Ten Trends to Seduce Your Bestfriend
: Chapter 21

He snapped my picture right where I stood, under the open skylights of our kitchen. It was quick and painless, and he used the phone Amelia had picked up at the behest of his agent.

With no reason to remain looking fancy, I changed into a baggy T-shirt and sweats. Byron then joined me in my bathroom, and I went over the instructions for how to dye my hair.

“I have a good idea what to do.” He frowned at the paper that had come with the kit. “Prior to leaving my place, I watched YouTube tutorials.”

“You did?” Of course he did. Byron did everything well. He knew everything. And if he didn’t, he was a quick study.

“The steps here look similar to those in the videos.” He nodded, scanning the directions.

Byron arranged everything while I filmed and narrated what he was doing. I then grabbed our least fancy apron from the kitchen, a glass of water for each of us, and gloves to protect his hands. I think we can all agree, Byron’s hands must be protected at all costs.

He’d set up a folding chair in my bathroom. I filmed me helping him put on the apron, during which I made a point to wrap my arms around him to tie the back instead of having him turn around. This, of course, meant we spent a full minute with our fronts plastered together and his aftershave assaulting my mitochondria, but it was worth it.

Was I possibly taking advantage of the situation so I could be closer to him for a few short minutes? Maybe. Yes. But then I’ve never claimed to be a saint.

Meanwhile, he stood patiently with his arms up, frowning at the ceiling.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked, leaning back when I was finished.

“England.”

I laughed—he was so witty, on and off camera—and ended the recording there just to set my phone to time-lapse and hit record again. Then, with Byron wearing a mask of determination and me making silly faces at the camera, we got started for real.

I paused the time-lapse at intervals to explain what we were doing next, and what we expected the results to be, and how the different chemicals acted on my hair.

Byron listened patiently as I spoke and worked meticulously when I sat. He couldn’t have been more conscientious, and it was seriously the cutest thing. I made a mental note to add hearts to the finished video around his face, so adorably stern with concentration.

We chatted about mostly nothing—mainly the logistics of what would happen next or how he wanted me to sit—then suddenly, the first few notes of a song, all violins and harp, drifted in from the outer room.

Byron’s head angled to the side. “What’s that?”

Within seconds, Nat King Cole’s voice joined the stringed instruments. I closed my eyes, grinding my teeth. Amelia, the instigator.

“That’s one of Amelia’s playlists,” I said through my teeth. “Ignore it.” I’m going to get her back for this.

It was her romantic songs playlist. Nat King Cole’s “The Very Thought of You” was now playing, one of my favorite songs ever. The combination of his luscious voice plus the slow arrangement never failed to put me in a swoony mood. Swoony was not a mood I should be experiencing at present while Byron stood so close behind me, his hands working through my hair.

Really, there was no bad arrangement of this song. Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald—all excellent.

Byron studied my reflection in the mirror, then returned his attention to his task. We sat in swoony-song wordlessness while the music continued. I tried not to appreciate the sight of him, the broad expanse of his shoulders rising over me, the wrinkle between his eyebrows and the way his tongue swept out and lingered on his bottom lip, illuminating the depth of his concentration. The curves of his biceps strained the cloth at his sleeves, his pecs a shelf for his T-shirt. Even his clavicles were sexy. And don’t get me started on his forearms and the skill of his hands.

But when the piano intro of the next song began, Norah Jones’s “Turn Me On,” I lowered my gaze to the sink and rolled my lips between my teeth. I’ll strangle her. She’s dead.

Byron’s hands stilled as soon as Nora sang the phrase associated with the song’s title. I heard him clear his throat before turning and walking out of the bathroom while I suddenly wished I hadn’t been so cheeky when tying his apron strings earlier. My arms buzzed with energy at the memory of being so close.

A second later, the sound of my bedroom door closing carried to me. When he reentered the bathroom, he closed that door too. We could still perceive the melody, but the words were now muffled—thank GOD—so I knew when Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” started up, but at least I didn’t have to hear him sing it.

“So . . .” I said, my mind casting about for something super boring to discuss so I would stop thinking about what it had been like to touch him. “Seen any good shows lately?”

