“Just hold it in,” I tell her. Minute one of this road trip and I’m already descending straight into the first circle of hell. “Don’t?—”
“Really?!” she bursts out.
I sigh.
“You know, most times it really isn’t my intention to ridicule you, but…” she gestures at the car. “You just make it soeasy.”
“I didn’t?—”
“—you’retrulyjust a walking stereotype?—”
“—choose this car?—”
“Like,really?”
“—only car left?—”
“Not only is it a Mustang, but it’syellow?!”
“—didn’t have a choice?—”
“—and aconvertible?!”
I sigh again. “Get in the fuckin’ car, Annie.” I really didn’t have a choice. It’s not like I asked the car rental place to giveme the tackiest car they had. Maybe I should’ve kept the top up, though, but it’s a nice day out and I may as well embrace it all.
Annie doesn’t get in the car. “The gas mileage is probably terrible on these things,” she says instead.
“You don’t have to pay for gas,” I offer, because I’m sick and tired of talking about it. “Just get in the car.”
“And really? An American car for a two thousand mile road trip? You couldn’t go Japanese?”
“I told you I didn’t have a fuckin’ choice, Annie—this is all they had at the rental place.” Maybe this is all some sort of cruel, sick joke from the universe for saying fake grace and cheering on a god I only nominally believe in.
“We’re totally going to break down before we even get to D.C. in this American piece of shit.Alwaysgo Asian,” she says with a saucy wink.
I spent my entire freshman year at Duke wrangling the Bensonhurst out of my voice and learning how to speak in a neutral accent that isn’t aggressively loud or full of swear words. I’d say it’s mostly gone, except for when I’m drunk or angry. I showed up at her parents’ house intending to fully tamp down the accent for this trip so Annie would have less fodder for ridicule. However, here I am, supremely pissed after thirty seconds with Annie Li, and the Bensonhurst smashes back into my voice like the Kool-Aid Man. This becomes evident with my next statement.
“Get in thegoddamnfuckin’car, Annie Li,” I bellow.
“Jeez,” she answers, completely unbothered, walking around and popping the trunk and throwing various pieces of luggage in. “Someone overdid it on the steroids this morning.”
I grip the steering wheel. It seems like a safe place for my hands. They wouldn’t be able to wring her pretty little neck there. We haven’t even made it a centimeter out of Bensonhurst, and I already want a cigarette despite having quit a year ago.And no, I did not quit the second after Annie Li told me it was gross. Most certainly not because of that.
“What’s all this camera equipment?” she asks, slamming the trunk shut. The buzzing starts in my ears. I feel the flush climbing up my neck. “Filming an episode ofJackass? Holding your dick above a Bunsen burner or whatever they have you do in your lab?”
I wince, because she’s not too far off.
I must have pissed the universe off real good, by the way, for this. Ineedto record at least one video forNakedReactionson this trip. My subscribers pay for it, and they missed out last week because of my infected dick. I think I can time it so that I film at one of the properties with the separate pool house, send Annie to stay there while I record, but fuck. The risk? Total Annihilation by Annie Li? Total Annie-hilation? If she finds out I post videos of my dick for money? It’s a huge fuckin’ risk. I’d rather throw myself out of a moving car. Which I guess will be easy to do, if Annie Li does find out. I clear my throat.
“I told them I’d make them a wedding video,” I answer, praying she doesn’t push it, but I forget about it as soon as she opens the door of the passenger seat because I am suddenly inundated with two things: books andskin.
Annie dumps what seems like twenty books onto the floor of the passenger seat before her long legs climb in. She’s wearing what’s gotta be the shortest shorts known to mankind. And a crop top. Skin on her legs, skin on her arms, skin on her stomach. Tattoos on all the skin. Despite them being prison tattoos or whatever Tom said, they’re really well done. And hot as sin. And even if it’s less skin than she showed on the beach, the fact that it’s a foot away from me, in the confines of this car? I wrench my eyes ahead.
“Which parts do you want to film?” she asks.
I almost answer,For our sex tape? Well, all of it, when I realize she’s talking about the wedding.
I clear my throat again.
