My face definitely turned a little pink at the attention they were both giving me. “I got it from a thrift store and redid a lot of it, I’msorry.”
She blinked. “You redidit,how?”
“She makes costumes and dresses,” Aaron piped in from the front, his brown eyes visible in the rearviewmirror.
Brittany leaned further into me, narrowing her eyes a little in a way that didn’t make me feel like it was judgmental, more just… curious. “Where doyoulive?”
“In Houston,” I told her, cocking my head to the side just enough to make eye contact with the pretty black-haired woman that had been watching me closely on and off with a friendly expression on her face every time I’d caught her. I could do this. Everyone had been nice so far. “Are you in Shreveport?” I asked her, trying to makeconversation.
“I live in Haughton. It’s outside Shreveport,” she explained, giving me an easygoing smile thatrelaxedme.
I nodded and tried to think of something else to ask her. “Have you been herebefore?”
“Yeah, we came last spring before Hall shipped out,”shesaid.
I hadn’t known that. Had I? I couldn’t remember him mentioning if this was his first time in Port Saint Joe, the town closest to the strip of peninsula called Cape San Blas, where we were staying, or not. Either way, it wasn’t like it was any of my business to know where he’d gone beforewe’dmet.
Even though I might have wanted to knoweverything.
“Do you have aboyfriend?”
I froze at the random question that came from my right, from the younger girl whose face was suddenly red like she couldn’t believe she’d asked that. I guess I was too, a little. I’d never heard anyone just… ask that kind of question like thatbefore.
“Ahh…” I trailed off, knowing theanswerbut….
She must have realized what the heck had come out of her mouth because she started stuttering, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t have afilter—”
“It’sokay—”
Mindy waved me off. “That’s so rude. I’ve just been wondering because Max said that Aaron said you weren’t hisgirlfriend—”
Why that felt like a sock to my stomach, I had no idea. It wasn’t like I didn’t know that. It wasn’t like he didn’t know I wasn’t his girlfriendeither.
“—and my mom always says guys and girls can’t be friends, and I’m just trying to figure out why you would come if you aren’t together, and oh my God, I’m still talking. I’m sorry,” the girl, who couldn’t have been older than eighteen, rambled on in the samebreath.
I could only lookather.
“Jesus Christ, Mindy,” that was Aaron from the front seat, glancing over his shoulder with a shake ofhishead.
“It’s okay,” I tried to butt in, even though I was positive my face was red. “I would probably wonder too.” I just wouldn’t ask outright something like that. It was one thing for everyone I knew and had known for years to know my miss after miss in the relationship business, but for this girl I barely knew to ask, was a little bit depressing. The whole world was aware that there was something strange about Aaron inviting me to come. There was no hiding it. There was no pretending like he saw me as something more than a… than a…relative.Ugh. But I told her the truth. “No” and my face definitely turned red, if it hadn’talreadybeen.
“You just broke upwithone?”
“No,” I repeated myself. “I just haven’t had one… in a while. Aaron is just my,” I almost choked on the word but managed to get it out with a little bit of fake nonchalance behind it, “friend. One of my favoritefriends.”
And there were my two lies before I even knew I was goingthere.
I was not going to look at Aaron. Nope.Notthen.
I forced a smile on my face and asked the girl another question before she could throw a new one out that I didn’t know what to do with, “Do you have aboyfriend?”
The way she shook her head quickly, like she was disgusted. “Oh no. I don’t have time fordumbasses.”
I couldn’t help but grin even as I faced forwardagain.
And it was Brittany beside me who chimed in with, “It takes a while to find one that isn’t a dumbass, but there’re a few outthere.”
I’m not sure why I glanced up at the rearview mirror again but I couldn’t help but smile, especially not when Aaron’s gaze flicked to mine. The way his eyebrows moved said he was probablysmiling.
