“How could you…? Wait…” Her eyes narrow. “So…you’re telling off yourdead husband?”
“Yeah?”
She spins around again, searching, I assume, for his ghost. “Can you hear him now?” she whispers anxiously.
I scrunch my face. “No. He’s a figment of my imagination.”
“Like a hallucination?” Her face holds both fascination and worry, like…tell me more, but alsolet me call a professional just in case.
“No. I havepretendconversations with my dead husband,” I say as though it is a normal and not-at-all-crazy thing to do. “He’s very snarky. And he prefers Arabic.”
She sucks in her lips for a second but decides to go with it. “What does he like to get snarky about?”
How should I explain this?
You could go the direct route. It would save you some time.
“My love life, or lack thereof. Or, I don’t know, my sudden desire to…do things?”
Parker cracks up, dabbing at the corner of her mouth with her napkin. “Hold up. I wanna make sure I got this right. Your dead husband,whom you talk to, who you know isdead, is making fun of you because all of a sudden you’rehorny?”
I sigh like a Disney princess and then aim my sandwich at a nearby trash can, nailing the shot. “That’s about the shape of things.”
Her dark, expressive eyes sparkle as her eyebrow goes up at a knowing angle. “So, does this mean you have someone you’re horny for? Perhaps a heavily tattooed silver fox with piercing blue eyes and a body to die for? Also, not for nothing, but I’m pretty sure he’s packing.”
I stare back at her with my mouth agape. “Were you looking at Everett’s crotch?”
“Do I detect a hint of jealousy?” Her smug, prim little smile would be annoying if it weren’t so amusing.
“No,” I growl out.
She laughs and punches my shoulder. “Sure, I believe you.”
Frustrated, I run both hands through my hair, no doubt making it look like my favorite anime character.
Nope, still Dragon Ball Z.
“Shut. Up. Asadi!”
Both of Parker’s eyebrows go up, and I bury my head in my hands, knowing she’s about three-point-five seconds from having me dragged off by the men in white coats.
“Fine.”
She does a bad job of suppressing her smile if that was her smirking intent at all. “Finewhat? Fine, you’re horny? Or fine, you’re horny forEverett?”
I make a slightly too-loud sound of frustration, frightening some of the students passing by. “Door number two,” I grit out through my teeth.
She claps her hands together, a little too happy about my fucked-up libido. “This. Is. Awesome.”
I peel my hands away from my face and glare at her. “This isnotawesome. This is not awesome atall. I had to buylube.”
She puts her forehead on my shoulder, shaking with laughter. “Honey, if you’re whispering the wordlube, you arenotready.”
I push her off me and take her bento box of veggie goodness, stealing her chopsticks for a bite. “I know that! You’re just as bad as Asadi!” I say through a mouthful, dropping some of it on my shirt.
She grabs her napkin and wipes away the bit of cauliflower before snatching her chopsticks back from me. “At least I’m, you know,real.”
She does have a point there.
