speak to Pepper?”
“This is she,” I say, my ever-present manners kicking in.
“Hi, this is Paula at the Pottery Palace. Do you have a minute to talk about your application?”
Oh my goodness, this is it.
“Yes, ma’am.” I pull a chair out and sit down.
“We only need someone in the evenings for four days a week. Would you be available for those times?”
“Yes, I can work any evening you need as long as it’s after five,” I say, glancing at Andi to see that she’s lying across the couch again, Danger flopped back on top of her.
“Perfect. Could you come in around five thirty on Monday for an interview?”
“I can,” I say, my foot tapping excitedly against the floor.
“Contingent on the interview, would you be able to start that night, six to nine p.m.?”
“Yes, I should be able to.”
“Great. I look forward to meeting you, Pepper.”
“Thank you, Paula. I’ll see you on Monday at five thirty.”
It wouldn’t be a huge paycheck, but it would be something. I’m still waiting to hear back from the waitressing jobs.
“I just got a job interview,” I tell Andi as soon as I hang up.
“Fascinating. Come here. We have more important things to talk about.”
I furrow my brow as I stand and walk the short distance to the living room. I sit on the recliner beside the couch. Danger immediately jumps off of Andi and hops onto my lap, and I shoot a gloating look in her direction as she flashes me the middle finger.
“What do we have to talk about?”
“First is the fact that you haven’t told your parents what you’re doing here. Are you crazy? My parents are so far up my patootie that they know every time I shit.”
I burst out laughing at that visual, and Danger jerks his head up at me.
“Sorry, bud,” I whisper to him as I stop jostling him around. “What’s the second thing?”
“Huh?” she asks, staring at her phone screen.
“You said first, so that usually means you have more than one thing to talk about.”
“Oh, second is the fact that Ben obviously likes you,” she says, sitting up and placing her phone in her lap as she looks at me. “Also, he’s insanely hot, so if you don’t make a move, I’m going to.” She smirks and raises her eyebrows.
“You’d better not even look at him, or so help me …” I whisper harshly.
She only smirks wider. “Just trying to get some action out of you. He actually called you pretty to your face a minute ago. How could you think he only wants to be friends?”
“He was talking about a show,” I say in denial, rolling my eyes.
She’s just joking. She has to be.
“Nah, he likes you. Believe me, I can tell.”
“How?”
“Well, for one, he watches you when you aren’t looking.”
“He does not,” I deny, pressing my lips together and rolling my eyes.
“How would you know? You aren’t looking,” she says and points at me.
I can’t defend myself there. I can’t be staring at Ben all the time. I mean, I could, but he would most definitely write me off as a creep then.
“And second, he’s itching to touch you. He was standing so close to you just now, and you didn’t pay him the time of day.”
I thought I was just being aloof.
“It’s so obvious to us on the outside—and when I say us, I mean, me—that you two have chemistry.” Andi sits back against the couch with a victorious look on her face. “You are sabotaging your own crush by not acknowledging it.”
She points at me like a fired-up gospel minister, and I attractively blow air out of my mouth.
Pffffttt.
“Will you hush? He’s going to hear you,” I hiss, putting my most menacing face on. “Why are we even friends again?” I cross my arms and raise my eyebrows.
“Because you have no other friends without me,” she says with a smirk and ducks to dodge the pillow I hurled her way.
“I have friends. They’re just back home in Texas,” I say defensively, but my voice sounds weak, even to my own ears.
I don’t have friends. My best friend hasn’t really stayed in regular contact with me since we moved to go to different schools. There’s the odd friend I would go out on the weekend with when I lived at home or in college, but now that I’ve moved on, none have bothered to stay in touch. Sometimes, I feel like an island, and
