Dani and Theo looked at each other, and he smiled. Dani covered her face. “Oh God, no. It’s so embarrassing.”
“Come on! Tell us the story,” Andreas said.
“I can’t,” she said, shaking her head.
“Fine, I’ll tell them,” Theo said, and Dani reached over, putting her hands over his mouth and laughing as she tried to keep him from telling the tale.
“If you don’t tell us now, we’ll keep plying you with ouzo so you’ll eventually spill later,” Christos said.
“Thankfully, I’m not drinking ouzo,” Dani said.
“No, butheis,” Phoebe said.
Theo lifted his glass and took another shot of the clear liquid.
“Traitor,” Dani joked.
“Come on, Juicy. Just tell them.”
He smiled at her with that smile that would make her do almost anything he asked, despite him being so irritating earlier.
“Gah!” she yelled, throwing her arms in the arm. “Fine. But I will need a shot first.”
Phoebe leaned across the table and poured Dani a shot of ouzo. Taking a deep breath, Dani quickly tossed back the drink and shook her hands out to the side. Yuck, she hated the taste of licorice.
“Okay,” she said, placing her palms on the table, “so, we had this neighbor growing up. Ma Barker. She was a mean old witch. Always yelling at us if we so much as set a toe on her lawn.”
“Whose neighbor was she?” Phoebe asked. “Yours or Theo’s?”
“Mine,” Dani said.
“And where did you live?” Christos asked Theo.
“I lived a few blocks away,” Theo responded.
“Though he might as well have lived with us he was over at my house so often,” Dani said, teasingly.
“Oh, whatever. You liked it,” Theo said back.
Yeah. She did. Even if she’d never admit it.
Dani playfully sneered at him, then continued her story. “Anyway, Theo and my brother, Eddie, were on the softball team together when we were all in high school. And one day, they were out in our backyard playing catch and one of these idiots threw the ball into an open window at Ma Barker’s.”
“Accidentally,” Theo added.
“Hey, am I telling the story, or are you?” Dani said.
“Sorry,” he said, smiling and putting up his hands like he was about to be arrested. “Go ahead.”
“Like I said, they threw the ball through the window and wanted to get it back before Ma Barker got home. That’s when I caught them trying to climb inside and they got the brilliant idea to havemego instead, since I was the smallest. So they hoisted me up to the window, and I barely made it inside because the window was stuck halfway open. I got in the house, grabbed the ball, but when I was heading out, Ma Barker had come home. I was hurrying to get back out, and my shorts got caught on the window.”
Everyone was watching her with an intensity she hadn’t experienced since back in her high school days. No one was ever this enraptured by her stories anymore, probably because she rarelyhadstories like this nowadays.
She liked it.
“Theo and Eddie pulled and pulled at my arms, but eventually, I had to ditch my shorts. And…God, I can’t believe I’m telling this story,” she said, covering her eyes with her hand and shaking her head. “And the underwear I was wearing said ‘Juicy’ across the ass.”
“Like Juicy Couture?” Phoebe asked.
