Her body rose and fell with a deep breath, but she settled against me, and soon I could hear the regulated breathing of sleep. I tightened my grip a little and lay my head next to hers, trying to expel thoughts of the past from my mind.
I fell asleep with a vague memory of the smell of sweat and a bitter taste in the back of my throat.
*****
I woke to soft, female voices.
“I can’t believe you’re sleeping like that.”
Tria shook with quiet laughter.
“He gets kind of a death-grip,” she said. “He’s like this every night.”
“So you are living with him?” Nikki asked for confirmation.
“Yes. It wasn’t really planned; it just sort of happened.”
“I had it all planned from the beginning,” I mumbled with my eyes closed. “Welcome to my parlor and all that shit.”
Tria laughed aloud as she turned slightly to smack my arm.
“You did not!”
She wriggled, and I abruptly released her from my grasp, leaving her to fall to the floor with a thump. Nikki laughed and walked away from us and into the kitchen. I rolled over and peered over the edge of the couch. Tria lay on her back with a surprised look on her face. Her hair was all over the place—and from the position on her back, it framed her face in a wild tangle of frizzy strands.
“Your hair makes you look like one of those chicks from an eighties rock video,” I told her.
“Thanks a lot!”
I gave her a half smile.
“You’re beautiful,” I told her as she sat up and tried to calm the mass of hair.
“I’m surprised I have any hair left,” she mused, “the way you are always trying to use your nose to build a nest in it!”
I laughed.
“You smell good,” I said with another smile. “If I could figure out what you were putting on your hair that smelled like that, I’d probably just bathe in it.”
“You are not right!” Her information wasn’t news to me.
“Anyone want breakfast?” Nikki stood near the wall by the kitchen and held up a tray of what appeared to be gigantic muffins.
Tria quickly fumbled around inside her purse and without too much trouble came up with a hair band. I was always surprised at how quickly she managed to find shit in there. I peered over the edge of the Purse of Doom—feeling brave—and glimpsed inside as she wrapped her hair in a bun at the top of her head. I couldn’t figure out what any of the shit in there was, and I quickly retreated until I was a safe distance from the potential event horizon of the thing.
After breakfast—which was awesome though I wouldn’t eat more than one of the huge things—Tria pulled me to the side.
“Well, she still intends to go through with it,” Tria informed me. “I’m going to stick with her today and help her get ready.”
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked, trying not to sound petulant.
“Can you keep Brandon company?”
“Seriously?”
“He’s nervous and freaking out,” Tria whispered as she glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t know what you said to him last night, but he keeps asking her if she’s sure she wants to do it. She does—I can see that now—but he’s not so sure anymore, and that’s got her all upset. He needs to be there for her as much as I do.”
“This is too fucked up,” I mumbled under my breath.