“I can’t,” I said with annoyance. “She doesn’t have a cell phone.”
“No way. She had to be joking when she said that. She probably just didn’t want you to have her number.”
I furrowed my brows in thought. Was she though? She seemed pretty sincere, but then again, she said everything pretty seriously. Her sarcasm level was so off the charts it was difficult to determine exactly when she was joking.
“I dunno,” I muttered with a shrug. “She’s not exactly an open book, is she?”
“You could say that again,” Jae nodded. “Did you notice how she got freaked out about the lights?”
I gave him an ‘are you for real’expression and he rolled his eyes.
“I mean, like, with that and then the whole friends-with-benefits thing…do you think she was scared?”
“Scared?” I deadpanned. “Shiloh, scared? Nah. People are scaredofShiloh, not the other way around.”
Jae laughed. “Maybe you’re right. You think she’s gonna ignore us at school next week?”
“Probably. I mean she ignores us as it is already,” I chuckled. “Won’t stop me from trying to sit with her at lunch though.”
“Alright, alright. You couldn’t have picked a crush that was a little less intimidating?”
I shoved his shoulder and stood from my stool.
“I’m gonna head home. It’s getting late.”
Jae pouted for a moment before shooing at me to leave. “Seriously, next time I’m going to tie y’all down. No one is leaving until we get through at least one full episode.”
I chuckled and shoved him once more before heading to the door. I swapped house shoes for my sneakers and grabbed my keys from the bowl by the door.
“Later, dip!” I called out before leaving the house. I locked the door behind me.
The drive home took less than five minutes, and I was looking forward to maybe playing some video games before bed. When I walked inside, I noticed the kitchen light on.
My dad was sitting at the kitchen table eating a bowl of cereal.
“Late night snack?” I asked, grabbing a bowl to join him.
He nodded and smiled.
“How was the show? You’re home pretty early.”
I let out a sigh, placing the cereal box on the counter and shaking my head.
“We didn’t finish the first episode,” I grumbled. “We kind of got into it with Shiloh and she left.”
“What?” he asked in shock.
“Yeah. Well, you know how she is. I mean, from what I’ve told you about her. She’s kind of…prickly and always has her guard up. And she curses more than Uncle Adam does.” My dad raised his eyebrows in astonishment. “Anyways, we told her to, you know ‘cause of Auntie’s house rules, to not curse so much. And she kind of flipped out and wanted to leave.”
My dad squinted his eyes at me and pursed his lips as if he didn’t quite believe what I was saying. “I’m sure there’s more to it than that. Tell me exactly what was said.”
I relayed him the conversation as accurately as I could remember. My dad gave me a dramatic eyeroll when I told him about the friends-with-benefits joke we’d made. When I was done, he nodded in thought, leaning back in his chair.
“Well, it sounds to me like she might have felt a little defensive because you did sort of attack her.”
“What? I didn’t attack her!” I shot back in defense.
My dad gave me a look, and I sighed. “Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have said that she couldn’t speak without cursing. But it wasn’t that big of a deal.”
