Southern Hospitality Ch. 01

Ash looked to her, trying to act relaxed. "What do you mean?.."
She let out a giggle and shook her head, going back to her work. "Nothing sweetie. Nothing."
He bit his lip to stifle any response and swiftly made his way upstairs to the relative safety of his own room, letting out a relaxed sigh, glancing at his phone, still on his desk as if expecting it to buzz. To his relief, it remained silent.
The rest of the evening proceeded without incident, allowing him the opportunity to relax and unwind. To help him with this, he spent an hour on facetime with Veronica, one his friends. She seemed a little off, constantly trying to hide and stifle small laughs and giggles. He figured she must have been watching something funny on YouTube as they were speaking but he was uncertain.
Eventually, though he found himself yawning, a tiredness setting in and he made his excuses to Veronica, she waved, a bright and almost teasing smile on her lips as she shook her head, giggling again as she hung up the call.
He stretched his arms out as he made his way to the bathroom. As he entered, intending to step into the shower he spotted himself in the mirror.
The same slender teen looked back at him as had the night before. But planted on the soft skin of his cheek was a very vibrant and incredibly obvious lipstick mark, the color a dark cherry and perfectly shaped like Laura's luscious lips.
He stared at himself, humiliated and embarrassed, realizing now what his mom and Veronica had been laughing about. Flushed with colour he rolled up a bunch of toilet roll and dampened it with water, started to dab and rub at the lipstick, but it only served to smear it around.
Biting his lip in concentration he opened up the bathroom cabinet and poked through the bottles until he found his mom's makeup remover and some white cotton balls. He'd seen his friends use these often enough that embarrassingly he knew how to remove makeup. He added a drop of creamy fluid to the cotton ball and started to wipe gently at his face.