“I don’t watch TV.”

“I didn’t know that.” My attention lifted to inspect his face. “Then why do you own one?”

“I should’ve been more precise. I watch movies, not television shows.”

“Why do you watch movies instead of shows?”

He moved the section of my hair he’d just finished painting and picked up the bottle with the dye, squeezing out a bit more. “I like to be finished.”

“Finished?”

“I like stories that have an ending. I dislike not knowing what happens next.”

I smiled. Then I chuckled. “And you ended your first book on a massive cliffhanger, a brutal one.”

Not looking up, Byron lifted an eyebrow, his mouth threatening to curve. “Are you complaining?”

“Not at all.” I raised my hands. “But you are clearly a sadist.” Even with the skylight open, the smell of the dye was making me light-headed. Or maybe it was being shut inside this tiny bathroom with the guy who occupied most of my waking thoughts. And many of my sleeping thoughts.

“I accept that,” he said with a casual air, like he really did accept the label of sadist and wore it with pride.

“You like that label? You’re okay being called a sadist?”

He smiled . . . kinda. His jaw slid to the side, and he flipped another section of my hair. “I don’t mind it.”

“I’m more of a masochist myself.”

His hands stilled, his gaze cut to the mirror, met mine, held, and I struggled to breathe. So I didn’t.

After a long moment, during which I felt certain the tension had taken on a corporeal form and if I lifted my hand I’d touch it, Byron blinked and dropped his eyes to the top of my head.

Whoa. What was that? Surely, I didn’t imagine that. Surely not.

“I don’t like to hurt people,” he said, his voice gruff and rumbly. “But I don’t mind . . . torturing them a little.”

I expelled a laugh that felt hot in my lungs.

He wanted to torture people? Well, mission accomplished, buddy.

At the thought, I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from erupting in unhinged laughter. I said nothing as I struggled and wrestled with myself. Truly, it was myself that I struggled against, all of me. Not just my neurotransmitters or biology or body, but every atom of every cell. I had chosen the dark side. It had cookies and Byron.

Speaking of cookies, my stomach rumbled, the sound drawing me from my reverie, and I reflexively pressed a hand to it.

“Are you hungry?” He shifted behind me, sliding the pointy end of the brush through my hair to separate it.

“I didn’t have dinner, but it’s okay. I can wait.”

“Do you want to order out? I could eat.”

“I thought you said you already ate?”

His shoulders rose and fell. “I’ve been running a lot.”

“Oh? Where do you run?”

“Through Interlaken Park.”

“Really?” That got my attention. “I’ve always wanted to run there, but I don’t want to go by myself.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Excellent. It’s a d—” I bit off the word date, scratching my jaw, and finished clumsily, “—darn good idea.”

His features told me he thought I was funny, or cute, or something like that.

My stomach rumbled again, louder this time.

“I’m almost finished. Do you already have something made? I can heat it up.”

“Sadly, nothing fantastic. I need to go grocery shopping. But we could do peanut butter on almond crackers.”

“If I ordered food, would you eat some?”

“Nah. It’s fine.”

“Because I’d pay for it? You don’t want me to—”

“No. It’s not like that.” If he wanted to pay for takeout, fine. I wasn’t proud in that way. Like Amelia, free food was my jam. If someone freely offered, I’d slather it on toast.

“Will you tell me why?”

My talkative stomach growled a third time. “I don’t like to order from restaurants that aren’t exclusively gluten-free. They say they have gluten-free options, but the kitchen is shared, and I get so sick if I have even a little bit.”

Eyes on me, features thoughtful, he said, “So what you’re saying is, I shouldn’t take you to the National Festival of Breads.”

I laughed, and he cracked a smile, and it was so nice.

“Hey, why don’t we order from a gluten-free restaurant?” He gently pushed my head forward to access the area right above my neck.

“You’d be okay with that?”

“Yeah. Food is food. I don’t care where we order from. While the dye sits, you call and order for both of us. It’ll be a work-related meal. We’ll talk about the trip to New York, and I’ll expense it.”

