The first serious relationship that never fucking ends.
“I’m not bringing Michelle,” Danny insists. “I already told you that.”
“Yeah, you say a lot of things, pal.” I switch my phone to speaker and lay it on the bed as I continue packing. Eyeing the bathing suits I’d picked—two bikinis and a one-piece—I have a feeling my cousin Anna will throw a fit if I don’t bring more.
“Pack an extra swimsuit,” I tell my brother as I open a drawer to grab another bikini. “You know Anna’s going to want to do photo shoots.”
My cousin is an “influencer.” But a lazy one. Meaning that all those amazing, adventurous posts she puts online are completely fake. In order to pump out more content, she’ll take a bunch of photos on one day, changing up her outfits and the background, just enough to appear different. This way she can pretend she went boating on three separate occasions, when really, she spent five minutes posing as if she’s some legendary sailor chick before joining me on the dock to drink sangrias and eat popsicles.
I’d probably mock her a lot more if she didn’t get paid like twenty grand for each sponsored post. Me, if I get a hundred Instagram likes on a post, I consider myself famous.
“I swear, I don’t understand girls,” Danny says.
“Well, considering your taste in them…” I close the drawer. “With that said, don’t you dare bring Michelle.”
“Oh my God, I told you Michelle’s not coming.”
“I just need to make sure! I’m planning on having a good time this weekend. I can’t deal with her.” Her constant complaining. Whining for everyone to cater to her every need. And her grating baby voice. Ugh.
My brother is such a moron. We all grit our teeth and fake-smile when Michelle comes over, but nobody in the family likes her. Not even our mother, who tries to see the best in everyone. One time, after Michelle had bitched about a hundred different things at a family dinner, Mom made the mistake of saying, “You know, sweetheart, gratitude goes a long way,” and Michelle didn’t speak to Danny for a full week afterward. And it was Thanksgiving dinner! If you can’t muster up an ounce of goddamn gratitude on that day, you’re a selfish jackass.
I still remember how inconsolable Danny was during Michelle’s seven days of silent treatment. I think he spent three hundred dollars on roses that week. Like I said, my brother’s dumb.
“Honestly?” he says now. “I’m kind of over it.”
My eyebrows shoot up.
Could it be?
Has he finally conquered his perpetual dumbness?
“What do you mean, you’re over it?” I can barely contain the excitement in my stomach. “Are you breaking up with her? Oh my God, Daniel, please say you’re breaking up with her. Please.”
“Jesus Christ, Katie. You need to focus more on your own love life.”
“What love life?”
“Exactly. Go find a love life. Leave mine alone.”
“You just said you’re over it. I want details. Now.” Last I heard, he was going to try to make it work while he was in Spain for his semester abroad. He leaves in a month.
“It’s just…I don’t know. I’m starting to get a feeling she’s a bit…high maintenance.”
“Starting to?” At that, I break out in gales of laughter. “Hold on,” I wheeze at the phone, collapsing onto the bed. “Give me a second to collect myself.”
I laugh uncontrollably. Because holy shit, three years later he’s realizing this chick is high maintenance? When the corsage he got her for senior prom wasn’t “the right shade of peach,” she made him drive to six different Salt Lake City florists to find her a new one. At his birthday dinner last spring, she’d just come from the nail salon and her nails hadn’t set yet, so she made him hand-feed her. And he did! He fed her like she was frickin’ Cleopatra while our entire family watched, wide-eyed. My brother has no balls. He’s smooth down there like a Ken doll. That’s the only explanation for why he’d put up with that nonsense.
Not that I’m one to talk, seeing as how I’ve never had a relationship that lasted more than six months. Though in my defense, I’m only nineteen. He’s twenty-one. He should know better.
“Would you stop laughing at me?” he demands.
I gather my composure and sit up, wiping the tears of mirth from my eyes. “Sorry. Okay. So she’s high-maintenance. Shocking! When are you going to end it?”
“I haven’t decided if I’m ending it. It’s just…I don’t know. I was talking to Nick, and…”
Oh boy. Any advice from Danny’s best friend is bound to be dangerous. Nick Carmichael is a major player. Like, he goes through girls faster than I go through oil paints. And I’m always out of oil paints.
On the other hand, if Nick’s sleazy advice results in Michelle being out of our lives for good, maybe I’m willing to overlook it. This time.
“We were talking about all the chicks I’m going to meet in Spain. I mean, they’re going to be throwing themselves at me the moment they hear my accent.”
“What accent? We grew up in Utah, dumbass.”
“An American accent, Kate. Jesus. You’re supposed to be the smart one.”
I roll my eyes to myself. We have quite the love-hate relationship, my brother and I. Mostly love, but it’s definitely been combative at times. When we both lived at home, we got into so many screaming fights that our parents eventually decided to trade us back and forth rather than keep us together for our alternating weekly visits. Mom and Dad are divorced, but they’re still good friends. Good enough that we still spend most holidays together, either at my childhood home in Salt Lake City with Mom, or at Dad’s ranch in Tennessee. He moved there a few years ago, which is one of the reasons Danny accepted a full scholarship to Southern University down in Nashville. That, and his manwhore best friend would be attending Southern too.
Relations with me and Danny have calmed since he left for college, our bickering becoming more good-natured than hostile. Neither of us will ever say it out loud for fear of eternal shaming, but I think we might…gasp…miss each other. Though that will probably change the second I move to Tennessee at the end of August. After taking a gap year to work on my art, I’m starting my freshman year at Southern this fall. Danny’s been there two years already, living in a house full of football players. He plays wide receiver, the wing man to Nick, his big-shot quarterback best friend. Sometimes I’m surprised none of Danny’s teammates, Nick included, managed to convince him to dump Michelle once they got to college. But I suppose I can’t blame them. That chick digs her acrylic talons in deep.
“Anyway, I’m thinking, I haven’t really dated anybody other than her. We got together senior year of high school, and now we’re both at Southern, so it’s not like I’ve been able to experiment in college like other guys, you know?”
Normally I don’t want to talk about my brother’s sex life. Today, I’m all for it.
“Dude, if experimenting means no more Michelle, then experiment away. Please, go bang anyone you can.”
“Oh, come on. She’s not that bad.”