Page 183 of While You Were Trending

I slant a quick glance at her.

“It’s not Ten leaving the money,” she says. “Don’t even start. My brother is perpetually broke.”

“Is he?”

“He won his car in a poker game that he entered when he got an unexpected windfall from some old lady he never met but who left him something in her will because she loved him inOn the Rhodes. He couch-surfs because he can’t afford rent most of the time. Whatever he made doing…movies that I refuse to talk about…right after college, he’s blown through. He takes pride in being broke because it drives our mother crazy that he flaunts what makes him look like a failure. Trust me, he’s not leaving twenty thousand dollars in cash at the wiii—aaaahah!”

I jerk the steering wheel as something furry brushes my arm, then overcorrect and send dirt flying beneath my tires as I run on the shoulder. “What?What?”

“Cat!” she shrieks. “It’s a—goddammit, Fluffy, what are you doing?”

There’s a cat in her lap.

A massive white, black, and orange calico cat.

My breath comes in short gasps as I slow the car and signal that we’re getting off the highway.

Ginny’s panting too. “Bad kitty.Bad kitty. We have to take you home now, and we’re going to miss dinner, you little asshole.”

Fluffy rolls in Ginny’s lap until she’s showing her belly, yawns, and?—

Oh, fuck.

That’s not a yawn.

That’s—

A series of gagging noises come from the cat.

I flounder, slamming to a stop faster than I should and throwing the SUV in park so that I can look for tissues, because I know what that sound means.

“Off!” Ginny cries. “Out!Out! Why can’t I open my door? Where’s the handle?Where’s the handle?”

I’m out of my seat in an instant, racing around the car.

I slip on the grass, get my bearings, slip again, but still manage to grasp the handle and fling open Ginny’s door, just in time to see her trying to lift the cat as Fluffy coughs up a massive, glittery hairball.

All over Ginny’s pretty dress.

I gape at Ginny.

She makes a noise like she’s about to cough up her own hairball.

“Oh, fuck fuck fuck,” I whisper.

I know what that means.

I knowexactlywhat that means.

I grab the cat and drop it on the ground, then reach across Ginny, unbuckle her seat belt, and yank her out of the car a split second before she goes full exorcist over both of our shoes too.

35

DATE CRASHERS

Ginny

I have never murdereda thing in my life, but I’m going to murder Heath’s cat.