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“I can vouch for Khaos not knowing how to drive,” Dex tells Kota. “Before our driving lessons, he didn’t know the gas from the brake. Or the clutch.”

“You taught him how to drive stick shift, too?” Kota asks him.

“At his insurance.”

The cab goes quiet.

“Insister… Insurgence.”

Did he down that vodka after I gave it to him?

I help him out. “Insistence.”

He snaps his fingers.

“When was that?” Kota asks.

“June?”

“May,” I correct him.

“It might’ve been May. A day in May. May…day.”

I groan. I’m too sober for this shit. Being surrounded by drunk people is only fun if you’re drunk, too.

“I didn’t know how to swim until you taught me,” I say between glances at Kota. “I swear.”

It’s a while before she speaks again and it’s to Dex.

“Is this your truck?”

“It’s Khaos’s.”

“My mom bought you this?”

Now my face is heating for a different reason. What does she mean by this? Like there’s something wrong with my Ram. It is old, but it runs…

Okay, it’s not the best.

But it’s not the worst either.

I can’t keep the bite from my tone as I inform her, “I paid for it myself.”

In a move I did not see coming, but probably should’ve, especially given Kota’s current condition, she claps right back with, “You can afford a truck but you couldn’t buy me a pair of underwear?”

The sound of choking has me checking the rearview again. Tina’s red-faced, with both hands over her mouth. When I shake my head at her, she loses the battle to keep it all in and obnoxious laughter spills through her fingers.

Dex joins in…until I switch my glare over to him.

He clears his throat. “Feel free to leave my sister on the side of the road.”

“Pssh. No way. Once, on my way home from the marina, I saw a bobcat walking these fine streets.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Swear to Poseidon, I did.”

While they argue, I lower my voice to address Kota’s accusation. “You need that thong that bad?”