10 Things I Hate About Pinky - Sandhya Menon Page 0,38
her skin, honey?” he asked, and then, without waiting for an answer, he walked out too.
Pinky drank her coffee, the sound of her swallowing thunderous in the silence. “What?”
Samir shrugged. “Nothing. I just… I don’t know why you told them like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you were purposely trying to antagonize them.” He brought his dirty dishes to the sink and, donning an apron, began rinsing them off for the dishwasher.
“What do you care?” she snapped. “You should be thanking me. I saved you from talking about something you obviously don’t like talking about.”
His cheeks flushed, and Pinky felt immediately bad about calling attention to his family stuff. “I didn’t need your help.”
Pinky raised an eyebrow. “You could’ve fooled me.”
Samir narrowed his eyes at her. “You know what, stop changing the subject. The point is, you could’ve told them more gently, but you chose to be a total brat. I’m guessing that’s pretty standard for you.”
Pinky barked a laugh. “Name calling? Really mature, Samir. Besides, it doesn’t even matter, okay? You’ve been here for, like, two seconds, so you don’t know this, but they’re going to be mad at me anyway for something.”
Samir set his cup into the dishwasher with a rattle. “But that’s the thing! You could’ve told them how long you spent researching the habitats of opossums and what they need in captivity. You could’ve told them how I said you should abandon Drama Queen, but you couldn’t do that. You could’ve told them a lot of nice things about yourself, but instead you… you positioned it like you were just doing this all on a whim. To piss them off. Admit it.”
Pinky stared at him. Was he right? Had she somehow wanted to piss her parents off? No way. What sense did that even make? She decided to change the subject. “Whatever, dude. So, you ready to get your butt kicked in this paddleboat tournament?”
Samir took off his apron and paused, obviously wondering whether to take the bait and change subjects or not. Luckily (for him), he decided to go with it. “Tournament? I thought your dad said we were just taking them out on the lake for fun.”
“Ha. You obviously don’t know my family. Everything is a competition. Don’t let him fool you; he’s gonna be vying for the upper hand the whole time. Just prepare your gracious-loser face. He’s pretty unstoppable.”
Samir grinned an uncharacteristically evil grin. “Well, then, Pops can bring it on.”
“Who can bring what on?” Her father was back in the kitchen.
“Um, n-nothing,” Samir said, his eyes going wide and innocent. He hung his apron from the hook on the wall. “Sir.”
Pinky smirked at him.
“Pinky,” her father said, a pinched expression on his face. “Mom and I would like to talk to you in your room. Please.”
“Good luck,” Samir muttered sarcastically.
Pinky threw him a peace sign before she sauntered out after her dad, still just a tad uneasy at what he’d said: that she’d been trying to piss her parents off. But that was ridiculous, right?
* * *
“So they’re letting you keep her,” Samir said, squinting in the sunshine.
“Oh yeah. I just had to promise I was litter-box training her. They’re not completely heartless.” They were at the boathouse on the lake, pulling out their paddleboats. Pinky’s parents and Dolly’s family already each had their three-person boats and had headed into the water. Samir and Pinky were the last to go. “They just like to make it seem that way. My mom, especially. You know they call her the Shark in legal circles?”
They took their seats, and Samir untied their boat. As they began paddling out after Pinky’s family, he said, “Yeah, I think I may have heard that somewhere.”
“Oh, right,” Pinky said, regarding him with a small smile. “I forgot.”
“Forgot what?”
“That you’re, like, this baby lawyer shark.” She pedaled harder, shaking her head. “It’s pretty strange, you know.”
“Being a lawyer is strange? Don’t tell your parents that.”
“No, I mean the fact that you already know what you want to do and you’re basically like this tiny version of my parents.”
Samir raised an eyebrow. “Tiny?” He gestured to his muscular body. “Excuse me?”
“Hmm, maybe not tiny,” Pinky said, her gaze sneaking off to trace his broad shoulders without her permission. She forced herself to look away. “But young, I guess.”
“I’ve always known what I wanted,” Samir said, the sun glittering off the lake and casting patterns on his face. “I don’t know, I guess it’s strange. It just feels normal for me, though.”