TUESDAY

DAY NINE

#

PARKER

Yesterday, I could've spent all night in Lizzie's car...

Closing my eyes, I could remember the feel of her soft lips. I could recall her calloused fingers connect the dots of my freckles, forming pictures of flowers and the stars. If she wanted to do it, she could use any part of my body as a canvas and paint me to her liking. One afternoon of kissing and I was WEAK. I wanted to take a page out of Lizzie's playlist and cry. Elizabeth Hernandez surprised me more and more every day. It was mind-boggling to me that someone could possibly break up with that beautiful creature and survive to tell the tale.

Checking my phone, I noticed that not much time had passed since the last time I checked the clock, which turned out to be two measly minutes ago. Stupid slow passage of time. Stupid me for getting ready an hour early. I've been meandering around the house wearing my tapestry coat with matching maroon bellbottoms and a fluffy burnt mustard turtleneck. I was saving my fake snake boots and my long tassel earrings for a special occasion too.

I stared at the front door.

Walking with Lizzie through the halls of school felt like walking in a different world, one where we never hated each other, one where my parents were talking, and my mom replied to my texts. Just cause I was having too good of a day, I doubled checked my messages with my mom where I regaled my first kiss with Lizzie and she would now be the only person I worshiped on Sundays.

No reply.

Not yet, anyways.

"She's not going to get here faster if you watch the door," said my dad from some obscure corner in the house.

"I'm not watching the door!" I lied, but loudly so it sounded more believable.

"Remember when you were a kid—" he shouted back, which earned us both a curious peek from Debbie's home office. We locked eyes and she just sighed, rolled her eyes with a smile and closed her door as my dad went on "—you used to look out the window and wait for the mail man to come! He was your first crush! Trevor Williams! Do you remember?! You said you liked him because he always had presents!"

"No! I blocked it out!"

But my face did get warm, vaguely remembering something about smelling envelopes a lot. I think I used to accidentally get high on the glue but didn't know it.

Then, there was a knock on the door, and I jumped up, flinging myself at the door handle. As I opened the door, my dad started shouting about a love letter I once wrote to the garbage man and Lizzie squinted at me when she saw me as she intently listened to my father's ramblings. She wore the blocked color sweater she took from my closet and something about that made my heart start square dancing like a maniac. She also tied half her hair up in a cute little ponytail, letting the bottom half curl around her neck.

Lizzie grinned, despite her confusion and my chest squeezed. This was a date. A proper date between me and Lizzie. Without being able to help myself, I leaned down and pecked Lizzie's soft lips. She jumped and immediately, her face burned with a deep red blush. I panicked. This always happened. I came across way too strong and probably freaked her out.

"Sorry!" I spouted as a matching blush appeared on my cheeks. "I should have asked. I guess, I just got a little excited- to see you, I mean!"

"No! No!" Lizzie waved her hands. "No, I liked it! I was just surprised."

"Surprised by the attack?" I asked, unable to help myself. "Or surprised by how much you liked it?"

She rolled her eyes, biting down a smile and turned for her car. "Let's go before I change my mind." Watching her walk down my porch, my excitement overcame my mood as I realized she didn't deny my accusation.

#

LIZZIE

"We're getting coffee first or I might kill you," I said and climbed into the driver's seat, starting my engine again and fixing the heaters to also face Parker (the way I was blushing I probably could've kept the car nice and toasty). I convulsed against the cold as Parker hopped into shotgun. She snatched my phone, already attached to the auxiliary cord and I didn't think anything of it.

Then, she pulled up my playlists.

A gasp ripped down my throat as I lunged, slapping my hand over the bright screen.

"Don't go through my playlists," I insisted, the words bouncing around my throat like hot embers, scratching it up on the way out. My mind raced as fast as my thumping heart, making my blood thin. The last playlist I created was basically declaring my undying "like" for Parker and if she found it now, like this, I would spontaneously combust.

Parker's lips curled like the Cheshire cat and all my blood rushed out of my face. She asked, an edge of wickedness in her voice. "Why? Is there something salacious?"

"No!" Before I could help it, my eyes watered up. The panic unlocked my flood gates and there was nothing keeping the tears from flowing. My jaw clenched at my futile attempts to keep from weeping like a baby. The humiliation only made things worse. I scrambled to pull all these emotions back, but it was like wrangling a fire to stop it from burning down my house.

Parker softened. Her brow narrowed, trying to pinpoint the start of the anxiety, like she followed the trail from the fuse to the explosive bomb so maybe she could snuff out the spark. Parker softened. She raised her other hand and told me in her most reassuring voice, "Hey, it's okay. I won't look, not if you don't want me to. I promise."

"Really?" I asked, fearing my gut instinct that she'd look anyway, that she couldn't help herself. There was enough material in those playlists to tease me forever.

"I won't," she said again, a little more fire in her voice. "I would never want to upset you, Lizzie. Ever. I won't touch your phone at all if you don't want me to..." She offered my phone back and my twisted stomach loosened, just a little bit.

