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“Agree to disagree.” She gave him a sweet smile, her eyes lingering on his face for far too long for my liking.
I felt the usually tight reins of my control starting to unravel.
“He’s right.” Carmella inserted her opinion on the matter, and, well, she was wrong too. “Cold pizza is unacceptable.”
Sky shook her head. “You will never convince me that there’s anything better than cold pizza straight out of the fridge in the morning.”
“Sky’s right,” I said, ending the debate. “Cold. Right out of the fridge. Nothing better. End of.”
“No. You’re both wrong. Sorry, but you’re wrong. Maybe it’s ’cause I’m from New York, but I just can’t agree with this blasphemy.” Chad took a healthy swig of his drink without wincing.
I was never the kind of person who could drink straight vodka. It tasted like rubbing alcohol to me. Now, tequila, on the other hand… that had always been my drink of choice, and I could drink it straight with the best of them. But that seemed like a lifetime ago.
“You’re from New York?” Carmella’s face lit up like she was about to ask Chad if she could adopt him for Christmas.
“Yeah.” Chad gave a shrug.
“What part? I’m from the Bronx,” Carmella said, her accent thick and proud. “Go Yankees,” she added, and we all laughed because it was so random. Not that she would like the Yankees, but that she’d bring up baseball.
Chad failed to respond, and Carmella waved her hand at him, trying to get him to spit it out.
I had no idea why he was so hesitant until he finally answered, “The Hamptons.”
I threw my head back and whistled. “I didn’t know anyone was actuallyfromthere. I thought it was just a place where rich people vacationed in the summer.”
“I did too,” Sky added with a wince. “Is that offensive to say?”
Chad laughed. “Not at all. I know that most people don’t know much about it, except for what they read and hear on TV. But it’s a real place, where you can live full-time and grow up and go to high school.”
“It sounds fancy,” Sky said, her eyes wide, and Carmella nodded.
“It is,” Carmella said before Chad could disagree.
He downed the rest of his drink before signaling to Raul that he’d like another. The rest of us had barely even touched ours.
“Where are you two from?” Chad asked, trying to steer the conversation away from his fancy Hamptons upbringing.
“Florida,” Sky and I both said at the same time, our voices echoing loudly in the bar area.
My eyes widened as I shook my head at her. “You’re from Florida? What part?”
How hadn’t I known that?
“You first,” she said, her expression untrusting, like I might be lying about where I was from.
“Miami,” I said, my Cuban accent coming out the same way that Carmella’s seemed to when she talked about her home.
“It all makes so much sense now,” Sky said, and I felt myself growing defensive.
I loved my hometown and wouldn’t tolerate anything bad being said about it. Especially not from her.
“What does that mean?” I asked, my tone dead serious.
“You look like you belong in Miami. It suits you.”
“How so?” I pushed, wanting to hear how she saw me. I didn’t care that anyone else was around, listening to her judgment about me.
Sky laughed. “The player lifestyle. Beautiful women at your fingertips. The clubs and beaches as your playground and you’re the king of it all.”
