“Nope,” he tells her. “Café’s too crowded.”
She wrinkles one cheek at him as she rubs her lower belly. “That’s your temper-tantrum face.”
He points to his own face. “This is a smile.”
She glances at my purse, still flung over Dylan’s shoulder, and my dog, who’s staring up at him like she wants to lick him but only if it’ll help.
“That’s a fake smile.” Hannah steps closer and leans into him like she can read the truth of how he’s feeling in his eyes.
She probably can.
They’ve been friends forever, right?
When I get to Costa Rica, I won’t have to watch them together. Ever.
But the thought doesn’t help.
I’ll miss him.
I’ll miss Anya and Bridget.
The snowshoe baseball team.
The sight of Jane and Teague and Willie Wayne out on the lake in their boats. The sight of Phoebe occasionally falling into the lake.
The half-finished Ferris wheel.
“Did someone bring up prom?” she asks him.
I lean in closer when his cheek twitches again. His nostrils flare, and I suddenly don’t like Hannah for making that happen.
“Some old man told me I’m too fat to wear these pants, and it made him mad,” I say. “I’d sayisn’t he the sweetest, but of course, you already know he is.”
Hannah looks me up and down. “Where do you even find pants like that?”
“These?” I twist, lifting a hand to hold my hat on while looking down at the rainbow-striped leggings that make me look like Rainbow Brite’s sidekick. “Oh, Gianni Versace sent them to me to test out.”
Yes, yes, I’m lying.
I snagged them at the Pink Box here in town yesterday when I heard some teenage twatwaffle making fun of Bridget and her friends for wearing rainbow accessories.
Also?
The way Dylan’s giving me the eyeball ofdon’t be a twat yourself, Tavi, suggests he knows it as well as we all know he’s faking smiling at Hannah.
I dial up my own fake smile and wish for the bajillionth time that I were in Costa Rica.
Except at this point, I’d like to take half of Tickled Pink with me—anddefinitelyDylan.
“Could you please be a sweetie and drop me off at Patrice’s place?” I ask him. “She’s catering my brunch with the designer.”
“I’ll walk you over,” Phoebe says behind me.
I almost shriek with surprise, but it’s not her sudden presence.
It’s the no-nonsense,someone has some explaining to dotone.
Ihatethat tone.
