“I’ll shake again tomorrow,” I say. “Thanks for coming back to be with me.”
“Wouldn’t be anywhere else. Especially not with the dude putting a digital dog-collar around my neck.”
“Ada…” I say as gently as I can through all the gin. “You completely lost the right to make that argument when everyone in this bar heard you coming on his dick.”
She gives a grudging laugh. “Fair.”
Aggie reappears with another crust-trimmed toastie and places it in front of Ada.
“Want another one?” she asks me.
I shake my head. “Thanks though.”
Aggie smiles and dashes back to the kitchen as Ada bites into her toastie with a moan worthy of what I heard upstairs. “God, that woman can cook. I mean, besides spaghetti.”
I nod, but while she’s distracted by the melty cheese, I slide my phone from my jeans pocket and start typing:
What’s this I hear about you treating my best friend like property in your old-man golf chat?
Jake’s reply comes in a second later:
She’s not property, but she’s still mine.
He sends me a screenshot from a chat called ‘Grip It and Sip It,’ which I pray to God is a golf euphemism and not something even more disgusting. There’s a post from Thrasher up top; a selfie of him brandishing a golf club like a championship trophy. Below it sits Jake’s message, short and to the point:
Any of you cunts think you’ve got a shot with Ada Renaldo, you’re wrong. I’m gonna marry that girl. Try it on with her, and I’ll take it personally.
Colin Wintergreen’s reply is a GIF of Jake slamming a Springbok into the ground during the last Rugby World Cup semi-final. The subtext is clear:He’s not joking. Back the fuck off or get hurt.
My chest pulls as tight as a drawstring. I’d give my left tit, my best tit, for Will Sharpe to be as into me as Jake is into Ada. To be claimed like a treasure worth fighting a crew of ex-rugby players for. Even in my wildest dressing-mirror fantasies, I can’t imagine Will Sharpe going to war with his mates over me. And Jake not only told half our class—in writing—that he wants to marry Ada, he also showed said writing toher best friend.Pukekohe’s Golden Boy is, actually, as serious as the grave about her.
Oblivious to the storm she’s the centre of, Ada licks cheese off her thumb. “So, what are you going to do about money?”
“I dunno,” I say wearily. “Sell feet pics to Thrasher?”
“I wouldn’t count on the big bucks there, my dude. He’ll probably Venmo you $8.50 and demand you show hole.”
I grimace. I know she’s just calling Thrasher a cheapskate loser, but her words still sting. I’ve known most of the popular Pukekohe guys since birth, and not one of them has ever seen me as anything other than “Tristan’s Sister.” Even Will Sharpe’s comments are hardly the stuff of romance.
Ada might have hated high school, but everyone still treated her like the tragic hot girl in a CW drama.“No one really knew her, but everyone had a theory…”
Thrasher would probably bankrupt ThompsonFarms just toglimpseher toes.
Me? I was the Almost Girl. Almost popular. Almost on the A-Grade netball team. Almost the lead in the musical. Almost everything, but somehow forever on the fringes. It wasn’t just because of Tristan, either. Even once he graduated, my status remained unchanged. And now I’m thirty-two, and no one wants pictures of my feet, paid or otherwise…
“Cece?” Ada asks. “Money? And you not having it? What’s the plan, buddy? I mean, besides the feet-pic account?”
I return her smile. I’m so glad she came home tonight, to keep me company, to look after me. I’m so glad she came home from Europe and NFR. I may be super poor right now, but having her here by my side is like winning the life lottery. I wonder how the last few years would have been if I’d had her next to me. If we’d been living together while I was nursing, or even just in the same city. It might have changed everything about working through the pain of the job. Addy made sure I knew she was always just a call away. There were nights I’d get home from a horror shift and ring her, and we’d talk for hours as she went about her morning. But it’s not the same as sitting next to her, seeing that beautiful smile beam at me.
I understand she had to leave New Zealand as soon as she could. School was hell for her. I wish she’d confided in me at the time just how hellish it really was. I knew about the bullying—no one escaped that Pukekohe High tradition—but I didn’t know about how lonely she was, how isolated not just at school, but at home. It wasn’t until we really connected once we graduated that we grew close enough for her to trust me with the truth.
A throb of guilt passes through me as I stare into my best friend’s eyes. I wish it could have been different for us, that we could have been each other’s person then, too. But she was too determined not to fit in, and I was trying to wedge myself into whatever space would have me.
I wish I’d been braver and put my energy in the person who deserved it, rather than into those who didn’t care about me. That’s part of the pull of the reunion for me. I want a do-over, for both of us. I do want to make my move and tell Will I’m interested, but I alsowant to walk into that hall with Addy, the way we should have walked into school together every day.
“I don’t know,” I say. “About the money. I just can’t go on like this. My savings are almost out, and I need to pay myself a wage.”
Ada jolts like she’s been tasered. “You’re notpaying yourself?”
