Chapter 14
Jannie’s eyes narrowed. “You quit?” she asked, and I nodded.
“I did,” I confirmed. “I didn’t like that job, anyway.”
“I remember when you used to babysit for your neighbor,” she said. “You told me that the family left moldy food for your dinner and the kid tried to stab you with scissors.”
“Luckily, they were safety scissors.” But he hadn’t understood that when he’d tried to impale me with them.
“You still kept working for those shitheads, even after all that. But you quit at the motel.” She looked at me. “Good, I’m glad you did. Make some changes.”
I nodded, because the change really was good. I was relieved not to be there anymore, dealing with the bug problems and bruised knees due to falling off the stool. Anyway, Jannie needed me here more now, too. She was experiencing a boom in business due to the presence of the Woodsmen players, who had keptcoming in even when Everett wasn’t with them. They seemed to have adopted her bar as a new place to hang out, and where Woodsmen went, their fans followed.
The increase in customers had meant that she’d had to order more inventory, so everything was fresher. The bar itself was fresher because she’d invested some of her profits in a cleaning service, and they were doing a great job. She had even bought herself a new hat, a very fetching fedora. She looked great and I wasn’t the only person who had noticed. The guy who came in to drink 7 and 7s had asked her out, and she said she would consider it.
“Are you going to the next game?” she asked me.
It was away, but it was midweek. “Want to come? It’s on me,” Everett had offered, but I had decided that I couldn’t quit even more jobs. I did still have to turn up here and at the school, so I’d had to say no and that was what I told her.
“Greet him when he comes home,” she suggested.
“I will. Did you think that I would ignore him?”
“You should be naked,” she explained. “Or maybe just wearing stickers over these.” She pointed to her nipples. “It sounds weird but it’s actually very sexy. Just don’t press them down too hard. Think ahead about removal.”
“What am I supposed to wear on the bottom?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Why would you need anything on the bottom?” She clarified it for me, because I was missing theobvious. “You’re going to have sex with him,” she said. She spoke slowly to make sure that I understood.
“I still haven’t done anything,” I told her, and now she was the one who didn’t understand. I spelled it out. “I haven’t even kissed him yet.”
Jannie’s eyes widened and then she stuck her finger in her ear and wiggled it, as if she hadn’t heard me correctly. “Why not?”
I shrugged. “I’ve kissed people before,” I reminded her, “and it didn’t work out well. Afterwards, everything was weird between us. We were still in the band together and it was very awkward. The same thing happened with the guy who invited me to the prom as a joke. After that, he always acted like he was mad at me. I don’t want to mess things up with Everett that way. I like him too much.” I paused. “I really like him. I really, really like him.”
“Yeah, I can tell that you do.”
And I was liking him more and more every day. It seemed as if that feeling increased as we were together, and in spite of his busy football schedule, he was spending a lot of time with me.
“What are you doing right now?” he had texted me earlier today, and it turned out that I was in the car and it was easy to meet him for a quick coffee at a place near the stadium. Actually, it had been herbal tea for me and a fruit and greens smoothie with added protein for him, but it had been just like one of the coffee dates I’d heard about. Since I hadn’t been working at the motel for the past few nights, we’d been at home together. He had made dinner and then had thought we should watch a moviethat he swore was great, something about gangsters. I had appreciated the nice suits they wore even if I hadn’t been a huge fan of the plot, the dialogue, or the actors. I had also appreciated getting to hang out together.
That reminded me of something else. “Things can go wrong with friendships, too—you just never know about any kind of relationship. I had a friend in high school and I lost him over not liking movies,” I told Jannie. I didn’t mind them as much now, I supposed. “He kept inviting me over to watch something or another and I said no, and then he stopped talking to me.”
“Because he was asking you out,” she said. “He was asking you out and you turned him down, so his feelings were hurt. Same thing with the kissing. It got awkward because you rejected them.”
“He was asking me out?”
“Yeah,” she said. She rolled her eyes heavenward. “And so was that guy you’re always talking about, the one who said the prom invite was just fake. He said that to cover up how embarrassed he was.”
“It was a social media trend to—”
“Zoey! Those people were interested in you,” she said. “You just didn’t see it. Maybe Everett is, too, and you’re also missing that. Open your eyes! And get another 7 and 7 for Len,” she said, pointing to the guy in the booth who was listening to this conversation. We both looked over at him and he winked.
“I like the idea of stickers,” he told her, and she said to come back to her place because she had a drawer full of them. I shookmy head and got his drink, but she’d made me reconsider some things. Had I really been oblivious to people’s interest? Everett thought that my former cooperating teacher was a lech, like my other coworker had called him, and I had missed it. I still hadn’t decided what to do about that, if anything.
Jannie decided to bring the drink over to Len herself but when my phone exploded with noise, she dropped it. “What the hell was that?” she yelled.
“Sorry! I had turned up the volume.” It got loud in the cafeteria, and I didn’t want to miss it if Everett texted. Or my sister, of course, or my mom. But mostly him.