“You can do that?”

“I can do anything.”

Glad he couldn’t see my face, I gave into the urge to roll my eyes. “Of course you can. I bet you’ve never experienced a single embarrassing moment in your entire perfect life,” I said, poking fun. “You probably didn’t even go through puberty. You just woke up one morning looking like that”—I waved to his body—“birds making your bed and tying your hair in ribbons, mice sewing the holes in your socks.”

“Everyone has embarrassing moments. Besides, you knew me in college. You know what I looked like.”

“Yeah. Cute.”

His movements seemed to slow. “You thought I was cute?”

Oh no. Change the subject!

“Story time. Tell me about your most embarrassing moment.”

I heard him sigh. “No.”

“No?”

“Fine. Tell me your most embarrassing moment and I’ll think about it.”

“Okay . . .” I pulled in a bracing breath, only giving myself two seconds for wisdom and good sense to raise alarms before shoving them away. My uncle had caused me mortification plenty of times, but none of his antics held the top spot in my memory. This was likely because I expected it of him. Surprise embarrassment, when you least expect it and can’t prepare for it, is always so much worse.

I’d only told Amelia this story. But for some reason, I wanted to tell him too. “My freshman year of high school, when I was fourteen, I was wearing white shorts and I started my period—at school.”

He said nothing, but I could sense him listening with interest.

“My cycle was so random then, I hadn’t had it for two months before that, and I didn’t know I’d started it, so I was walking around with these big blood stains on my butt.”

“Damn.”

“That’s not the worst part.”

“Oh no.”

“Yeah.” I was pleased he still couldn’t see my face. It made reliving the memory easier. “So. This boy, this senior, came up to me in the hall between classes and was friendly. And he was really, really handsome, and seemed super nice and flirtatious. He asked me if he could walk me to my class. I was so starstruck by this upper classman who seemed to be interested in me, I was like, ‘Yes! Absolutely.’ So he walked me to class, asking me all these questions about myself. He pretended to hang on every word. By the time we made it to my class, I was completely infatuated with him. It was so sad, how quickly I fell and how a little positive attention made me feel.”

“What happened next?”

“When we arrived at my classroom, he said goodbye, and that was it.”

“That wasn’t it.” Byron’s voice had deepened. He’d stopped brushing my hair with the dye.

“No. It wasn’t. Only later—when I was tagged in a post on Instagram—did I realize that his friends, basically half of the varsity soccer team, were behind us filming my bloodstained shorts and he’d been surreptitiously turning to make gagging faces at the camera the whole time.”

“What a—”

“Sheep-biting footlicker? Yeah.” I chuckled, the sting of the memory so much duller than the last time I’d thought about it. All that hot embarrassment I used to feel—the discomfort and twisting in my stomach—it was all gone, replaced with a tepid mournfulness for the fourteen-year-old girl who’d been mortified.

“I was going to say what a bunch of trash humans, but sheep-biting footlicker also works.”

“They called me Carrie in the video—you know, from the Steven King book—and that was my nickname my entire freshman year.”

I felt the brush move over my scalp again, his movements not as fluid as before.

“And that’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“How do you do it?” he asked, his voice tight.

“What?”

“If I were you—no, that’s not—what I’m trying to say is, if you were anyone else in the world, you’d never go on social media again. How do you keep doing it? Why do you do it to yourself? Why do you put yourself out there like that?” He sounded so upset, like the story had happened to him.

“Because I have to.”

“No. You don’t.” Tossing the brush to the sink, he wrapped the plastic around my head. “You could delete all your accounts today, end all the feedback and noise.”

“No, I couldn’t.” I watched him in the mirror as he yanked his gloves off. “I need to make my STEM videos, I need to—”

“But you don’t.” He threw the gloves in the trash, glaring at the interior of my bathroom and looking incredibly agitated. “Your audience doesn’t need you. There are other resources for people, other accounts. You don’t need to do this to yourself.”

