Joy puts on her sunglasses, looking out onto the pool.
“You’re not in the mood for a swim today?”
She snaps her head back around to me, ripping the sunglasses off. “Can you not? I mean,” she scoffs, “if you’re gonna flirt, at least do it with your shirt off.”
“I don’t have to take my clothes off for you to want me. You’re wanting me right now.” I regard her red cheeks. Her parted lips. All the usual symptoms are coming to the surface.
But she’s being more stubborn than usual, like she’s reverting back to her old self, when I saw her trying to break into Igor’s place with two tiny bobby pins.
“Look,” she sighs, turning back to me. There’s a pleading expression in her eyes. Her eyebrows are parted slightly. “It’s been a week since I first moved in. My mom… she worries a lot. I need to let her know what’s going on. I promise I won’t?—”
“You know the rules, sweetheart.”
“Screw your rules. She’s the only family I have left. She deserves to know that I’m safe.”
I feel something scratching under my ribs. The look on her face is doing something to me. Itshouldn’tbe doing anything.
But I’m feeling her pain like it’s my own. Which makes no sense. The last thing I am is sympathetic.
I look into her eyes and see an old version of myself. It was when I was powerless. Back when my fate rested in another person’s hands.
You either control, or let others control you. Those are your only two options in life.
Which is why I understand Joy’s frustration. I understand the pleading look in her eye. She’s vulnerable. And she doesn’t want me to see that. Hence the quick-witted comments.
It’s all a defense mechanism to protect herself.
“Fine,” I grit. “One call home. That’s all you’re allowed. And I get to sit in and listen.”
Joy shoots me a glare.
“You’re going to tell your mother that you’re safe. And don’t mention the marriage. It’s probably best to leave that detail out.”
Another glare from Joy. “I don’t know what kind of family you came from, but I’m not lying to my own mother.”
“Then you don’t call.” I challenge her with my eyes.
Eventually, she breaks. “Okay. Fine.”
“And also, just for the record—there’s a difference between lying and withholding information.”
“Tomayto, tomahto.”
I take my phone out of my pocket and hand it to her.
“What the hell is this?” She analyzes it like a foreign object.
“A phone.”
“Straight out of the twentieth century?” She turns it over, scoffing. “How do I even type on this thing?”
I take the phone back, sliding out the keyboard. “Here.”
“God, I forget how much older than me you are sometimes.”
“Charming.” I lean forward, watching Joy punch in her mother’s phone number. “It’s a burner phone, just so you know. So your mother won’t be able to trace the number or anything.”
Joy shoots me a glare. She should be more grateful.