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“You’re boring as hell and I pity you,” he countered with fake pity, howling with laughter when I lunged for him. “Fine! Fine! Let’s watch a movie or something.”
“You pick one,” I said, stuffing the last of my pizza into my mouth. “I’m going to change.”
“We’re not watching a girly movie,” he called as I headed toward my room. “No sex scenes! It’s weird.”
I snorted and then coughed, choking on the pizza in my mouth until my eyes watered.
Half an hour later, I was rolled up in my blanket like a burrito laying on the couch watching some weird sci-fi movie Bird had chosen. At that point I’d given up on hearing from Rumi, but the later it got, the more irritated I became that he hadn’t even texted me to apologize for standing me up. By the time I fell asleep halfway through the second movie, I was furious and Rumi was an asshole.
The silver lining to the whole being stood up situation was that I actually got a good night’s rest and woke up before my alarm the next morning. I was working at the pancake house, which honestly was the easier of my two jobs because I just got to greet people and bring them to their seats. Plus, I had time to shower, do my hairandmakeup, which didn’t happen very often. It was shaping up to be a pretty good day even though I was still super pissed at Rumi.
I was smiling when Rumi’s older brother Micky came into the restaurant that morning, but it quickly turned into gaping like an idiot when he introduced me to the toddler son that I hadn’t even known existed. I didn’t remember most of the interaction later because I’d been so surprised and seriously fucking confused. I just kept peeking at them around the corner after I’d seated them wondering what the fuck was going on. I remembered Emilia vaguely from when we were kids, but I hadn’t really ever been around her. When she and Micky had been dating, they’d kept to themselves a lot. During that period, Rumi and I hadn’t been spending much time together either, because I’d gone to a different high school. I recognized her, though, and I remembered that Rumi had said she was sweet until she’d disappeared with her parents when we were sixteen.
The minute I got off work, I grabbed my phone and hurried to my car, calling Rumi on the way.
“What the fuck?” I whisper shrieked as soon as he’d answered.
“I’m so sorry, dude,” he replied quickly. “I completely fuckin’ forgot we were supposed to hang last night. It was a fuckin’ shit show—”
“Micky has a kid?” I yelled as soon as I’d wrestled my door closed.
“That’s the shit show,” he yelled back. “Emilia showed up yesterday with a fuckin’ baby.”
“That’s not a baby,” I countered. “That kid is fucking walking.”
Rumi laughed. “Well, she took off about three years ago, so the timing fits.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah, no kidding. He’s cute, though, right?”
“So fucking cute,” I agreed, staring blankly through the windshield. “But seriously, what the fuck?”
“I don’t know,” Rumi replied with a sigh. “His name is Rhett—”
“Cool name.”
“They’re stayin’ with Mick.”
“Like in his house?”
“Like in his house,” he confirmed.
“Well, that had to have been a surprise,” I joked. Micky had completely trashed Emilia’s old house after she was gone and their dad Tommy ended up having to buy the place to keep Micky from getting arrested for it. I didn’t know all the details but eventually Micky had bought the house from his dad and fixed all the shit he’d torn apart… and then started living there. Essentially, Emilia had just moved back into her childhood home—which now belonged to her high school boyfriend.
“I doubt it was more of a surprise than Mick finding out he had a kid,” Rumi replied grimly.
“Holy shit,” I whispered again. “How did your parents react?”
“Like you’d expect,” Rumi said with a laugh. “Happy they’re here. Tryin’ to keep the peace because Otto’s pissed.”
“Ottois pissed?” Rumi had three brothers and a sister, Otto was a couple years younger than us.
“Plot twist.” Rumi sighed. “So, yeah. It’s been a weird twenty-four hours.”
“How are you feeling about it?” I asked. I remembered how busted up Rumi had been when Emilia had gone missing. Micky had been in love with her but Rumi had considered her one of his best friends. I’d been jealous of their relationship once upon a time. It had kind of felt like she’d replaced me.
“I’m getting hammered tonight,” he replied, telling me everything I needed to know. “You down?”
