The girl turns a nice shade of maroon, her eyes darting to the yellow-green pile on the far right.
“That’d be the Key lime pie. People say it’s so sour it makes them sick. But it’s the owner’s daughter’s favorite, so we keep it.”
“I’ll take a scoop in a cone.”
“Are you sure?” The girl gasps.
She melts into a puddle when I wink at her. Easy prey. My favorite snack.
I ask for her number. Straight up.
“I…isn’t she your girlfriend?” she stutters, her eyes shifting to Daria, seemingly for permission. I tsk.
“Foster sister and a real bitch.”
“Penn!” Melody booms. “Oh, my Marx!”
“Sorry, ma’am. Sorry, sir,” I tell Jaime and cover Bailey’s ears, muttering, “You didn’t hear that.”
The girl starts shooting out the number quickly. I pretend to program them into my phone while playing Fortnite. No chance of me ever calling her, but sticking it to Daria feels good. I’d throw Adriana in her face, but she is too good for those kiddie games. Besides, I’ll save the best reveal for last.
We all settle at a round table on the parlor’s balcony overlooking the beach. The sun is setting, the sky is pink and orange, and people saunter on the boardwalk hand in hand, the perfect postcard of SoCal. The sound of laughter and waves breaking on the shore and kids yelling fills the air. They recently added a Ferris wheel, mini golf, a carousel, and a roller coaster to attract more tourists. It made Todos Santos even more packed and touristy. I miss San Diego. Miss real ass people and real ass places and views that don’t look like they’ve been filtered to death by some chick who thinks she’s a professional photographer just because she has an Instagram account.
Melody complains about my slip of the tongue in the background, but I block her out. I take a lick of my ice cream.
“That’s awful,” I say flatly.
Daria takes the bait, just as I knew she would.
“Shocker.”
“Play nice.” Mel stabs her plastic spoon in her ice cream, swirling it around methodically. Bailey is a lick-it-straight-from-the-cone type of girl. Daria probably won’t touch hers. My guess is she doesn’t do real feelings or refined sugar.
Who the fuck are you to talk? You’re the tin man.
“Would you like mine?” Bailey volunteers.
Two sisters. Same genes. Same blood. Different hearts.
“Actually, Daria’s looks good.” I grin at my opponent.
Daria stares at me, her gigantic ice cream still in her hand, unlicked. She thrusts it in my direction.
“Jerk,” she mutters under her breath.
“Marx, you are going to regret it when I ground you both for eternity.” Mel sighs. Jaime chuckles. I noticed they replaced the word God with Marx. That’s…I don’t even know what the fuck that is. Quirky. Weird. Trying too fucking hard.
I take her ice cream and give it a good lick, handing her my Key lime ice cream.
“Please,” I say, forcing her to eye contact. “It would mean a lot to me if you eat it.” I’m not talking about the ice cream, and we both know it.
“I’m on a diet,” she snaps.
“Consider it my belated birthday gift.” I cock my head, feigning virtue. There’s loaded silence and a whole lotta staring. Then she sits back down, acutely aware of the fact her parents are watching. She takes a lick of the ice cream. Winces. Our eyes are still locked, and I wonder if she makes the same connection I’m making.
Us. Licking each other’s ice creams.
She is tasting my sourness.
As I devour her sweetness.
“So what do you think happened on the field?” Jaime turns to me.
“They cheated,” I say.
“You think?”
“I know.”
“Ever heard of being gracious in defeat?” Daria folds her legs on her chair. She is getting used to my ice cream. Doesn’t even make a face anymore after each lick. I take a bite of her ice cream, swallowing it without tasting it. Her throat bobs with the meaning of what I want to do to her.
Part of me wants to chase her. To watch in slow motion as she collapses underneath me and I rip her to shreds. The other wants her to stand toe to toe with me so we can battle it out until we’re both bloody and exhausted.
“Wise words, Daria. How about you live by them when someone you’re jealous of gets something they don’t deserve?”
“Kids,” Mel warns for the third time. I like that Jaime and Mel don’t put us on leashes and expect us to behave. Part of me suspects they brought me here to set her straight. She is a spoiled little princess who always gets her way. And me? I’m the exact opposite.
“I’ll look into it.” Jaime wipes the corners of his mouth with a paper napkin, slam-dunking the rest of his ice cream into the trash can. Not that he hasn’t been nice to me so far, but he is also smart enough to remind me daily that if I touch Daria, he will kill me (“literally. And, yes, I literally mean the word literally”). I wish he knew his daughter was banging her principal. My tapping her ass would be a vast improvement. A public service, really. Jaime should thank me.
“I’ll figure it out. Thanks,” I say.
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Has it ever occurred to you we might’ve played better? Just because Penn says something doesn’t make it true.”
“It doesn’t make it untrue either,” Jaime points out.
“You should show more loyalty to All Saints, Dad. You’re an alumnus. And you”—she turns to Mel for the first time this evening—“you were a teacher. Before you got fired for sleeping with your student.” Daria licks the last of her ice cream and tries dumping it into the trash can, like her dad. She misses, and it falls on the floor.
“Daria, you’re being Hulky again.” Jaime pins her with a look, like she knows what the hell that means.
“Why? Because I brought you and Melody up? It’s okay to say gross things to her in public, but I can’t point out that you’ve ruined my life by sending me to the same school—the same class, by the way—you hooked up in?” She juts her chin out, standing up.
“Don’t excuse her behavior, Jaime. You invented the Hulk because you wanted to separate Daria from her bad behavior. The truth is, she needs to learn to rein in her anger when she’s upset,” Mel says, and this is going off-track, fast. I scan the Followhills individually, assessing the situation. Bailey’s eyes are glued to her iPad, and she looks like she doesn’t have a care in the world. The kid’s used to this fucked-up dynamic. Daria’s eyes are locked on her mom’s.
“Mother.” Daria plasters an arsenic smile on. “Do we have a problem here?”
Melody sits back and folds her arms over her sensible cardigan.
“Why can’t you be a little more like your sister?”
Daria’s physical reaction to those words suggests she’s been shot. She darts up from her chair, and it falls back from the momentum. Everyone around us snaps their heads to our table. Melody jumps up from her chair, too.
“I didn’t—”
“Don’t.” Daria lifts a finger. Her eyes are shining, but her face is stoic. She shakes her head. “Don’t say you didn’t mean it, Melody, because every fiber of you did. And maybe I should be more like Bailey. But you? You should be more of a mom.”