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“Who the fuck is Connor?”
“Connor from her Tuesday seminar. Connor she’s been texting all week. Connor who, it turns out, has a fiancée back home in Alabama. Bea, she is sobbing in the kitchen on the floor wearing one shoe, and I cannot get her up.”
“Oh god.” When the girlhood duty calls, you gotta answer. No matter how sexy the man hiding in your bed is.
Chapter Fourteen
Cal
Drew’s in my passenger seat. His face is pale and slightly green, just like an eighteen-year-old who has made first contact with the consequences of mixing his drinks.
“How are you feeling?” I torment him.
“Bro.” He groans.
“I’m just asking.”
“I’m surviving. Through sheer grit.”
“Grit.” I snort.
“Grit and the promise of pancakes.”
“You drank six beers and ate an entire boat of cheese fries at one in the morning. You’ll live.” After Bea left to help Sydney, I snuck out of her room and dragged Drew away from the party. It was dying down anyway, and he was deep in conversation with a frat bro about the pyramids. A sure sign the night was over.
“Eight beers,” he grumbles.
“Eight. Christ. You’re going to ruin a kidney when you go to college.”
“Don’t you have a spare? I’ll just take that.”
“I may have a spare.” About which I am now confident, thanks to my A&P tutor. “You get two. You can lose one. The second one is the emergency one. Aka for emergencies, not for reckless little brothers.”
“Cool. Well, I’m calling dibs on your emergency one.”
“You can’t call dibs on my organs.”
“I just did. Out loud. God be my witness.”
“God is not getting involved.”
“God loves me. I’m the fun one.” He cracks one eye open. “You’re the one He’s worried about.”
I drop it because arguing with a hungover Drew is like arguing with a Magic 8-Ball—you’ll get an answer, it’ll be stupidly confident, and you’ll feel worse for having asked for a reason.
Dora’s parking lot is only a third full, but I still pull my cap lower before we get out.
Drew eyes the sunglasses and frowns.
“Bro.”
“What?”
“It’s Dora’s.”
”Everyone in there has known you since you wore diapers.”
“And yet I’d rather not become somebody’s Sunday-morning content or get chased, smartass, so let me have it.”
