“I’m not an idiot,” Dory said. “And he gave the money back. He said he couldn’t find anything—not even a dead end—and he wasn’t in the habit of charging for failure. So fuck you. Turns out there’s still at least one good guy out there, if you’d like his number.”
“That’s not really my demographic,” Grade said. “And he just took his expenses?”
Dory shook her head and finally lifted the envelope. She picked at the flap with a bitten-short thumbnail, a rim of chewed-off blue polish down around the quick.
“No, this is all of it,” she said and pulled a face. “I guess I just looked that pathetic: a stripper with daddy issues. How cliche is that?”
Grade reached out and took her hand. “Doreen Pulaski—”
She made an aggrieved noise and tried to pull her hand away from him. “Don’t call me that.”
“You are a neurotic train wreck of a human being,” he said. “The ‘daddy issues’ are just the tip of your neurotic iceberg.”
“I’m not sure that should make me feel better,” Dory said.
“But it does,” Grade said.
Dory rolled her eyes, but she didn’t disagree with him. After a second, she moved her hand away and pulled her knees up, her arms wrapped around them and the quilt wrinkled under her boots. She rested her chin on the bony ledge she’d made, flicked a picked-off bit of envelope flap onto the bed, and sighed.
“Did I upset Mom?”
“Oh, thanks,” Grade said. “I’m glad you’re worried about my feelings.”
“Like you’d admit it if I did,” Dory said as she glanced up at him through her lashes.
That was fair enough, Grade supposed.
“Mom’s OK,” he said. “She agreed with you that Uber Eats was a bad lie.”
Dory pulled a “duh” face at him. “You know we don’t evenhaveUber Eats round here, right?” she asked.
Grade shrugged. “I honestly didn’t think even Sweeny was that shit,” he said. “I just don’t get why you’re this upset, Dory. It was a swing and a miss on finding Dad, but not for the first time.”
There was silence for a second as Dory struggled for an answer. Finally, she just shook her head, faded pink hair falling forward to hide her face.
“Esme Rawlins,” she said and looked up at Grade expectantly.
That name was… not… familiar. Grade racked his brain and then had to give up with an apologetic shrug.
“My best friend,” Dory said. “The only one who stuck around after—well, after Cody. She’s getting married.”
Grade ducked his head to catch Dory’s eye. “She didn’t invite you?”
Dory sighed. “Oh, worse than that,” she said. “She wants me to be her maid of honor, and I’m such a miserable bitch I can’t even be happy for her. I hope she gets stung by hornets and her head is bigger than her tits on the day.”
“What is it?” Grade asked. “The husband or the dad walking her down the aisle?”
Dory made an annoyed noise at him and got up off the bed. She brushed herself off and then gestured down her body.
“Look at me,” she said. “You think if I wanted a husband, I couldn’t get one? Of course it’s the fucking dad thing.”
She stalked over to the side table and grabbed a handful of wipes to clean her face. If she scrubbed extra hard around her eyes… well, eye makeup could be hard to get off. The last time Grade had twinked it up, it had taken three days before he stopped getting bits of glitter in his eyes.
“I want my dad,” she said eventually. “If I ever get married—”
“You will,” Grade reassured her.
She gave him an annoyed look in the mirror. “What? I don’t get a choice? Maybe I don’t want to get married, Grade.”