"No," I spoke quietly. "No, you can pick out the music. Just stay out of the playlists."

"Thank you," she said, and the knot tightened for other reasons, reasons that might lead to us kissing inside my car again. Not that I'm complaining because I'm not.

After wiping my face with my sleeves, I started driving towards downtown. She skimmed my library, skipping around and changing the song before it finished just to drive me crazy.

"You are so annoying!" I shouted, keeping my eyes on the road while I whacked her arm. She snickered devilishly before throwing on Never Gonna Give you Up by Rick Astley and I screamed over the music that Parker cranked up to full volume. Parker screamed the lyrics with the passion of a debut singer on Broadway.

I screamed. "I WILL CRASH THIS CAR!"

"Just let the music take over!" Parker screamed and suddenly, we were jamming out, over and over again, along with my secret 80s music collection. When we finally reached downtown Bethel, we managed to nab some coffee.

"We need to come back when the lights are on," I suggested, admiring the growing decorations and the multiplying happy Jack-O-Lanterns, among their naked gourd friends. "I bet it's awesome at night."

"Looks like we have some time to kill, then." Parker smiled. She took a sip of her coffee, before slipping her free hand into mine. I looked up at her freckled face with her pink nose and ears and it might be conceited of me, but I prayed that I was the reason for the blush, not the cold. I squeezed her hand back, rubbing my thumb over hers.

#

PARKER

I pretended to be super cool and nonchalantly held Lizzie's hand. I felt like a little kid, needing to hold her hand and keep her close to my side. She looked up at me with the biggest grin and the cutest little dimples I've ever laid my eyes on. That thing needed a warning shot or something before decimating my life in public.

Setting my eyes forward, I took a huge gulp of my coffee that was too hot and possibly burned my taste buds forever, but it was worth it to not look like a major dork on the outside.

Hand in hand, we passed the Bad Advice booth towards our restaurant destination. Crissy Jensen waved from across the street. She called out from underneath her pink muffler, "Lookin' good!"

"Thanks!" Lizzie waved back. "But I think I'm done with bad advice for a while!"

"Suit yourself!" Mitchell shouted, but he didn't look up from his phone. I chuckled as I admired Lizzie's haircut again and the peak of her neck between her hair and her collar. My fingers tingled, thinking about reaching out and touching her velvet skin again. If we were going to do any more lessons, I think I'd like to teach Lizzie how to make hickeys with a hands-on technique.

Lizzie shook my arm, nearly jerking it out of the socket and she elbowed me too, causing a splash of my coffee to fly out, spilling over my fingers. "Whoa!"

"Parker, Parker!" She motioned across the street. "Look at Miss Patty's Salon! It's different from yesterday!"

I was so consumed with staring and drooling all over Lizzie that I forgot all about Miss Patty's Salon. Lizzie was right. For the first time, the three mannequins were dressed in their Halloween costumes, a wicked witch, one dressed in a skintight skeleton suit and another one wore huge angel wings. They held plastic champagne flutes filled with glitter. Mini candy bars, more chunky glitter and plastic carved pumpkins littered the table.

Letting Lizzie's hand go, I pressed my face into the glass and fogged it all up with my coffee breath. The way I looked at Miss Patty's Salon might be the same floating feeling people feel when they're walking up to the Magic Castle at Disneyworld. If I died, if I suddenly keeled over from a lightning strike, behind the gates of pearly heaven would be this Salon, but the doors were open, and Miss Patty was inside.

Or I'll die and come back as a ghost and haunt the fuck out of this place.

I could feel the touch of the tiara on my fingertips. It was so close. This was killing me.

"Elizabeth," I said, getting serious, but also refusing to take my forehead off the glass, still hoping for the spontaneous superpower of walking through walls and making this situation easy to fix. I told Lizzie, more like a threat than a promise, "No more games. We've gotta stop messing around and get serious. We have to come back next Friday and stake this place out, no matter if we have to stay up all night and wait without food or sleep."

"Okay, Parker," Lizzie said, tinged with amusement. She pulled her hair behind her ear and my heart punched a hole through my chest and flew into the sky. This ignited a fire in the pit of my stomach.

"You know," I said, pushing off the glass. At least, if anything, I've left my mark on this place with my sticky, grubby little hands and greasy face. Crossing my arms, I leaned my back against the glass, attempting to come across like a cool James Dean type, but I was more like a hooligan with a shallow cause. I lowered my voice, wiggling my eyebrows. "I've never asked anyone out on a stake out before..."

"Aren't I a lucky girl?" Lizzie laughed, no longer stifling her amusement. This was the Lizzie I liked, bursting with emotions. Her eyes shone. Maybe because she cried earlier. Maybe because my own happy glow hit her eyes like the sun's reflection on the top of the ocean. "How will anyone else compete with that?"

I hoped nobody could.

Author's Note

Okay! We've got a plan and another date lined up! Does anyone have any theories why Miss Patty has never been seen? What's going on in that store??? Guess we'll find out next week in book world!

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