“Come on.” She laughs. I follow her inside, instantly reminded of what Jake told me about Mrs.Ford’s insistence on keeping the place looking like a white and beige showroom. He wasn’t lying. I follow Saylor into the white-on-white kitchen where her mom is waiting in a white linen shirt and some jean shorts of her own. Saylor passes behind her and of course they’re related, but it’s weird to see how alike they are up close.
“Heaven! Welcome!”
“Hi, Mrs.Ford.” I can’t help but laugh. She’s like Saylor ramped to one hundred. It doesn’t help that Saylor’s standing a little to her left rolling her eyes.
“Okay, I just want to show you two my masterpiece and then you can get going.” Mrs.Ford turns her laptop around, and I’m not entirely sure Saylor didn’t tell her about myroom. The design is an arched rainbow with cute clouds on either end. There’s a sun behind the rainbow and “Heaven and Saylor’s Summertime Bingo Challenge” splashed over the design in big bubble letters. There are hearts and stars and sparkles around the whole thing. It’s pretty amazing.
“Saylor said you’re quite the artist, so I want your real and honest critique. Tell me what you think.”
I hear Saylor suck her teeth. “I also told her that if she’s set on putting this design on a T-shirt, it’s going in the pajama drawer and neither of us will be wearing it around town or to school.”
“I just want one picture,” Mrs.Ford grumbles back. I tilt my head and think about the colors and the composition and if I’d be brave enough to walk down the halls of CCHS wearing it.
“Center the design on a black T-shirt so I can crop it. I’d wear it to the skate park,” I say with a shrug.
“A crop top!” Mrs.Ford says. “The girl has taste.” She smiles at me and then nudges Saylor’s shoulder.
“Okay, we gotta go. We have an educational field trip to get to.” Saylor comes around the island and starts herding me toward the front door. I swallow and try not to focus on the fact that she’s herding me with a hand on my hip. “I’ll be back later, Mom.”
“Bye, Mrs.Ford.” I wave over my shoulder. My hip is still tingling when I climb behind the wheel, but as soon as I get the AC going, I’m distracted by the way Saylor is looking at me. She has this smile on her face, and it makes me feel like she’s plotting something.
“What?”
“I was thinking about how well that design would fit in to your room.”
“Did you tell your mom I was living a goth-flavored lie?”
“No. Your rainbow-tower secret is safe with me, but I was thinking that I need to come up with a nickname for you since I can’t call you princess.”
“Do I need a nickname?” I ask, and then I almost reach over to help Saylor with her seat belt, but she finally sorts it out.
“Yeah, I have nicknames for all my friends.”
I’m not sure what to say to that, so I pull the car out onto the street and start back down the hill.
“Are we friends now?” I ask, glancing over at her when we reach the first stop sign.
Saylor nods. “I think so. Or at least you’re my friend. I might have to put in a little more work to get you to consider me as your friend.”
“That makes no sense,” I say, ignoring the fact that my face is just getting hotter and hotter.
“Sure, it does. You’re cool to be around and you have good taste in cake. That’s friendship material right there, to me at least. But I still need to crack what you look for in a friend who’s not Jake or Axel.”
“Oh,” I say, sounding way more disappointed than I meant to. I guess I didn’t expect to get friend zoned so thoroughly before I even got a chance to sort out my feelings. But I guess Saylor just sorted them out for me.
“That’s what I think anyway,” she replies, doing this little shoulder shimmy of her own. And I guess that’s that. This sour feeling settles in my stomach, and I realize then that I have my answer. I did have a small crush on Saylor and now I just have to get over it.
18
Saylor
I need an off switch because I think I just friend zoned Heaven. That is like the last thing I wanted to do, but my mouth and my brain were out of alignment and I just could not shut up! The only thing that got me through the last day and a half was daydreaming about her and going back to her new IG profile again. I’m weirdly proud of her for getting it started.
The crush is so much worse. I know it’s not going to go away, especially if I keep hanging out with her, and that’s all I want to do. I was keeping those intense feelings buttoned up nice and tight. I really was, but I knew I was doomed as I was marching her out of our kitchen. I made the mistake of really looking at Heaven’s butt. She’s in a black cropped tour T-shirt and a pair of high-waist baggy jeans. I know what she said about people giving her a complex about her thighs, but boy were they wrong.
I can’t imagine having thighs like that. I have boobs, but my legs are like sticks. I have a butt, but it’s small. I’d wear even shorter shorts if I had curves like Heaven’s. I feel kind of like a pervert, but we’ll just file these under “thoughts that I should keep to myself.” Then I realized how bad I am,ogling her like that. I never looked at Rhys or Jake that way. Tagger either. So yeah, definitely gay. Definitely down bad for Heaven.
And then I almost told her. I almost blurted out how cute I think she is. How much I like her. But the warning alarms went off in my head, and instead I said all that corny stuff about giving her a nickname. She probably thinks I’m just being silly and mildly annoying, but is that worse than her knowing the truth? I look out the window, giving my mouth a two-second rest before I say something worse. Heaven turns up the Beyoncé coming through the speakers, and I think maybe she needs a break too.