“You’re not listening.” I twisted in the seat before standing from the chair, lifting the back to fold it. “I didn’t say that they need me. I said I need to make those videos. I need it. I need a place, a—a platform to share my love for physics and chemistry and biology and engineering and the beauty of how the world works in perfect harmony and disharmony and all of it. I get excited about articles I read, and I want to share what I’ve learned, what I know. I want to help.”

While I was speaking, Byron took the chair from my grip and rested it against the wall. “Even when they don’t want your help? Even when a video of a woman taking a literal shit on TikTok gets a thousand times more engagement than your videos on STEM?”

I reared back, my mind working. Either he’d been on TikTok recently or he’d just made an excellent guess. I doubted it was the latter. Which meant he’d seen the comments saying how stupid, ugly, and unworthy I was.

Gulping more air than saliva, I ignored the press of heat behind my eyes. “Yeah. Even then.”

“I don’t understand you.” He moved as though to push his hands through his hair but stopped himself at the last minute, turning and opening the door.

“That’s okay.”

The music, still playing from the family room, was louder in my bedroom, and I could hear Billie Eilish’s “Ocean Eyes” reverberating through the door.

“I mean it.” He paced away. “You’re so amazing. So incredibly clever and brave and good. And you just give away these gifts to undeserving people.”

I placed my hands on my hips. “First of all, how do you know they’re all undeserving? Statistically speaking, it’s not possible for them all to be undeserving. It’s just a small minority that leaves mean comments. And second, you give away your gifts too.”

“Oh really?” He stopped pacing and shot daggers at me. “Pray tell, how so?” His question dripped with sarcasm, putting me on edge and making my heart race.

This is Byron. You can trust Byron. He’d never do anything to hurt you on purpose.

“Your books. Your words and thoughts, your imagination.”

“I do not give my books away. I charge people for the work I do.”

I straightened, my temper spiking. His unsubtle dig at me being a teacher made me see red. “Is that why you don’t have social media? Because you can’t make money off it? Charge people for access?”

“No,” he ground out, his jaw ticking. “If people want a piece of me, then they’re only getting what they pay for, and only what I want them to see. And that’s it.”

I shook my head at him. “You are one greedy, stingy b—” I caught myself before saying bastard and recovered “—Byron.”

But he knew. He knew I’d almost called him a mean name, and his gaze flashed with hurt before it grew impossibly dark.

See? This is why you don’t call people mean names!

“Yeah. I am a bastard. But I know my worth, Fred. And fuck those people who think they’re entitled to any part of me I’m not willing to share.”

My temper deflated, my shoulders slumping. “Byron—”

“No. Really. Fuck them. They want to slice me up into little pieces, discuss me and my history, my past, my origin, my worthiness like I’m a flavor of soda instead of a person, put me on a list and rank me.” He shook his head, his eyes on me. “Fuck. Them.”

The vulnerability and vehemence in his voice left me breathless with remorse. I’d struck a nerve, an extremely raw one if his restless, rigid posture—as though he were ready to beat the shit out of some hypothetical online trolls—was any indication.

Rushing forward, not wanting him to leave before I could apologize, I gripped his arms. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that about being—about being greedy. I’m sorry.”

He continued glaring at me, his breathing not labored, but not steady either. “Did Amelia tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

His hands came to my waist, his eyes searching. “About my family?”

“No. She’s never talked about your family. Why?” Then a jolt of alarm had me blurting, “She didn’t tell you about mine, did she?”

He shook his head.

Thank goodness.

The line of his shoulders eased, a tiny lowering of his guard, but I took it as a good sign. Hesitating for a second, I hugged him. Tightly. His posture told me I’d surprised him, how he held himself away, and I slammed my eyes shut, silently begging him to relax into the embrace.

His hands at my waist lingered, but then he opened his palms and slid them around my back, wrapping me in his arms as well.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated.

His chest rose and fell with a sigh. “Don’t be sorry.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

His hand at the center of my back flexed and I felt his small laugh, the tension fully releasing from his bones. “Your hair smells terrible.”

I smiled at that, my cheek curving against his chest. “It does, doesn’t it?” Leaning back so I could see his face but keeping my arms locked around his torso, I peered up at him. “I am sorry.”

“If you need me to say it, you are forgiven.”

