I shove a shrimp in my mouth and feel like Emma with her protein bar yesterday. Was that seriously just yesterday? “Anddo notsay my name in thatI’m about to tell you something you don’t want to hear, but you need to hear it, so I’m going to say it anywaytone. I cannot handle that tone right now.”
“Here. Have more mai tai.”
I gulp.
Give her thedo not tell me what I don’t want to heareyeball.
Thethere is not enough alcohol in the world for whatever it is, and I have barely had a teaspoon of iteyeball.
And she ignores me. “Emma told me our freshman year that Theo had a huge crush on you, but she made me swear not to tell because he was super embarrassed about it.”
“So it’s embarrassing to like me.”
She shoves a piece of shrimp in my mouth. “Your parents made sure to tell him he wasn’t good enough for you, and he was embarrassed because he thought they were right.”
“Abagabbagoo?”
“Don’t talk with shrimp in your mouth. Here. Eat another one.”
I bat the second shrimp away. “Sabrina. That’sawful.”
“Theo in high school wasn’t good foranyone. He had all of his wild but none of his sense.”
“What does that mean?”
“Remember when he got suspended for…actually, pick a time he got suspended. Any of them.”
I grimace, recall the time he sat on a copy machine at school after hours and scanned his ass, which he then labeled as the principal’s ass and hung ten thousand copies of all over town, and take another swig of mai tai. Good thing it’s super weak. For the number of mai tais I want right now, I wouldn’t be able to walk later if they weren’t.
God, I’m boring.
“He crossed lines he won’t cross now,” Sabrina says, “because he finally figured out the consequences got bigger once he was old enough to understand how much he didn’t want to spend time in jail. And he has…a job…now, and—”
“What does he do?”
“What do you mean, what does he do?”
“You hesitated when you saida job. What does he do? For money? For rent and food and cloth—no, wait, he doesn’t wear clothes anymore apparently, but I assume he has a car, so he needs money for gas and insurance too. And possibly a coat and boots for back home.”
Sabrina grins at me from under her straw hat, which matches mine since we went shopping for them together two weeks ago. “Even on mai tais, you are so veryDelaney.”
“What does that mean?”
“I just love that you worry about how anyone pays for car insurance. Did you know you reminded me to pay my insurance bill just now? Hold on. Let me pull up my phone and do that before I forget.”
“Your insurance bill auto-pays, and you’re trying to distract me.”
“I am not,” she lies. With a massive grin. “Oh, hey, look. I got a picture of my puppy from the dog sitter. Want to see my cutie-pie?”
“Distraction!”
She grins bigger. “Laney. I’m offended.”
She is not.
But fine.
Fine. “You know what? You’re right. It doesn’t matter.”
