Rayston Point Road || Editing

Chapter Twenty-One

"So?" I glanced up over my shoulder at Andie as her voice wafted through the silence that had settled between us. She was lying on her stomach at the center of her queen-sized bed, her feet kicked up behind her as she flipped through a magazine by my head. I was sitting on her floor, leaning up against her wooden footboard, reading Alex's copy of Frankenstein. He had dropped the book off early this morning on his way to work, leaving it in Leighton's mailbox with a text that I had woken up to in the morning that he had left it, two days after offering to let me borrow it. When Andie texted me only a few moments after I retrieved it, asking if I wanted to hang out at her house for a few hours, I took the book with me. We had been sitting in her room for nearly an hour, Andie intermittently making comments about whatever trashy article or quiz she was reading. I was surprised she had made it this long without asking.

"So?" I repeated back to her absentmindedly, flipping to the next page, my eyes scanning over the handwritten notes in the margins as I waited for her clarification, anticipating what she was about to ask me.

"How was your non-date with Alex?" I could hear the bed shift behind me as Andie scooted forward, dropping her arms over the footboard so her hands dangled loosely by my side. When I looked back at her, she was resting her cheek on her arm, her blonde hair piled high on her head, her glasses skewed slightly from the position of her head, smiling playfully at me.

"It wasn't a date," I sighed heavily, leaning my head back against the gray-washed board, looking up at Andie, whose smile and slight twitch of her eyes told me very clearly that she didn't believe me.

"I didn't say it was, I said non-date."

"You implied it."

"Just tell me how it was and I'll stop bothering you."

"It was fine!" I yelled over her rapid insistence as she continued to ask me what Alex and I did, throwing my hands in the air and letting my book close against my legs, listening to her laugh as I groaned, giving it. "It was not a date, but hanging out with him was fine. We got pizza, went to a bookstore. It was nice."

"Are you going to hang out with him again?"

"Did you know that there's a name for the blob of toothpaste you squeeze out onto your toothpaste?" I tilted my head up and back so I could look at her, smiling as I took in her utterly confused expression, her head lifted from her arm, her blue eyes widened slightly in confusion. "Can we change the subject now?"

"Fine," she huffed, scooting backwards onto the mattress lifting her arms back to rest on the bed, resting her chin on the back of her hands. "Next Friday, the 21st, we're going to dinner a few towns over. You want to come?"

"Sure. What's the occasion?"

"None," Andie responded, but the way her voice pitched slightly made me narrow my eyes at her in disbelief. I dropped my legs onto the ground and shifted, twisting my body around to look up at Andie. She had gone back to reading her magazine, avoiding my gaze until I reached towards the glossy pages and flipped them shut.

"Andie," I warned, watching as she lifted her head and shook it, repeating her answer. "Seriously, sometimes we just like to get out of Rayston." She smiled at me earnestly, but I still didn't believe she didn't have ulterior motives for that night, he initial look in her eyes and tone of her voice indicating that she was hiding something, but an incoming text to my phone beside me sidetracked me.

"Alright," I said slowly, reaching for my phone on the floor as it buzzed for what felt like the millionth time today. When I glanced down at it, seeing my mother's contact lighting up my screen, I scowled and diverted the call to my voicemail once again.