Holding his magnificent stare, I decided I needed to be honest with him. But since I couldn’t fully escape my ingrained habits, I tightened my arms in mock punishment and tried to make my feelings sound like a joke. “You make me so mad when you say things like I don’t know my own worth. I know my worth. See how strong I am?”

If I could ignore the comments, then so could he.

His eyelids lowered by half, telling me he was not impressed, not with my attempts to squeeze his muscular body into submission, nor with my assertion that I knew and appreciated my worth.

“If you say so.”

I made a growling sound. “I do. You have to trust me. I don’t let those comments get to me at all.”

“You shouldn’t have to deal with them in the first place.” His hand lifted to my hairline and fiddled with the plastic.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure they’ll die down soon.”

His body stiffened, his eyes cutting to mine. He blinked. “What?”

“The comments. They’ll stop soon.”

Byron’s hands closed over my arms and gently guided me away. “Wait. What are we talking about? What will die down soon?”

“The—” I snapped my mouth shut. Apparently, Byron didn’t know. He hadn’t seen the comments, at least not the deluge of recent comments within the last two weeks. “Uh . . .”

His eyes narrowed with suspicion and his focus went blurry, giving me the sense he was replaying our conversation, searching for clues.

I twisted my fingers, shifting my weight between my feet. Time to change the subject. “We should rinse out the dye.”

Sending me a quick, hard look, Byron turned and pulled out his phone in one smooth movement. His smartphone.

My heart jumped to my throat, and I reached around him to grab the phone. “Don’t—”

He held me away. And when I made another grab for it, he stepped on top of my bed like it was a six-inch stair instead of a mattress three and a half feet off the ground. Soon we were playing king of the mountain, him gently shoving me off each time I tried to summit it.

“Byron. Don’t.” My throat tight with anxiety, I fought to put force into it. “Seriously, it’s time to rinse my hair.”

“Go ahead,” he said, his attention on his phone. “You don’t need me to . . .” His eyes widened. Then they narrowed. Then his lips parted, the veins in his forehead and neck suddenly in stark relief under his pale skin.

I covered my face with my hands. “Crap.”

As diligent as I’d been about deleting the nasty comments and blocking the accounts, it was like playing whack-a-mole. I knew, without a doubt, what he found, what he currently read.

If haters and trolls applied their perseverance and determination to solving world hunger, we’d all be well-fed.

The springs on the bed made a sound, and I let my arms drop. He was now on the ground and had looked up from the phone. But his eyes weren’t on me, and he seemed to be struggling to hold on to his composure.

“Hey. Hey. It’s—”

“Don’t say it’s okay.”

I balled my hands into fists, grimacing. “It’s not okay. But it is what it is. And I’m not letting it bother me. You shouldn’t either.”

He pinched his lower lip with his thumb and forefinger over and over, squeezing and releasing.

“Byron. Please.”

Glassy eyes sliced to mine, and beneath the fury I saw sorrow. “They’re hurting you.” His voice, low and quiet, shook.

I blinked against a rush of liquid emotion and covered his hand holding the phone with mine, gently prying it from his fingers. “They’re not. I don’t let them. Please don’t let them hurt you either.”

The contact spread warmth through my body and I had to resist the urge to touch him elsewhere, pull him close, pepper his face and neck with kisses.

He shook his head, refusing to look at me, and said nothing. I suspected he couldn’t speak, not yet.

I took his phone. “Now I’m going to order a gluten-free feast and wash my hair. And you’re going to open a bottle of Amelia’s wine. And then we’re going to drink and eat well. And do you know why?”

Throat working to swallow, he gave his head a quick shake.

“Some people are going to hate no matter what we do or who I try to be, so I might as well just be myself. Our job isn’t to stress about them or please them, it’s to ignore them and nullify their squeaky wheels by being awesome. Or—” Unable to stop myself from touching him this time, give him some comfort, I reached up and cupped his cheek. He immediately covered my hand with his, pressing it to his jaw and leaning into my touch “We drink champagne and watch their hater heads explode when our successes far outpace their poison. And then we let them choke on it.”