Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,89

“Better,” I answer. “Thanks for helping with the bandana bandage.”

I don’t mean to, not consciously, but I’m feeling punchy and so I do it without thinking.

I repeat the phrase “bandana bandage” with over-enunciation.

Hunter curls slightly away from the wall, stifling a laugh.

“The only thing that would be better,” he whispers, “is if there was a fruit motif on the handkerchief, then you’d have a banana bandana bandage.”

I feel a fizzing laugh build in my chest. My hands flap in front of my face in a stop, I’m gonna bust universal gesture.

We don’t look at each other, taking deep breaths to disperse our overstressed, completely inappropriate given the situation, punchy laughter.

I can’t help it.

“It would be so great if you had that fruit motif handkerchief while you were on vacation,” I start.

“Staaaaaahp,” Hunter hisses, snorting.

“—by the beach,” I continue, and we’re both curling, trying to keep our laughter as quiet as our whispers.

“Don’t you dare!” Hunter gasps. “Don’t say cabana!”

We both eke out hisses of near-silent laughter, sounding like that old animated dog, Mutley, with his asthmatic heh heh hehs.

It must be stress, and the laughter must be some kind of stress relief, because apart from the stitch in my side from trying to hold the laughter in, I actually do feel better.

We agree to a truce on the bandana thing, so we take deep breaths and get ourselves back under control, carefully not looking at each other until the jag subsides.

When we’re quiet for a full minute, I take the lid off the water bottle and take a drink.

Hunter clears his throat.

“If the bandage got torn,” he begins.

I laugh-choke water into my nose.

25

After the laughing jag, we share another energy bar and the rest of the water bottle.

Hunter hands the last bite to me.

“I guess we can’t sue a zombie convention for having an actual zombie apocalypse,” he says. “But it does seem a little on the nose.”

“I just wish they would’ve put it on the promotional materials.”

I yawn.

“What time did your day start?” I ask.

“My driver picked me up from the hotel in Atlanta at seven.” Hunter repositions himself, propping his elbows on his knees. “How about you?”

“My driver dropped me off at six thirty,” I say.

His eyes narrow in concern. “I wasn’t trying to sound like a jerk. The driver was a convention volunteer named Cindy. It’s just an industry term to call it ‘my driver’ or ‘your driver.’”

I put a hand on his forearm.

“I was just kidding,” I say. “My driver was my mom.”

Hunter smiles. “She sounds nice, getting up early on a Saturday to drive you down.”

“Not only that but she bought us a drive-through breakfast on the way,” I tell him. “Me and my friend Imani.”

“I didn’t stop for drive-through breakfast,” Hunter says. “Just coffee.”

He sounds so adult. I don’t even like coffee unless it’s the sugary frozen kind.

“Imani didn’t really eat her breakfast,” I say. “But that’s probably because she had so much pizza last night.”

“So, you had a slumber party, too? That sounds like fun.”

I stop, carefully checking his eyes, because maybe it sounds silly. Makes me seem like a little kid. Maybe he thinks I’m younger than I am.

Maybe I am younger than I am, but that’s not the point.

But Hunter’s still smiling, this wide-open expression on his face, not like an adult at all but like a kid listening to story time.

“Yeah, we have sleepovers all the time,” I tell him. “We grew up in each other’s pockets, as my mom says. We live on the same block. If we cut through backyards it’s like only three houses away.”

Hunter’s expression turns wistful.

“I don’t have any friendships like that,” he says. “I mean, I have friends and stuff, but it’s not the same. We moved around too much and