“Shut up, Kai.” Lea huffs and twists her head to stare out the window and blindly turns up the music on the radio. She’s trying to avoid the questions running through my head. I know her well enough to read her cues. “Just one more mile on this road and it’s on the right.”
“There’s nothing but vacant land down there. Are you sure?” I ask.
“It’s not vacant,” she drones.
“Have you considered getting your license so maybe you can take a stab at driving sometime?” I look over at her, but she still has her focus set out the window. We’ve been over this topic a million times before, and I know what she’ll say, but at some point, she’s going to have to face her fears and get it over with.
“You know I’ve considered it,” she groans. “I’m not ready yet.”
“The older you get, the harder it will become to learn, Lea. You can’t continue to use Mom and Dad’s accident as a reason to avoid certain parts of adulthood. I understand why you’re scared—”
“Stop it!” She yells. “Do you have to lecture me about something every single time we’re in the car together? All I wanted to do was have fun with you tonight, and you can’t stop acting like an old nagging bat.”
Lea doesn’t raise her voice too often, so I know I struck a nerve this time. I didn’t mean to. It’s just that I feel irritated a lot that I must consistently be the chauffeur because she gets to be scared. I’ve never had the option of being scared after Mom and Dad died. I’ve had to be the brave one, and it’s wearing me thin. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to start an argument,” I tell her. I don’t want her to be upset while we walk into the restaurant, seeing as we’re supposedly suddenly celebrating her engagement tonight.
“It’s okay,” she says against the whipping wind. “Take a right, up ahead where that sign is.”
She’s pointing to a billboard I can’t make out from here, but the closer we get, the faster my heart starts pounding. Unbelievable. “What a place to celebrate your magical moment. Do you prefer the bun on the right or the one on the left?”
“Halo is kind of an ass, so we’ll go with Danko—he’s the one on the right.” She is completely serious and not concerned with the fact that I just asked her which half-naked man she prefers to ogle.
“You know the meatheads on that billboard?”
“Yeah. They’re waiters.” She finally turns to look at me, but only to give me a kind of look that clarifies I should have assumed the boneheads up there work inside. Because that’s normal.
“Hmm. So, why isn’t Noa’s ass up there?” I ask. “Or did his head get stuck in that region during the photoshoot? If that were the case, I could understand why he wouldn’t want to be showcased like those hot studs.”
“Is this how you’re going to act all night?” she asks as if I chose to come here on my own free will, knowing what we were walking into.
“Sorry, should I run down the street for some dollar bills first? I don’t want to be rude.”
“You know what. Just stay in the car, Kai.” She steps out and slams the door as hard as she can.Yup, make sure you break the car, so I can save up another two weeks’ salary to fix it.She’s well on her way to adulting, as always.
I try not to fight back with her. It never ends well. In fact, I’ve gotten good at being the one who ends each argument we get into, but sometimes—God, sometimes she infuriates me. “Lea!” I shout after her. “Don’t go in there until we’re done talking.”
“Don’t talk to me like you own me,” she sings, still walking as quickly as she can in her four-inch heels.
“Lea, please stop.” I’m gritting my teeth, and I’m sure it can be heard through my strained words, but I don’t want to make a scene in the restaurant.
She stomps right in front of the door and flings her hair around, pops her hip to the side and slaps both hands against her hips. “What?”
Now that’s she’s waiting to hear what I have to say, I realize I don’t have anything else to add. I don’t like this kind of strip-club-style restaurant. I think it’s piggish and unnecessary, but she’s marrying the freaking owner of this establishment. “I don’t want to fight with you,” I tell her.
“Then you should stop talking,” she says.
“Fine, I’ll only speak when I’m spoken to by you tonight. After all, it’s your night, right?” I know my eyebrow has risen, and at some point in the last thirty seconds, I’ve crossed my arms over my chest, but I’m not saying another word.
“Right. My night,” she says.
“Then let’s go.”
She stomps her foot like I should say something more than I’ve already said, then groans. “God, you’re so annoying.”
I close my eyes and walk in front of her to grab the door handle. I pull open the glass door and wave Lea inside. “After you,” I grumble.
She juts her chin out, straightens her shoulders, then strolls inside as if she’s Mrs. Man Buns, which I guess she will be in the future. I would give just about anything to have a megaphone right now, just so I could announce her presence.
The interior doesn’t look as bad as I thought it would. It’s clean. It even smells clean. It’s spacious, not cramped like a lot of the other restaurants in this area. It kind of looks like a sports bar, but instead of sports, there’s a girly vibe running through the place. Not too girly, just enough that it wouldn’t be confused for a normal, everyday bar in case someone missed the larger than life Man Buns sign on the way in.
