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“Right,” she snorts, “after he gets done staring at it.”
I flip her off and she laughs. “It will be fine. But just in case we do run into any trouble…” She reaches into her canvas crossbody bag and pulls out a gun.
“Where did you get that!” I stare at it in shock as she holds it up to show me.
“Travis got it for me,” she says proudly. “Taught me how to use it and everything.”
Jenica had three brothers, but she was closest to the one near her age. He was a good guy, and he adored his little sister, teaching her how to hold her own, including self-defense and apparently now, how to use a gun.
I liked Travis. When Jen and I became friends, he didn’t treat me like the other Elmhurst kids but like another sister. I felt safe around him and knew he would have my back if ever needed. But a gun? I can’t believe he gave it to her, and moreover, that he thought she needed it.
“Put it away.” I rub one hand up and down my arm.
“So, is that a no?” She waves it back and forth. “It’s kind of hot, right?”
“That’s a hard no. Put it away,” I say again. I hated guns. Especially since one had been found on my father’s desk the night he died.
“It’s not even loaded,” she laughs.
“Then why do you have it?”
“Deterrence,” she says with a shrug, then puts it back in her bag. “Now, how about a drink?”
I grab the pack of Zima and follow her into the kitchen. While she unpacks the bag, I put the Zima in the fridge.
Momma knew I went to parties and drank, but she had onerule—don’t ever drink and drive. That’s why I left my car at Jenica’s last night, and she drove it back tonight, and we planned to walk to the party.
“What do you want?” Jenica points from the fridge to the bottle of vodka and juice she brought. “Cocktail or Zima?”
I tap the bottle of cranberry juice. “Drink.”
She flashes me a thumbs up and I grab a couple of glasses from the cabinet, fill them with cubes from the Ice Maker, then set them down on the counter, and hop up onto it.
As she makes our drinks we chat about her day, which included a customer that brought in a bazillion coupons and insisted Jenica scan each one, and a kid who tried to buy wine coolers with a pack of pads for his mom.
By the time she’s done mixing our drinks, my stomach hurts from laughing so hard. “Liquor before beer,” she smiles while holding a glass out to me.
I grab it and tap it against the one she’s holding and take a sip. It’s strong, but sweet. “Nicely done, my friend.”
“Why thank you,” she winks. “By the way, have I told you how glad I am you didn’t go to Europe this summer?”
“Yes.” I take another sip and nod. “Me too.”
I must have done something right for fate to send Jenica Miller into my life. While it had thrown me one heck of a curve ball with Cruz, it threw me a perfect pitch the day she and I met.
Hidden beneath dark hair and tough exterior, was a girl that was smart, fiercely devoted, and a fellow fan of scary movies. We could talk for hours about nothing and everything and brought out the best in each other.
I had no idea what I was going to do without her when I went to college. I knew I would get to the bottom of what was happening with my father’s case eventually and couldn’t stay away from Yale forever. But I wanted to. It was further away than Elmhurst was from Cherry Cove and would be harder for usto see each other.
It didn’t seem fair she had to stay here and go to school at the local community college, but nothing about life in Cherry Cove seemed fair.
Jenica had the brains and grades to go wherever she wanted, and yet the very thing that got me into Yale, was the very thing that would keep her from the education she deserved…money.
“Alright.” She hops up on the counter next to me. “Spill it.”
I look over at her, confused. “Spill…what?”
“That flawless forehead of yours has been pinched since I got here.”
