I put my tongue to my cheek. “Fuck you, D.”
He chuckled. “In the next life, maybe. I already have a husband now, so you’re out of luck.”
I laughed airily. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
I heard the amusement in his voice as he said, “Yes, I’m well aware of that, thank you very much.” There was some noise in the background, and then he asked, “So, what are you going to do now?”
I exhaled and placed a hand on the wheel. “Go home and hope Zaira doesn’t have a hangover when she wakes up. She’s definitely a light drinker, but I don’t know how that’ll affect her once she’s up. I’ll see, though.”
“She’s sleeping?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m really sorry, G,” Dylan said. “It was immature of me to spike her drink. I did it because I wasn’t expecting you two to leave the restaurant so early. I thought you’d stay longer and I’d be able to break the news of having put alcohol in her drink to the both of you. If I’d known you weren’t going to stay, I wouldn’t have done it. I thought it’d be safe and fun to do it when she was surrounded by all of us. I didn’t think rationally, and I’m sorry for that.” The regret in his voice was clear as day, which made me sigh.
“It’s fine, D. It’s done; she’ll be okay,” I said to him.
“If she’s upset when she wakes up, will you tell me? I’ll apologize to her personally.”
I smiled. “I will, I promise.”
“Okay.” He cleared his throat again. “She’s a stellar fucking human being, G. She’s amazing, and I’m so glad I’m friends with her.”
My smile turned into a grin. “She’s pretty darn epic, isn’t she?”
Dylan chuckled. “Sure is.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Don’t worry about anything, alright? I’ll talk to her about the drink thing. I’m pretty confident she won’t be upset or angry when she learns it’s you who did it.”
“Who did what?” Zaira asked groggily.
I turned and looked at her. “Hey, you’re up.” I ran a knuckle over her chin when she sat up straighter and looked at me.
She leaned into my touch. “I don’t know what happened. Everything is kind of slurry,” she said.
I chuckled and put my phone on speaker. “Well, I got to see averydifferent side of you today, thanks to Dylan,” I told her.
“Tell Zaira I’m sorry!” Dylan hollered.
Zaira glanced between me and my phone with confusion on her face.
“Tell her yourself; you’re on speaker,” I said to Dylan.
“Zaira, babe, I’M SO SORRY! I didn’t mean to spike your drink, but–”
“You didwhat?!” Zaira cut him off.
“Uh…” There was a pause. “Sorry?”
“You know I don’t drink, Dylan!”
“But you said you wanted to try!”
“Not like this, I didn’t!”
He groaned. “Sorry…”
Zaira sighed and looked at me. “I really said those things to the bookstore lady, didn’t I? I wasn’t dreaming; it was real.”
