“Yeah,” I hedged, reminding myself to choose my words carefully so I wasn’t a dumbass.
“I still remember the day you met her. You came home from school and told me about her. Your first crush with the pretty name—your words.” My mom gave me a teasing smile. “That was back when you used to talk to me about girls.”
“Ah, come on. I still talk to you about girls.”
“No, you don’t.” She ruffled my hair. “What’d you guys do yesterday?”
“We went to Bunny’s, had a bit to drink and came back late-ish. The living room light was on, so we hung outside for a little while.”
“Oh, Bunny’s. Your father and I went there in our younger days. It was called something else then…” She paused, holding a slice of cheese in her hands as she thought. “Rattlesnake, maybe?”
“Well, it’s Bunny’s now but I’m sure the clientele hasn’t changed much since you went. I think Navy and I were twenty years younger than ninety percent of the patrons.”
“How’s she doing?” She carefully wrapped one sandwich and started on the second one. “I always worry about her, of course. She looks good, but a little tired.”
Did she? How had I not noticed she looked tired this morning? “Her aunt left yesterday for three weeks, so I think she’s just got a bit on her plate.” But now that last night was coming back to me in bits and pieces, I remembered her looking troubled about something she didn’t choose to talk about.
“She sure was in a hurry to get out of here.”
Ah, that would be because she woke up naked in my bed. “I think she just wanted to check on her sisters.”
Mom wrapped the second sandwich. “She kept looking at her phone like she was expecting a message or something. She seemed worried.” At my look of concern, Mom patted me. “Maybe I’m just projecting. She was probably tired and ready to go home and sleep for real. I know you make her watch your awful movies—they probably keep her up at night.”
Except my terrible taste in movies wasn’t what kept her up last night. I made my mouth in a flat line, not wanting to confirm or deny anything.
“Ready?” Asa asked, coming from his bedroom, his duffel bag in hand.
“Yeah.” I gave Mom another kiss on the cheek and took the sandwiches she held out for me, a few pieces of fruit, and followed my brother out the door.
10
NAVY
At a stoplight, I pulled my phone out and shot a text to Keane.
Me: Sorry, running late.
The truth was, my brain was scattered in so many directions that my standing “date” with Keane was the very last thing on my mind. I’d spent most of the night before preparing for my sister’s arrival by setting up an air mattress in my aunt’s bedroom—where I was currently staying—and getting extra bedding for said air mattress. My phone pinged back almost immediately.
Keane: You, late? Are you ill? Don’t infect me if so, pretty please.
Normally, a response like that would elicit a smile from me, but when I already felt I was on the verge of crumbling, all it did was remind me just how un-together I had my shit. I pressed a hand to my forehead, coming away with sweat. It’d been a bear getting out of the music shop tonight, with Roger running down an invisible checklist of things he wanted to ask me, to stall closing of the store.
“Do you know when the next shipment of the 2B drumsticks is?” he asked me.
“No,” I replied as I ran through my actual checklist of things to do before closing the shop. “Are we low?”
“No.”
When I glanced up at him in question, he shrugged. “Just wondering.”
The problem was that Roger was always “just wondering.” As I’d pulled the till, he asked me about my plans for the night, since—in his words—I seemed in a hurry to get out of there.
“I’m meeting Keane,” I told him.
“Oh.”
“We have a weekly friend date,” I said as I pulled the larger bills out first and began counting them. But the word date felt so heavy in the universe of our friendship, especially considering what had transpired between us after a night of heavy alcohol. “Literally, just friends.”
“That’s good,” Roger said, leaning his hip on the counter so that he was closer to me. “I wasn’t sure if you guys were a thing or just friends.”
“Just friends,” I repeated, now on the smaller stack of bills. “Always.” And forever.
“Do you have a boyfriend? Just wondering.”
I counted out the change, then separated the cash we’d made in sales from the standard one-hundred and fifty we kept the till stocked with. “No,” I said, when I finally remembered that he’d asked me a question. I blew out a breath when I glanced at the clock. “Shit.” I had to get Roger out of my hair if I wanted to finish this. “Can you sweep up the front of the store, Roger?”
“I did that after my lunch.”
He couldn’t take a hint. “Can you please just do it again?”
“We only had a few customers come in since I last did it.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, running down the list of things I normally did while my aunt counted out the tills in the office. “I’m going to take the till to the backroom. Can you disinfect these counters while I prepare the night deposit?”
“I’d be more than happy to do that for you,” he said, finally easing from out of my space. “Can I help you with anything else?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say, “Stay out of my way for the next thirty minutes,” but instead I just gave him a smile. “Thanks, Roger.” The very last thing I needed to do was piss off my aunt’s favorite employee in her absence.
When the office was locked, and the lights were off, I went out to the parking lot with the deposit bag, Roger walking in my shadow to my car. It was customary for the two closing employees to go to the bank for the night deposit, but it wasn’t necessary for Roger to follow me so closely that I could tell he ate onion rings for lunch.
“Do you like strawberries?” he asked me as I unlocked my door. It’d been a long, long time since I’d closed with Roger, but I never remembered him being so chatty. Especially about random things.
“Sure,” I said, tossing the deposit bag onto the passenger seat. I was a full thirty minutes behind now, and had a feeling that Roger was going to suck up another ten, easily. “You ready?” I asked him, when he hadn’t moved out of my invisible bubble.
He pointed with his thumb back at his car. “I bought these snacks at the wholesale place downtown. But I’m not sure if I like them. They’re like little strawberry pastries. Do you want them?”
I was normally a very patient person, but Roger was always doing this—distracting me, delaying me over things that were unnecessary. At this rate, I’d have very little time with Keane to do his hair and watch our movie before I had to head to the bus depot to get Violet. The twins were probably starving as it was. “It’s okay, but thanks.” I glanced meaningfully at the deposit bag on my passenger seat.