PS: The cow, Stevie? Really? It was cute that you did it for me, it felt like somethingmyStevie would do, but I don’t even want to know how much of our California money you spent on tickets to win that thing.
CHAPTER 21
WHY DID YOU MAKE MEchange my plans with Ryan today?” I ask Rory, one of my many questions as she and Savannah follow me into my room a few days later.
“Lunch, Stevie? Really? Lunch is what you get with your great-aunt so she keeps giving you fifty bucks on your birthday, not something you get with the guy you’re trying to bone.”
“Rory,shut up,” I whisper. “That’s not what I’m trying to… I’m not…” I shake my head, at a loss for words.
“My point is, you need to take him somewhere fun. Somewhere you can look hot.”
As if on cue, both of them unzip their jackets to reveal matching American flag bras and booty shorts.
Oh. No, no, please no.They are really going full tilt into this.
“I’m not sure Ryan would exactly consider Truck Nightfun.”Iwouldn’t even consider it fun, and I grew up here.
“Well, he agreed to go, didn’t he?” she presses.
“I guess,” I reply, but it doesn’t do anything to reassure me.
Truck Night takes place after dark the second Friday of every month through the summer at Creed Lake, which actually isn’t a lake at all. It’s a town with a population of under ahundred people, and their claim to fame is literally just a giant pit of mud, and if you’rereallucky, it’s slightly filled with water from a recent rain. Even more shocking, people travel from all over the tricounty area to drive their pickup trucks around in it. People like Savannah’s boyfriend, Jake, and all his friends. And inexplicably, they apparently all dress like the flag even though there’s nothing particularly patriotic about it.
“Let’s get you dressed,” Savannah says as she dumps out a duffel bag of red, white, and blue clothes onto my bed.
“I love you guys. I do. Butpleasetell me you are not expecting me to match you,” I say.
“Excuse you, we look hot as fuck,” Rory says, giving me an overly dramatic offended look. “It’s Truck Night, girl. You gotta dress the part… but no. I do know you better than that, Stevie.”
It puts a smile on my face to hear that. Despite how off things have felt among the three of us, they do still know me. Maybe our friendship can really get back on the right track tonight. After all, I didn’t switch my date with Ryan because I thought he’d find me hotter there or something. I did it for them.
“How about these jean shorts and this red-white-and-blue tank top?” Rory asks, holding them both up.
I let out a big sigh. I feel like my butt cheeks are still going to be hanging out the bottom of the shorts, but at least the tank top has a high neckline.
Suck it up, Stevie. For your friends. This is how you fix this.
Savannah pulls up right next to Ryan in the gravel parking lot, and I’m already embarrassed before I even step out of the car.
What am I getting myself into?
We all get out and Savannah and Rory greet Ryan before the two of them run ahead to find Jake and his friends, including a guy Jake is setting Rory up with who graduated a few years ahead of us, which honestly doesn’t feel that promising.
Ryan steps up to walk alongside me as we head toward the stadium lights and the sounds of country musicblastingthrough oversized speakers. He hasn’t said anything, but I saw him look me up and down and not in the way Savannah and Rory were intending. He’s had a smirk on his face ever since.
“Just say it.” I roll my eyes, tugging on the bottom of my shorts.
“I’m just not sure if I should be turned on or reciting the Pledge of Allegiance,” he says with a laugh, and even though that’s my thought exactly, my cheeks flush out of embarrassment.
“Well, if you thinkmyoutfit is something, you’re in for a big surprise, buddy,” I tell him as we reach the end of the parking lot, where the mosh of pickup trucks comes into view. “I know I tried to warn you over text earlier, but you really have no idea what we’re about to walk into. Honestly,Idon’t even have any idea what we’re walking into. I’ve never actually been here. I’ve only seen pictures posted online.”
“Truck Night.” He shrugs. “How bad can it be?”
He quickly gets his answer as we crest the hill and everything opens up to a mud pit the size of a football field, filled with trucks so caked in it that you can’t even tell what color they are. I don’t know what’s louder, the trucks’ exhausts or the music.
“What on earth…,” Ryan says out of the side of his mouth as we walk through the slew of trucks parked on the side, waiting for their turn. Shirtless guys sit on top of each one, with girls on the tailgate, beer coolers wide open beside them. One Ford Raptor’s bed is filled to the brim with thirty-something-year-old women dancing in cowboy boots and hats. One of themonlyhas those on; her nipples are just covered with tassels, little Liberty Bells hanging off the ends.
God Bless America, I guess.
