“Hailey?!”
“Yeah?”
She pops out of her bedroom wearing nothing but a lacy hot pink bra and a matching pair of panties. “Oh my God. You need to help me!”
She disappears back inside her room, and I rub the corneas off my eyes as I slowly make my way back there.
“Are you coming?!”
I turn the corner into her room and take in the absolute destruction. I don’t even know how one single person can have so many clothes. And every single piece is strewn across the room. There are shoes piled on the bed, bras tossed over the lamp, skirts discarded on the dresser, a thong wrapped around my shoe.
I’m frantically kicking my foot when Danica flies out of her walk-in closet holding a red mini dress in one hand and a gold-speckled white top in the other.
“Which one?” she says. “This dress”—she lifts the dress—“or this top? I’d pair it with a black mini. Or maybe my—oh my God, where is my fuchsia skirt?!”
Both outfits go flying as she tosses them behind her and practically dives onto her bed. She’s a human hurricane, throwing expensive clothes around like they’re nothing but cheap oil rags. I jump to the side as a high heel soars toward my head and bounces off the wall.
“Can you help me instead of just standing there?!” Danica barks, and I kneel down to root through the clothes on her floor.
“Is this it?”
She launches off the bed, snatches the skirt from my hand, and disappears into the closet. “Don’t go anywhere!”
I groan and sit on the edge of her mattress, dreaming of a hot shower and the leftover pizza waiting for me in the fridge. I smell gross, I’m starving, and I’m stuck in a bubblegum-pink jail cell. “What are you dressing up for?” I ask, and Danica shouts from her closet.
“Mike’s taking me out tonight, remember?”
Judging by the way my throat closes up, no, I didn’t remember. Mike and I haven’t spoken since Wednesday, except for a text conversation we had when he messaged me to ask for my Deadzone Four username and Luke’s email address. I gave them to him and thanked him profusely for doing such an amazing thing for my brother.
Are you sure you don’t want a beta code too? he asked.
You just want me on your team, I joked, remembering the way Kyle screamed as I slaughtered him and all of his little dickhead friends.
Of course I want you on my team. You’re on my team in the zombie apocalypse too.
If that team involved Danica, I was pretty sure I’d rather get eaten alive. But I kept her name out of the conversation. You’ll have to clear that with Luke. He already has a bug-out plan.
What is it?
And so I told him about Luke’s zombie apocalypse plan, and we discussed the pros and cons, and in the end, he made me promise I’d save him from the zombies.
Okay, I finally relented. I’ll save your sorry ass from the Walkers.
I smiled as I waited for his text, and I laughed when it finally came through.
Thank you.
You’re welcome.
“I wonder where he’s taking me,” Danica calls from the closet, and I stop fiddling with the buckle of one of the heels in her mountain of misfit shoes. “I hope he takes me to this seafood place across town. That guy from Alpha Sig took me there three weeks ago, and their lobster risotto was so good.”
I’ve never had lobster risotto in my life. In fact, I don’t think I’ve even had regular risotto. What the hell is it? Like, rice?
“Yum,” I say before catching a quiet yawn in my hand.
“Oh, Hailey, you have no idea. It was so good, I just wanted to die.”
“Sounds amazing,” I say, my stomach growling even though I don’t even really like rice. Or lobster.
I eye the pink quartz clock on her wall, wondering how it’s only seven o’clock when it feels like midnight passed hours ago. “What time is Mike picking you up?”
“Any minute!” she shouts as another top flies out of her closet.
I look down at my own clothes—an oversized navy-blue sweatshirt and a pair of mom jeans that smell like sausage-infused dog breath.
“Okay,” Danica says as she reappears in her room. “How do I look?”
The golden sequins of her draped top catch the light in just the right way to accentuate her soft curves, meeting a tight fuchsia skirt that is long enough to be decent, but short enough to be suggestive. Long copper hair that she must have spent hours straightening falls over her exposed shoulders, meaning that she must have skipped her classes today. Again. Her makeup is just as flawless, and even the way she stands seems professional, like she’s ready to walk onto a runway built just for her.
“You look beautiful,” I say, and Danica frowns.
“You think so? This skirt just feels so—”
The doorbell rings, and her eyes go wide.
“Oh my God, I’m not ready!”
I lift a tired eyebrow. “You look—”
“I look like shit!” She bulldozes me off her bed. “Answer the door. Tell him I’ll be out.”
My clothes suddenly feel a whole lot grungier; that dog-breath smell a whole lot smellier. “Uh—”
“Go!” Danica orders, forcing me out of her room and slamming the door behind me. The doorbell rings again, and I stare across our apartment at the white front door and sigh.
One heavy footstep after the other, I make my way down the hallway, through the living room, and to the door. I straighten my sweatshirt—for God knows what reason—and swing the door open.