Picture This

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Charlotte

“What’s that?” I asked, looking over his shoulder to his desk. 

There was a piece of paper there with a pen sat on top of it.  It looked like it had writing on it. 

I looked back at Ian and saw that his eyes were wide.  Huh.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, moving toward the desk to grab up the piece of paper and folding it up to put in his back pocket.

I stuck out my hand.  “Give it to me,” I said.

“It’s nothing important,” he said, shifting uncomfortably. 

“Well, then, if it’s nothing, let me see it,” I said, still holding out my hand. 

He shook his head and went to sit down on his bed.  He smirked at me and moved until he was lying down, stretched out on it. 

But that’s when I got an idea. 

I ran and jumped on the bed beside him.  I bounce a few times on my stomach before I turned on my side to look at him.  He had his head turned my way, a smile on his face. 

“Fine, if you’re going to be like that,” I said, resting my head in my hand. 

“Sorry,” he said with a laugh, and then looked up at his ceiling. 

I sighed again and rolled over on my back to see what…

Oh.  My.  God.

I bursted out laughing.  “You still have them!” I said.

He laughed then, too, still looking at the glow-in-the-dark stars we’d put all over his ceiling when we were nine.  We thought we were geniuses of the universe…until his mom walked in later and saw them. 

“Yeah, the damn things won’t come off,” he said, chuckling.

“Well, of course,” I said.  “We used super glue to reinforce them.”

He laughed again.  “I forgot about that,” he said.  “Hold on.”

Ian got up off the bed and headed to turn off his overhead light.  Sunlight was still streaming in though his blinds so he closed them and his curtains, which totally blacked out his room.  The only light was coming in from under his door.

I couldn’t see him but I could hear him walk back toward the bed.  I waited until he was settled down beside me. 

When I looked up, I couldn’t help but gasp when I looked at all the glow-in-the-dark stars.  Even though they had kind of faded over the years, they still looked beautiful. 

“Pretty amazing, huh?” Ian asked, reaching out to take my hand. 

“Yeah,” I whispered as I threaded our fingers together. 

“You know,” he said, squeezing my hand a little.  “Every time I’ve looked up at them I always thought of the day we put them up.  You remember that?”

I laughed.  “Of course!  We were jumping on your bed, sticking them to the ceiling.  And one time you jumped a little too high and fell off.  We couldn’t stop laughing,” I said. 

He chuckled.  “Yeah,” he said.  “Sometimes my ass still hurts from that fall.”

I snorted.  “More like your ego.”

He chuckled again and pulled my hand toward him.  Ha, that’s what I wanted him to do!

Time to set my plan in motion.