BELONGS TO ME

Chapter 2

I roll my eyes and fix her top as she looks over her body in the full-length mirror mounted to the wall in front of us.

"Thank you, Victoria, for your super summer sale," she mutters.

"She must be doing something wrong, because I don't see any secrets in this thing," I tease, and she blows me a kiss.

My best friend has an amazing body, Slim and tight in all the right places.

Hailee is an easy five-seven where I'm pushing five-two. She's tall, fit, and model-like with crazy eyes. While there's no denying it, she hates to be called Slim.

Growing up, people would tease her for being too tall and thin. I mean, they'd then get beat up by Carl or Harry , but still. It was bad for a while. The boys always tried to make her height seem insignificant, even when, for a minute there, she was taller than they were, but they couldn't take away the hurt the words of others caused her.

She's tried everything from all-carb diets to pharmaceutical drugs, even adding Ensure to her meals every single day for months, and nothing. Her metabolism simply doesn't work that way. Now that we've gotten older, she's learned to own it, has filled out more in other areas, and is constantly going with the boys to the gym to keep the bit of muscle she's added to give her more weight. Regardless, she's always had a confident attitude, the 'never let them see you sweat' type.

Hailee throws her long hair into a high ponytail and turns to me.

"Now." She tosses me my new red suit. "I'm dying to see how those babies look in this." She gestures to my chest.

"Seriously?"

"Oh, yeah, go hard or go home."

"Carl might just drag my ass home if I start with this." I scoff, picking it up, and look over the deep cut of the front. "This thing is like 'fifth date, trying to get lucky' worthy."

"You're talking like you didn't already undo your top to swap it."

"Touché." I strip out of the black suit, slipping into the tiny red one.

Hailee sprawls out on my bed, quickly checking her notifications, but then faces me when I spin, giving her my best Marilyn Monroe pose.

"Whatcha think?"

"I think you better thank the big man upstairs on the daily for those Dolly Ds he blessed you with." She looks me up and down. "These new-gen Baywatch babes got nothing on you."

"Why, thank you, friend. Now let's go."

I head toward the door.

"Wait," she rushes, crawling to the edge of the bed. "Let's talk for a sec."

It's clear she's nervous about something, so I drop onto the mattress next to her, waiting for her to speak.

"Our last trip ended in a sad shitstorm with your cousin and Deaton's car wreck. That was heavy, but this is our chance to end the summer on a good note."

"That's why we went home with our parents for a couple weeks, to press the reset button."

"No, I know, it's just now we're closer to the start of school, and once we get to Avix, our schedules are going to be all over the place. For the first time, we won't have a ton of free time together," she begins, a bit overly serious for her.

"Hailee , we're roommates." I laugh. "We'll see each other plenty and we'll always have the weekends."

"Yeah, but," she huffs. "I guess I just want to live it up, you know? This is the last time we'll have virtually no responsibility outside of not getting shit-faced and murdered."