I couldn’t argue with any of this so I sipped my beer in silence. When Parker tossed his empty bottle in the recycling and poured himself a glass of water, I said, “I’m sorry. For staying away.”
Parker flopped back into his seat. “I can’t even blame you for it. I would’ve done the same thing. I probably will, after graduation.” He held up a hand. “Before you say anything, no, this is not an opening to talk about colleges.”
I shook my head. “Wasn’t planning on it.”
He pressed his hands together and turned his gaze to the ceiling. “Thank you, god.”
“About protection,” I said, because we could not add a surprise baby to this situation.
“Condoms,” he said tersely. “And just because you think you know what you saw tonight doesn’t mean you know shit.”
“Please don’t explain any of that to me. Just—just use the condoms. Every time. Always.”
“Hey, why are you here?” he asked.
“Is this another one of your philosophical questions? Like, what is consciousness?”
He rolled his eyes like I was unbearable. “No, I mean, why are you here tonight? I thought you were with Sunny.”
“Do you always invite girls over here when I’m with Sunny? Because condoms or not, that isn’t—”
“Dude, no,” he cried, drilling a finger on the table. “If you’re determined to parent me, you’re going to have to be a lot less obvious about it.”
I blinked at him. This fucking kid. “I’ll do my best.”
“Now, why aren’t you with Sunny?”
“I don’t spend every night with her,” I said.
He bobbed his head. “Wow, so, you really fucked up?”
“No,” I said with more vehemence than necessary. “I did not fuck anything up.”
“It was a matter of time,” he said, sage as always. “It sure as hell wasn’t going to be Sunny to fuck it up.” He leaned back, folded his arms once again. “What did you do?”
I drained the beer and mirrored his stance. “I’m not really sure what I did,” I said. “And I don’t know if I can undo it.”
chaptertwenty-eight
Sunny
Today’s Special:
Hand-Crushed Hope
“So,you said it was okay that he’s leaving town because y’all are just hanging out? And that’s when the malfunction occurred?” Muffy asked.
“Pretty much,” I yelled over the shower.
She murmured something I couldn’t make out as she scrubbed my scalp. True friends were the ones who offered to engage in bent-over-the-bathtub acrobatics and wash your hair when you only had one functional hand. She’d probably say it was payback for all the times I’d sat in emergency rooms with her after anaphylactic incidents or when I tended to her hair after a slipup with knives required twenty-five stitches across four fingers, but she would’ve done this without any of that history, and we both knew it.
“I think he expected me to take his news a little harder,” I said. “He definitely wasn’t expecting me to say ‘Yeah, dude, I figured as much.’”
“I’m going to bet he didn’t expect you to toss out thejust having funbit either,” she said.
“Um, no, he did not.” I paused while she rinsed out the shampoo. She even shielded my ears from the spray. Muff was the whole damn best. “I think it hurt his feelings.”
“No shit.” She cackled. “The boy has been overboard for you since the first time you told him to go fuck himself.”
