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The phone balanced on her shoulder and held in place with a painful tilt of her head burnt her ear.
"I mean, this weather is crazy!" Bethany's exasperated sigh came before a rustling of fabrics. "I need to go out, exercise, run! And I can't do anything since yesterday but lie on the bed and overeat."
"You could exercise at home. A couple of days inside won't harm you." Rose rolled her eyes as she spoke, removing one hand cooped up in Alexander's winter jacket to throw Max's ball on an unpathed loaf of snow in the backyard.
Alex had provided more comfortable clothes than the dress, aside from a new pair of pajamas. His sweatpants were bunched as tight as the rope on the waist would allow, the coffee woolen sweater loose around her neck that it exposed one shoulder or the other by default. The coat engulfing her was shoved in her arms when she offered to play with Max outside, the dog barking and whining at the windows to be let out. It was the least she could do as Alexander had taken the role of chef, not allowing her to step into the kitchen area. All he had asked was of any allergies, and then she was dismissed.
"I am so bored!" Beth cried out, and Rose switched the cell to her other ear, giving the earliest a rest from her friend's tantrum.
"M will be really offended if she hears that." She chastised, sniffing and rubbing her red nose.
"Oh, believe me, I am." Melinda butted in. "Who was it that did yoga with you? That watched three rom-coms even though I absolutely hate them? And then there are the Tik-Toks that I watch, though you interrupt my flow."
Max dived in the white cloud, disappearing momentarily and climbing back out with the orange tennis ball in his mouth. He shook himself off, running the perimeter of the yard in overexcitement and obediently finishing in front of her, dropping the sphere at her boot-covered toes, his snowy snout adorable.
"On top of that," M readjusted closer to the phone, her voice louder during her ongoing rant, "I suggested so many other things we could do and you just shrugged them off!"
Rosalie whispered 'good boy', Max's tail going twice as fast at her praising. She tossed it anew, her fingers numbing at the long departure from the warmth of the jacket, descending snowflakes stinging the skin.
"Did I say bored?" She heard Beth utter sweetly, the pause after the monologue making her recalculate her viewpoint. "I meant that my lovely girlfriend is giving it her all, but I am annoyed with myself since I cannot keep still for five minutes."
An exaggerated kissing sound traveled the line. "You saved it." M's irritated attitude was mellowed by the cuteness Bethany sought to exhume, her voice dropping out of earshot.
"So..." By her tone, Rose placed wiggling eyebrows under the blonde bangs of the opposite caller. "How was last night?" She questioned innocently.
The brunette worried her lip. Her newly wrapped hand itched below the fresh bandage, middle finger bending towards the palm to scratch the closest minuscule wound. Thinking of the past hours, she frowned. Pictures of the night terror, the golden band, the eaten flesh; it snapped like a flash rapidly in her recalls and she shuddered, swallowing with a dry throat. No. She would not share that. She might not even write about it in the journal as Caroline instructed, but that was a decision for when she was alone and back at her apartment.
