Before I can think it through, I drop the whisk. My hand grabs the front of his muscle shirt, pulling him toward me with more force than I meant to, but it's like I don't care. I need him close, and I need him now.
Noah's eyes widen for half a secon...
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I stopped by Subway for lunch and got a sandwich for Annabeth since I would be seeing her in a couple of minutes for my figure drawing. I sat in the center room. It's a large room that lets in sunlight from the skylight. Bright. No other windows. Floor-to-ceiling mirrors stretch across one-half the wall. The room was soundproof. Mostly dancers and musicians come here.
"You're early," Annabeth said, pulling one earbud from my ear.
"I just needed to do some warmups before the actual drawings." I rotated my wrist.
"Guess I'll do some warmups myself."
For about three minutes, she does her thing before setting up her Bluetooth speaker. I turned to a new page in my sketchbook. For the two days we've been working together, I felt like I knew Annabeth more than the first time around. We had something in common with each other being kids of divorced parents. She doesn't get along with her mom and I don't get along with my dad.
We pushed past that awkward argument on the beach that night. No big deal, we said.
"How did your date go with Kairo?" Annabeth stands on the tip of her toes, slowly drawing one leg behind her.
I quickly sketched a figure of her. "It went good."
"You seem like the hopeless romantic type."
"I guess."
With my ex Zariah, I wasn't nearly as romantic. I mean I planned dates and stuff but she never liked anything I did for her so I stopped. She complained about me not taking her out and it's like okay damn what the fuck do you want? But part of me had loved the girl to death even though she ripped my heart out like some hungry man-eating witch.
Annabeth does a spin, one after the other her body fluently moving in ways that didn't seem possible.
"What's Kairo like?" Annabeth asked with another spin.
My hand stopped mid-sketch before starting again. What was Kairo like? I've been his friend since we were little. That should be an easy question I could answer in one word or two, maybe a sentence at least.
Annabeth slows down. She spreads her arms, lifting one above her head.
"A dick," I said.
Her head dips back in a warm laughter. "Kairo? A dick? He looks like a real sweetheart. Funny tho. Cause Sonni called him an uncircumcised dick."
"Kairo? A sweetheart? Nah he's a dick. Definitely an uncircumcised one."
"Shouldn't you defend your boyfriend?" Annabeth gracefully leaped from one end of the center room to the other, the sunlight casting her dark skin in a shimmer.
I sketch her leaping and bending. "Nah."
But Kairo was a real sweetheart. An over-the-top, sickly sweet sweetheart. He could make you feel like it's just him and you alone in the crowded world. I remember one time back in high school, freshman year when he dated this black girl, man with Kairo, she was the softest version of herself because he created that space for her. He would always kiss her pinky, wrist, and up her arm like Gomez from the Addams family. I thought the shit was corny, but my young mind couldn't grasp why a guy would love a girl like she was the center of his world.
