“Yes, ma’am.” I let the dig slide and took off.
The drive was surprisingly uneventful. Resigned to her fate, Donna jammed her black sunglasses on and remained silent as I tried to figure out where to take us.
When all else fails—comfort food.
I took us to a fast food drive-through, and after a half-hearted argument about how she couldn’t eat that crap, Donna rolled her eyes and got the same thing I did. Cheeseburgers and milkshakes in tow, I pulled back onto the road.
“Should’ve got some chickie nuggies as well,” Donna mumbled, her head buried in the paper bag.
“Chickie nuggies?” I grinned. She was fucking adorable, with her delicate, manicured fingers stuffing several fries into her mouth at the same time.
“Shut up.” She laughed around a mouthful and shoved some fries into my mouth too. I gave her finger a nibble before she could pull her hand out of reach, and she smacked me on the shoulder. “That’s what my sister calls them. She’s got us all saying it now.”
“It’s cute. More fries,” I demanded and opened my mouth wide, angling my head in her direction but keeping my eyes on the road.
“Fuck you. I’m not cute,” she protested but deposited the salty, potatoey goodness into my mouth anyway. “Where are we going?”
“Ah, good question. Very deep. So many answers.” I nodded and opened my mouth again.
She rolled her eyes and shoved more fries in my face. “I meant physically, like, right now, in this car, where are we going? Not existentially, smart-ass.”
“Hmm. How about . . .” We were well out of downtown Devilbend, the buildings thinning out, the speed limits rising. A sign for a turnoff caught my eye. “Oak Hill Park?”
The turn came up before she could answer, and I took it, but Donna remained silent beside me. We followed signs for the parking lot, intermittent sunlight shining down through the thick canopy of trees.
Unsurprisingly for a Thursday afternoon, the lot was mostly empty, no tourists or hikers in sight.
Donna turned to me as I cut the engine, her hands digging into the top of the paper bag. “I’m not getting out of this car or handing over your greasy burger until you give me back my underwear.”
I pursed my lips to stop myself from smiling. We both knew I could overpower her if I really wanted to.
Reaching into my pocket, I fished out the small piece of cotton and handed it over. She deposited the takeout bag in my lap and pulled her panties up, shimmying into them under her skirt, then promptly got out of the car.
I followed her up the grassy hill to a nearby picnic table. The sun was coming and going behind grayish clouds—the kind that threatened rain but were just as likely to float away before a single drop reached the ground. It was fresh out here, the air chilly whenever the sun disappeared, and I was glad I’d made her bring her coat.
We settled onto the top of the table, our feet propped up on the seat. As we started to unwrap the burgers, Donna hesitated and looked around.
“Something messed up happened to Mena and Turner here,” she said before taking a bite.
I paused with my burger halfway to my mouth and looked at her. “Do you want to leave?”
“Nah, it’s fine.” She shook her head. “I just realized where we are, that’s all. Being reminded of what went down a few months ago just makes me angry every time.”
“What happened?”
“Uh . . .” She picked at her burger. “It’s not really my story to tell.”
She was loyal and fearless—a fucking lioness personified. I took a few bites of my burger to avoid staring at her. “Does it have anything to do with how Turner reconnected with his little sister?”
I’d been training with Turner a few times a week since I joined the gym, and we’d hung out plenty. He’d told me most of how his mom and sister disappeared a few years back and how he and his dad had been searching for them, only to find his sister here in Devilbend and his mom murdered. He had a bit of a conspiracy-theorist streak, convinced that BestLyf—some corporate life-coaching company—was behind it all, but he was a really cool guy otherwise.
Donna’s eyebrows rose slightly. “He told you that?”
“Yeah. That’s what being friends with someone entails. You tell them things about yourself. Sometimes the things aren’t very pretty.”
She ignored that, and we ate in silence, listening to the birds chirping in the tall trees, the occasional gust of wind rustling the branches.
When there was nothing left to occupy our mouths, I turned to face her, lifting one knee onto the table.
She closed her eyes and sighed. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Please, Hendrix, don’t start with trying to figure out my deep dark secrets again. We had amazing sex during a school assembly and got away with it. We’re actually getting along. Can’t we just leave it at that?”
“If what happened between us had been just sex, yeah.”
“Oh, please. Don’t tell me you’re catching feelings now. I have enough shit to deal with.”
She was going back to her defensive default, because that’s what she always did when shit got hard or confronting. Did I have feelings for her? Fuck me, but yeah, I was probably getting there. But this wasn’t about that.
“I’m not trying to put a ring on it, you psycho.” If combative snark was the only language she could understand, then that’s what I’d speak. “I’m talking about the desperate way you looked at me in the auditorium, the shit you told me about your early acceptance and how it made you feel like the roof was caving in, the fact that you go to Davey’s and fuck dangerous men as a way to release the insane amount of pressure you feel every single day.”
She blinked at me once, twice, not saying anything as her brows knitted. She was a smart girl, smarter than me, probably smarter than half the teachers at our school—surely she wasn’t surprised that I’d figured her out.
“I don’t know why I told you that earlier.” She pursed her lips.
“Because on some level, you know that I get it. I may not understand feeling deflated after achieving a massive thing, but I definitely get feeling like the entire world is collapsing on top of you. I’ve been there.”
“Will you tell me about it?” she asked, her eyes going a little wide. Was she scared? Deflecting?
“We’re talking about you right now.” OK, maybe I was deflecting too.
“Isn’t that what being friends with someone means? Telling them things about yourself that aren’t very pretty?” She threw my own words back at me.
“Is that what we are now? Friends?”
She sighed and ran her hands through her hair, pulling at it a little. “I don’t know what we are.”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter right now whether or not we’re friends. But you do have some actual, bona fide, ride-or-die kind of friends in those chicks—the ones you keep posting pics of with hashtag DevilbendDynasty.” I’d witnessed firsthand how close they were, how they defended one another, took care of one another. Their friendship was real, not shallow and on the verge of backstabbing like so many rich, popular girls at my old school. “Why haven’t you told them about any of it?”