“But you’re willing to take the truck to the same place, for it to happen again, because that makes a whole lot of sense.” I rolled my eyes.
She rested the coffee cup on the hood of her truck and narrowed her eyes at me. “What, exactly, do you want me to do here? My sister’s busy. My brother’s bike won’t fit both of us. Doc is at the fire station. Koda is in fucking Afghanistan. And the rest of the Truth Tellers don’t freakin’ like me! So who the hell am I supposed to be calling for a ride? I literally have four hundred dollars in my bank account right now until after Christmas. Why do you think I took this random job?”
I rolled my eyes. “Dramatic much? I know for a fact your sister has enough money to fund a small country. I also know that she gave you some money, which I overheard you’re not touching for some high and mighty reason. You have the money.”
“She has money,” she said fiercely. “I don’t. I am not a fucking charity case. I’ll pay my own way even if it kills me.”
On that parting comment, she stormed to her truck and got inside.
She put it in reverse, and I had just enough time to pull her coffee off the hood of her truck before she peeled out of the driveway.
I waited to see if she’d look back at me, but she never turned around or acknowledged me at all.
So I took a sip and headed back to my house, where Harlow was still waiting.
“She doesn’t like you,” Harlow pointed out.
“She doesn’t like anybody,” I said as I took another sip of coffee. It was shit, but it would do. “What are we doing today again?”
Harlow sighed. “You’re taking me shopping so I can get the rest of my Christmas presents.”
“Oh, yeah,” I grumbled. “Yay.”
Because that was exactly what I wanted to do—drive around Dallas last-minute Christmas shopping when I fucking hated shopping. Great.
“You need to suck it up,” she said. “And I know what you’re thinking. Why did she wait until the last minute to shop? Well, I didn’t. Christmas is literally ten days away. Last minute would mean that I’d waited until the day before. Heck, this is still plenty of time to get stuff delivered from actual stores.”
She had a point.
“Let me get dressed, then we can go.”
She eyed me. “Don’t get dressed on my account.”
I flipped her off and headed to my bedroom.
When I came out, I found her helping herself to my cookies.
“Don’t,” I said. “They have nuts in them, and you don’t like nuts.”
She immediately put the cookie back.
I also felt slightly bad that I’d told her the cookie had nuts when it didn’t.
I just didn’t like the idea of sharing the cookies that Calli had gotten for me with her.
Which was weird, since I didn’t mind sharing anything with Harlow.
She was my best friend for a reason.
I shared more with her than I did with my own sister at times, which truly made Sophia pissy.
But Harlow was there when no one else was.
She was my ride or die.
I still wasn’t going to share my cookies with her, though.
Nine
