“What kind of night are we looking to have?” Mia asks on our short walk. “Dinner? Bar hopping? Cocktails? Jazz club?”
“I’m down to get sloppy,” I tell her, happy just thinking about how drunk I’m going to get. “We should start with beignets, then go to happy hour, then get a quick dinner, like a muffuletta or something, then see where the night takes us.”
She nods. “That works for me. I’ll have lots of opportunities to practice hitting on people if we hop around. Also, the alcohol will help.”
I shrug. “Sure.”
We walk into the air conditioning of our hotel lobby. We both look to the front desk, where Stacy with the eyelashes thankfully isn’t working. I don’t have the heart to turn her down.
“You should text Stacy to meet us out tonight,” Mia says, probably confusing my looking towards the desk with interest.
I hum. “Maybe,” I tell her.
“Do you know what her eyelashes remind me of?” she says.
“What?”
“Remember when Leo—?” she grins.
I don’t even need her to finish. “Yes,” I say, and we both dissolve into giggles as we step onto the elevator.
“Leo’s face—” she snorts.
“He still makes that face,” I cackle.
When Leo was a kid, he was a terrible liar. You could tell he was lying because his eyes would get really big and wide, like an owl’s. Once, when we were really little, we were all getting ready to pile into the Roberts’ minivan to get to school.
“Everyone ready?” Molly asked us.
“YES,” Leo shouted, eyes wide.
We all turned to look at him.
Molly frowned, smelling bullshit from a mile away. “Leo, is everything okay?”
“Uh huh,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets, eyes somehow wider than before.
“What’s in your pocket, Leo?” Molly shot at him.
“NOTHING,” Leo said, eyes popping out of his head at this point.
“Get. It. Out,” Molly said, between clenched teeth.
Leo groaned, gently digging both hands into his pockets. Out in each of his closed fists came dozens of caterpillars. The fuzzy black ones.
Our laughter dies down as we approach our room. I open the door, and everything is suddenly too small. We both stand in the doorway for a moment, looking at the two beds next to one another. Only about four feet apart. Thank fucking jeebus the room’s been cleaned, so we don’t have to see rumpled sheets and used hand towels scattered around.
Mia pushes past me. “Well,” she says, “I most definitely need a drink now. Let me get ready. Give me thirty minutes.”
I run my hands through my hair. “I… won’t need that long. I’m just gonna get dressed and grab a drink downstairs at the hotel bar.”
She nods, already rifling through her suitcase. She pulls out a tiny piece of fabric that can’t be anything other than a handkerchief, or maybe a scarf meant for a small child. She carries that towards the bathroom. “I’ll meet you down there when I’m done,” she throws backwards, and shuts the door.
I mosey over to her suitcase, praying that she doesn’t have those fucking heels that make her legs look one hundred feet long. I poke around, groaning when I uncover them. I contemplate throwing them out the window. I sigh. The windows probably don’t open for safety purposes. This is a good thing for me too, so that I don’t throw myself out the window, either.
I scrub my face and walk over to my bag, pulling out a plain white t-shirt and my nice jeans. I throw them on, make sure to grab my wallet this time, and head downstairs. Here we go.
TWELVE
