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I can’t help it. I flinch. Abby Mancuso. My high school girlfriend and the one responsible for my and Lucy’s implosion.
Actually, that’s not fair. Abby was the catalyst. The responsibility for that ill-fated moment rests solely with me and Lucy.
“No,” I snap. It’s as much info as she’ll get from me on that subject.
Lucy turns her head and looks out the window. And though I order myself to shut the hell up, I keep talking.
“I haven’t spoken with Abby in months.”
Maybe years? I can’t remember.
Lucy snorts. “Yeah. I’ve heard that before.”
I adjust my grip on the steering wheel to keep from punching the dash in frustration.
“Does your boyfriend know you’re dodging his messages?” I snap.
She whips her head around. “What?”
“Oliver,” I say, deliberately missing his name. “He was texting you last night. Does he know you’re with me?”
“Yes. He knows my parents shackled me to the guy who’s like a second brother.”
Her words are meant to be a jab, and she lands the hit. I can’t stop the wince.
Lucy and I may have been as close as siblings once, but she’s never been like a sibling to me, and I haven’t been one to her either.
?
??How’d you meet him?” I ask.
She pushes her glasses farther up her nose and stares straight ahead now. “Don’t act like you care.”
Evasion is unlike Lucy. She’s a face-things-head-on kind of girl; it never really occurs to her to play word games. “You’re having second thoughts.”
“I’m not.”
“About him, or about surprising him?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer, and I’m pissed to know how much I wish she’d have said it was the first one.
“We met at a restaurant,” she says, deciding to answer my original question after all. “It was my first internship, and he was a sous-chef. That’s like the assistant—”
“I know what a sous-chef is,” I snap. “Sometimes I even manage to pluck the hay out of my teeth.”
“You know, I thought Horny was pulling to the left because the tire was low on air, but now I see that the chip on your shoulder is what’s pulling the car that way.”
“Who made the first move?” I ask, continuing our destructive pattern of picking and choosing what we respond to.
“I did,” she says. “He was hot and smart.”
“And connected.”
Her head snaps around. “Meaning?”
I spare her a quick glance as I change lanes to pass a slow truck. “Meaning, it can’t hurt to have a guy in the biz, right? An up-and-comer with connections?”
She blinks and I can feel that she’s stung, but I don’t apologize. “You’re so right,” she purrs, recovering quickly. “In fact, I tried to seduce the owner, but he was gay, so I’m stuck on the slow track of sleeping my way to the top.”
