I'm Your Wreck

7- You Tell Me

 "So, Banks," Quinn started as she grabbed one of the rickety metal carts at the front of the store. "How'd you get roped into living with my brother and his friends?"

"Ollie is my cousin and I transferred here to finish my last year," he answered easily, his shoulders slouched with ease as we walked on either side of the cart.

"Why'd you transfer?" she prodded, scanning a shelf of old candles that probably only smelled like musty attics anymore. Still, she lifted a 'lavender' one to her nose and cringed at the scent before returning it to the shelf.

"Just had a change of plans, needed to get away from home," he said, his voice easy even though I got the vibe that it was a sore subject for him when I asked the same question.

"Oh, what happened?" Quinn pressed, apparently unable to get the same vibe from his twitchy jaw.

"Quinn," I hissed at her, lightly elbowing her side.

"What?" she asked cluelessly. "Just asking."

"Just had a difference of opinion with my parents, I guess," he answered and then swiftly reversed the conversation to us by asking, "Are you guys from around here?"

"We grew up about an hour south, but I stayed here after graduating from Tate and Liam is ridiculously co-dependent on me, so he followed," she said, jabbing me back with an elbow to the ribs.

Banks and Quinn went back and forth with small talk questions until we reached the furniture section. She talked about her engineering major. Banks told her about how his first week at Tate had gone and the professors he had. I stayed quiet, lurking by the cart and trying not to get too in my head about my failed practice. Even at the store with my sister and Banks, it was hard to do.

"Lee, show him pictures of the bowl cut," Quinn suggested just as I was losing focus of the conversation.

"What?" I blinked at her slowly. "No, why would I do that?"

"Because it's funny," she said, taking a seat in one of the plush recliners. "Everybody loves the bowl cut story."

"Wait, there's a whole story?" Banks seemed amused, his eyes glancing over to me and waiting expectantly for the story.

I let out a long sigh, eyes looking up at the ceiling before I said, "I saw Enter the Dragon one time and decided I wanted to be Bruce Lee. So, I tried to cut my hair by myself and it turned into a bowl cut somehow."

Banks didn't even try to suppress his laugh. "How old were you?"

"Way too old to think it would have worked," Quinn interjected with her own laugh. To hide the red on my face, I turned away from both of them toward another chair that would fit in the living room and took a seat. "Come on, Lee, pull out the pictures."

"We're supposed to be looking for furniture," I reminded her in a low mumble.

"Well, nothing is going to match that god awful couch, so we might as well just grab the most comfortable ones, right?" Banks suggested, taking pity on me by dropping the bowl cut thing. If it was something that happened when I was little, I wouldn't be so embarrassed, but I was fifteen and the humiliation from it hadn't completely worn off yet.

In the end, we were able to find a longer couch that barely fit into the back of Banks's truck, and a folding card table with chairs that would act as a more functional dining table until we could get something else.

"I'm not forgetting about the bowl cut, by the way," Banks warned me after we'd gotten everything to squeeze into the bed of the truck. A light sheen of sweat beaded around his half smile. "We'll circle back on it later."