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“Ten thirty.”
“Close enough to eleven.”
She puts her arm around my shoulder and leads me down the hall toward the living room. “Those coolers have at least five percent fruit juice, so it’s almost like a breakfast food. Come tell your big sis what that stupid man-boy did to make you cry.”
I flop down on the couch. “How did you know it was about Griffin?”
“Lucky guess. You’re not a big crier and usually it’s over losing your heart to someone. So, what did the bastard do?” She opens the fridge and almost climbs inside to retrieve a cooler for me.
“He has a pregnant ex-fiancée.”
She smacks her head on the freezer door on her way back up. “Ow! Say what now?”
“He has a baby mama.”
“Wow. How the hell did you find that out?”
“She showed up at the hotel this morning, right after Griffin offered to get me an internship in New York.”
She passes me the bottle with the cap still on. “Wait. That doesn’t even make any sense. Why would he offer to set you up with an internship if he has a baby on the way? Unless he’s a psycho.”
“He said he didn’t know about the baby until today.” I try to use the side of the coffee table to get the cap off like Nev always does, but all I do is chip off a chunk of wood.
“Here, let me do that before you break it.” She takes the bottle, caps it with one solid tap and hands it back to me. “How pregnant is she?”
“Really pregnant. Like there’s - a - basketball - attached - to - the - front - of - her - body pregnant. The not-knowing part I might be able to understand, but they couldn’t have been broken up all that long when he started dating me. And he didn’t even tell me about her. Then there’s the fact that he slept with you, probably right after they broke up. With my luck, he’s a serial killer too.”
“I find that unlikely. Oh and by the way, I forgot to tell you, I didn’t sleep with Griffin.”
I give her a look. “Don’t make jokes right now, Nev. I’m not in the mood.”
“I’m not joking. I hit on him, and we did some shots. He was super shitfaced. Like he could barely string words together. He said he was going to sleep off his drunk in his car, so of course, I wanted to see it, you know? I mean, he looks like money with the way he dresses, am I right?”
“You’re right.” I’m annoyed that my sister is taking forever to get to the damn point, but then that’s Nev.
“So we get outside, and his car was on my bang bucket list, so I figure I might as well get the check mark even if he was super hammered and his performance was probably going to suck.”
“Can we move this story along, please?” I take a very long draught from my bottle, effectively consuming half the contents in one gulp.
“Right. Yeah. So I asked if I could sit in his car with him, and he said, sure, but he was going to take a nap. I tried to kiss him, but he told me he needed to pee and that he thought he left his credit card in the bar, then he passed out cold. I tried to wake him up, but he was like, done. Anyway, I was light on cash, so I borrowed some of his and I may have snagged his credit card from the bar.” She takes another drag from her e-cigarette and blows cinnamon smoke in the air.
“You stole his money and his credit card?” I’m not even that surprised, which says something about my sister, I realize.
“I borrowed it without the intention of giving it back, which isn’t the same as stealing. Besides, all I bought with the credit card was some snacks, a carton of smokes, and a pizza. Guy drives a car that costs as much as a house around here; he wouldn’t even notice the money is missing.”
“Jesus, Nev.” I’m still trying to understand how borrowing without the intention of giving back is any different than stealing, but then, my sister’s rationale for things isn’t always logical.
“It was a bad night. What can I say?”
“Not much, I guess. It’s not like it changes anything. He still kept things from me and now has a pregnant ex-fiancée, who incidentally looks like the exact kind of woman who belongs on his arm. Even preggers, that bitch was gorgeous.”
“Well, that sucks. Maybe their beautiful genetics will create a monster of a child.”
“One can only hope.”
After a few minutes of silence in which Nev surrounds me with a cloud of cinnamon vape smoke, she pats my leg. “I guess it’s better this way, huh?”
