My phone alarm went off. I sighed, pulling it out of my back pocket. “Of course, this is tonight.”
“What’s tonight?” Haven pushed herself off the floor and went to the kitchen, on the hunt for leftovers.
“David’s having a party,” I said.
She laughed. “A party? That should be interesting. Think he’ll dance?”
“I hadn’t even considered that as an option, but now that you’ve mentioned it, I don’t think I can afford to miss this.”
“You’re really considering going?” She twirled a pair of unopened chopsticks between her fingers as she waited for her noodles to reheat.
I pushed myself into a sitting position. “I… yeah.”
“Why? David’s the reason your blood pressure was so high last year.”
“My blood pressure has always been high,” I said. “It’s genetic.”
“Well, hanging around him can’t be helping.”
“When he invited me, I think… Haven, I think he was trying to be nice.”
“Nice? David was trying to be nice?”
“He even said thank you for the water fiasco last year,” I said. “And get this, he apologized for not pretending to be a friend sometimes, like I do.”
Her nose wrinkled. “Did he have any weird marks on him?”
I frowned. “What?”
“Like hints of being injected.” She gestured to the back of her neck. “You know, for the probing.”
I pressed my lips together, trying not to laugh or engage with anything to do with aliens. Once Haven and I got on this train, it was difficult to jump off.
“Speaking of probing,” Haven said, realizing her joke would not be enough to pull me in. “There’s a new season ofOut Thereavailable. Want me to heat your chicken and rice? I could get the weighted blankets, too. Maybe some lavender tea after we finish eating, and we can start theorizing?”
“Tempting, but I’m going to this party.” I pushed off the couch and went to the laundry room to dig through the dryer. “And you’re coming too.”
She laughed. “I only half-support your venture deeper into the world of David. But I will not partake in that journey. My intuition screams run the other way.”
“We don’t go to parties.” I retrieved my fleece-lined tights. “We’ve never gone to parties. Don’t you want to tell your children about the wild stuff you got up to in college?”
“No, because A: I won’t be having any.”
“Right.” I had forgotten about her decision to remain child-free.
“And B: I don’t need to go to some unknown location with drunk strangers to feel like my college experience was worthwhile. I didn’t think you needed to either.”
“I don’t. I’m mostly going to be nosy.” I leaned against the laundry room’s door frame, twirling the tights in a circle. “David’s throwing the party for his friend.”
She raised a brow. “You could have led with that. Is this someone from where you guys grew up?”
I shook my head. “No one from where we grew up wanted to leave.”
“Aw, well, it’s baby’s first friend then?”
“Seems like it. So, what do you say? It’s off campus. In that fancy neighborhood with the locked gates and grass that’s always two and a half inches tall. We could dip in, see how many times a football player can use the word ‘bro’ and dip out to get fries and pick apart theories onI Believeforums.”
Haven chewed her noodles slowly, considering. “Will you throw in a trip with me to the RV lot?”
