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“Love you. Bye.” I hang up, shaking my head, and lean it back in the seat.
Tyler hands over the money, dumps the food in my lap, and pulls away from McDonald’s. “That sounded…eventful.”
I laugh quietly, more to myself than anything. “My nana has early Alzheimer’s. She’s always been a bit on the crazy side, and the Alzheimer’s exaggerates that somewhat.”
“Ah. Now your side of the conversation sort of makes sense.”
“Like how she forgot that she called me?” I smile wryly. “She’s at the stage where she’s only a little more forgetful than any other old person, so I dunno. It’s kind of funny sometimes. When I went to my parents’ place, she told me, like, five times that she was staying in my room.” I roll my eyes.
“It must be hard.”
I shrug a shoulder. “She’s still ‘there.’ She’s still her, just with extra bounce, I guess. When she starts forgetting her way home or who we are, then we can worry. If we worried now, she’d just claim we were doing it deliberately to piss her off.”
“Sounds exactly like my sister,” he replies with a dry tone. “She’s sure my anger at her knobhead of an ex-husband is because I’m trying to piss her off.”
“Eh, I can see where she’d get the idea.” I dig my hand into the bag and shove a few fries in my mouth.
Tyler shoots me a glare. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“You are kind of annoying sometimes. And persistent. And ‘Me man. Me always right.’”
“What does that mean?”
I roll my eyes and feed him a handful of fries. Mostly so he can’t argue while I talk. “It means your sister is a big girl and doesn’t need her little brother”—a noise that sounds like a growl leaves Tyler—“bugging her ass and looking after her.”
He chews quicker. “She’s smaller than me.”
“And if she has half your no-shit attitude, I’m sure she’ll be just fine.” I raise my eyebrows and get out of the car.
“She actually has your no-shit attitude, but that isn’t the point,” he argues, walking around to me. “How did this conversation even get to this from McDonald’s?”
I shrug and hold the food out to him. He looks at it then back at me.
“You don’t expect me to carry this, do you? That’s what boyfriends do.”
Tyler’s lips pull up on one side, and the next thing I know, he’s wrapping one arm around my back and sweeping the other behind my knees. I scream when he lifts me and holds me snug against his body.
“No,” he laughs into my ear. “This is what boyfriends do. Wrap your arm around my neck.”
“This is ridiculous. You’ve clearly watched too many Disney movies.” I rest my arm around his shoulders, both the drinks and the food in my lap.
“Enough to know there’s always a happy ending.”
I open my mouth and close it again. I don’t want to think about endings. I want to think about beginnings.
“And the fact that there’s nearly always a sequel, so if you fuck it up the first time, you get a second try.”
I dig my fingers into the hollow of his collarbone. “Where is your faith?”
He pushes the button on the elevator. Somehow. “This from the woman who argued the toss with me until giving in to me in a post-orgasm haze.”
I purse my lips. “Well, this is kind of fucked up.”
“We’re the best kind of fucked up, baby girl. You know why? We know it and we don’t give a shit.” He winks and steps into the elevator.
I kick my legs softly. “The elevator? That’s not very boyfriend-like.”
“If you think I’m lugging your ass up those stairs, you can think again.”
