"I want to live in the city," Kennedy says.
"You all will move there for university, right?" Erin asks.
Kennedy, Liam and I make sounds of agreement.
"Do you know what you want to study for uni, Curtis?" Erin asks.
Before I can answer, Liam speaks. "Commerce, right?"
I look at him over Kennedy's head, but his expression is free of malice.
"Yeah," I answer. "How did you know that?"
"Anyone could have guessed," Liam says with a shrug and turns to the cousins. "Curtis takes all the money subjects, like accounting, economics —"
"Ooh," Bonnie replies. "You must be good at maths to do those subjects."
"Not really—"
"He takes Specialist Maths," Liam answers. "He's also read every finance book you can think of."
I furrow my brows as I look at him. "What are you doing?" I'd think he's making fun of me, but his voice isn't quite dry enough. Maybe he's trying to do it subtly, so he doesn't look like a dickhead in front of the cousins.
"Telling them about you," he answers.
"I can tell them about myself."
Kennedy, sensing the tension in my voice, jumps in. "Curtis, why don't you tell everyone what you're reading at the moment?"
I hesitate because it is a finance book. "It's called Investing for Young Australians."
"Oh, I think I've heard of that," Erin says. "I need to get on learning more about personal finance."
"Me too," Kennedy adds, although I know she has no interest in the topic — I've bored her every time I talked to her about it, and while I appreciate her pretending to listen, I'd rather not bore her at all. "What about everyone talks about the book they're reading?" she asks.
"This is like an ice-breaker your English teacher forces you to do," Bonnie giggles. "I'm not reading anything at the moment."
"I'm reading The Goldfinch," Erin answers.
"That's one of those fancy literary novels," Bonnie says, turning in the passenger seat to roll her eyes at us. "You're making the rest of us look bad."
We chuckle, and I notice that the landscape outside has changed from Easton to the grey highway that slices through farms filled with lazy sheep.
"What about you, Liam?" Kennedy turns to him.
"I'm not reading anything. Unless fanfiction counts," he says.
"Fanfiction?" I say, brows shooting up. That's the last thing I'd expect Liam to read. Unless it's fanfiction of some obscure TV show because that would make sense.
"I know, I'm such an intellectual," Liam replies.
"I'm reading Hippolytus," Kennedy jumps in. "For English class. Bonnie, are you reading that at your school too?"
"What kind of fanfiction?" I ask Liam.
"No, we're reading a Shakespeare play," Bonnie answers. "We don't start it until next term. I forgot the title, but people say the main dude is in love with his mum. I don't know why schools make us read such weird books."
"Why do you care?" Liam snaps.
