a/n: A gift of Layla at the 🔝
Don't forget to follow, vote and comment!
******
"No. No, no and no." Layla huffed, shaking her head to the sides and making all her crazy colored hair fly in every direction. She reminded me of those rock singers onstage when they swung their heads this way and that like mad and you worried their heads would eventually fall out.
It suited her, the rock style.
It was Friday evening, the day of the party, and while Layla and Hannah were dressed on their party clothes, I was sitting on my bed cross legged tugging the lint out of my black fleece sweatpants.
I had gone into a crisis a few hours ago when I opened my closet and started rummaging through my clothes for something nice to wear. It was so careless of me to not think about it beforehand. I mean, most girls have selected their outfits for every single day till they reach thirty and here was I, in sweatpants. Fleece sweatpants.
I didn't even know what girls usually wore to this kind of parties. I've never been to one in my life.
That's why, after turning my closet upside down and noticing it was too late to go shopping, I'd called the girls letting them know about my predicament. They came straight away.
It felt good to have friends I could count on.
The only problem was that Layla hated my wardrobe choices.
"That's it. I might as well go naked." I joked, dropping back on the mattress.
Layla snorted.
We've been inside my bedroom for at least an hour and she had declined almost every single outfit I owned. I was considering never asking for her help again.
"Why? What's wrong with this one?" Hannah asked, lifting a bright orange tank my mother made me buy on our shopping trip saying the color suited me.
"It's orange." Layla answered like the answer was obvious.
And it was.
Hannah rolled her eyes. "Not everyone's favourite color is black."
"Shame."
A laugh escaped my lips. "Seriously? I've been parading every outfit on my closet and you are now saying you rejected each one of them because of the color?"
I couldn't believe her! Why didn't she just give me something black to try on?
She gave me an innocent expression. It did not suit her. Not at all.
"Incredible." I muttered.
"I like this one." Hannah lifted a long sleeved shirt in her hands and I jumped up in bed.
The shirt she was holding had white and gray vertical stripes, but the reason I bought it were the small slashes at the side of the boat neckline which exposed the skin of the shoulders giving it a sexy conservative look, and the floaty sleeves long enough to cover part of the hands.
I totally liked that one too but I didn't know what to wear with it.
"I don't know what to wear with it." I admitted. "Isn't it like too formal for a party?"
"No way! You just have to know how to accessorize it." Hannah bounced happily and looked at Layla.
We waited for her approval.
She sighed. "At least it's not orange."
That was the best we'll get from her.
Hannah squealed and disappeared inside my closet again in search of something to pair it up with.
******
I stared at my reflection in the large mirror beside my bed. The striped shirt matched perfectly with the black leggings Hannah grabbed from the pile of clothes lying on my bed. She'd completed the look with a pair of black ankle boots. I honestly thought I looked great.
"I like it." Layla said peering behind me.
My eyes rolled to the back of my head. "Of course you do. I'm wearing black after all."
She gave me a wicked smile. "Not all."
"I love that shirt!" That was Hannah.
I turned around to smile at her. "I'll lend it to you whenever you want it."
Her face brightened. "Thanks! Now come here so I can do your hair and make up." Her hand tapped against the top of my study desk, gesturing me to sit in the chair. "Watch the master at work."
I closed my eyes as Hannah fuzzed around with my hair and my mind drifted to the moment Taylor invited us to his party and the strange reaction that sentence brought out of Ryan. I couldn't comprehend why he had reacted that way. What could have provoked him?
I'd been running over his words and actions in my head all week and I still had no answer.
But I'd come to one conclusion: Hannah did know something. She knew exactly how to calm him down. And the silent conversation that passed between them didn't go unnoticed to me either.
So I decided to ask her. After all, we were friends. I might not be as old a friend as Ryan, but friends told each other things right? Also, I was in the middle of this too.
I took a deep breath and asked. "What was wrong with Ryan last Tuesday?"
Hannah's fingers stilled in my hair for a second before she recovered and kept curling and twisting the strands. If I'd been distracted I wouldn't have noticed, but I did.
"What was wrong with Ryan?" Layla inquired closing the book she had been flipping through and dropping it on the bed.
Hannah sighed. "Nothing was wrong with him. He just--" She shook her head slightly. "He's just overly protective sometimes."
"Oh. Yeah." Layla said as if she understood completely.
I, instead, was trying to tie loose ends and failing miserably.
He was protective all right, but I still couldn't understand why he'd be protective of me. I wasn't stupid. There were plenty of reasons. He could be jealous of Taylor and trust me, I'd considered it, but it wasn't that. He hadn't reacted like that because of the fact that Taylor talked to me or invited me to his party, it was the fact that I was going to a party that made him snap.
And then there was Hannah's avoidance of the topic and Layla's.
Why did she say 'oh' as if she knew what Hannah was talking about? Why didn't they just tell me?
I sighed in frustration.
"Don't worry about him. He's fine. It's just that parties aren't his thing. It's got nothing to do with you." Said Hannah.
There it was again.
Parties aren't his thing.
Maybe it wasn't my place. Maybe they were Ryan's secrets and as good friends they didn't want to give them away to just anybody. The thing is I wasn't just anybody. I wanted to get to know him, but it seemed like there was this cloud of mystery and suspense between us that made him unreachable.
And then I knew.
I knew that if I wanted to know him I couldn't do it through others, I'll have to reach out myself because nobody else would tell me anything but him.
And I had this feeling in my bones that it would be risky, but it would be worthy.
After all, didn't I just sign for a senior year full of surprises and new experiences? Those never happened if you didn't take risks first.
And I was about to take one.
YOU ARE READING
Reckless Play | ✓
Teen Fiction"This thing between us." He said, gesturing to the space between our bodies. "It's bound to happen. You know it. I know it." He tipped his head to the side and lowered his face until it was inches from mine. I sucked in a breath when those vibrant...
