She drops a folded hundred-dollar bill on the counter.
I look at her cleavage.
How much of my money did she shove in her cleavage while she was searching my car last night?
She laughs and pushes me. “Save it for the car, horndog.”
Carol checks Daphne’s hundred, and moments later, Daphne’s carrying an armful of shirts and chips and MegaHit energy drinks out to the car, with three lottery tickets sticking out where her hundred-dollar bill was a few minutes ago.
I’m horrified.
So horrified, in fact, that I get in the car, crank the engine, and I’m pulling away before I realize I forgot to put gas in the tank.
I look in the rearview mirror as another car slides into the slot I’ve just vacated. “Fuck.”
Daphne grins at me from the back seat. She’s discarded my flannel and is throwing a black Miles2Go T-shirt over her head. “So…Speedy Sloth across the street instead?”
Dammit.
Dammit.
She noticed I forgot to get gas too.
“I’m not going to Speedy Sloth.”
“Why not? You could get a Speedy Sloth Slushie. I’ll bet you’ve never had one.”
I will never.
Ever.
Ever.
Enter a Speedy Sloth gas station or convenience store.
Ever.
Fuckers added thatSpeedy Sloth Slushieto their offerings to compete with the Miles2Go Landslide Slushy—yes, they spelledslushythe other way—right after my father went to prison.
The number of meetings I sat through calling that a crisis—and the number of people who felt so strongly about it that it was like I was personally insulting their babies when I declared it wasn’t a crisis—just no.
Never.
“Do you want to stay in this car and continue with our deal, or do you want to see yourself out right now?” I ask Daphne.
She rolls her eyes. “Testy much? Fine. There’s a Quickie-Lickie on the other side of the highway.”
“Why is every gas station named something awful?” I mutter.
“Don’t diss on the Lickie. They have the best squeegees for cleaning all of the bugs off your windshield—don’t worry, I’ll walk you through that too—and they give away a free sucker withevery fill-up, and they’re not flavors you can find anywhere else. Have you ever had a mango root beer sucker?”
I gape at her in the rearview mirror.Mango root beer?
That sounds as awful as continuing this road trip with her in tow.
“Stop sign!” she shrieks.
I slam on the brakes as another car honks and veers around me while I’m halfway through the intersection.
