10 Things I Hate About Pinky - Sandhya Menon Page 0,42
paddleboats at the pier behind them, gently rocking on the water. He rubbed his hands together, a mad glint in his eye. “Or do you want to see how you do heading back? Aim for a tie, maybe?”
Pinky’s mom reached over and dabbed the corner of his mouth with a napkin, and Samir sagged with relief. “Howard, please. Try not to scare the boy.”
Dolly laughed. “I doubt Samir scares easily. He’s dating Pinky, after all.”
Pinky threw a grape at her. “Samir’s not the competitive type,” Pinky said at the exact same moment Samir said, “I love a little healthy competition.”
They stared at each other, frozen, for a moment.
Mr. Montclair, Dolly’s dad, laughed. “I sense a little incongruence! Which is it?”
“As the psychologists Luft and Ingham would say, perhaps Samir’s blind spot is warring with his arena.” Mrs. Montclair chuckled.
Samir had no idea what they were talking about. What he did know was that both of Pinky’s parents and Dolly were frowning at him and Pinky. He cleared his throat. “No, ah, Pinky’s right. I… I don’t usually like competition. But in this case, I think it’ll be fun.”
“You don’t have to pretend to be someone you’re not just to impress my parents,” Pinky said, raising an eyebrow, her eyebrow ring glinting in the summer sun.
What? Was she seriously just throwing him to the wolves like that? She hadn’t even attempted to salvage the situation and she was going to criticize him? “I wasn’t,” he bit out, smiling rigidly at her. “But not all of us feel the need to fight with the adults around us all the time, sweetie.”
Pinky eyed the tines of her fork before slowly setting it down. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think it’s pretty obvious what it means,” Samir said. They glared at each other.
Mr. Yeung coughed a little. Oh crap. He’d kind of forgotten the end goal. Now all of them looked halfway between awkward and confused.
Samir forced himself to walk across the picnic blanket and sit next to Pinky. He slung an arm around her narrow shoulders and kissed the soft side of her temple (maybe that was technically breaking a rule—she’d expressly said no kissing—but this was a dire situation). He couldn’t help but inhale (a boy had to breathe, after all); she smelled like lake and sun and flowers. Samir blinked, trying to remind himself that even poison could smell nice, when he realized that Pinky was just sitting there, immobile, almost frozen. As if no boy had ever kissed the side of her temple before and she had no idea how to react. God. Couldn’t she at least make an effort?
“Anyway,” he forced himself to say easily to Mr. Yeung. “I’d love to race you back. But can I ask that Dolly come with us to be Pinky’s co-navigator? We could definitely use the help paddling.” He laughed and looked down at Pinky, feeling an evil sparkle in his eye. “You don’t mind, do you, sugarplum?”
Smiling too, she put one hand on his knee and squeezed hard enough to nearly crush it to knee-shaped pulp. He forced himself not to yelp. “Not at all, honeybun.”
“Uh…” Mr. Yeung looked from Samir to Pinky and then at Dolly. “I don’t mind if you don’t mind, Dolly.”
Dolly narrowed her eyes at Pinky. “I don’t mind at all,” she said thoughtfully.
* * *
Once they were back home—Mr. Yeung had officially won the paddleboat contest (he’d pounded a Red Bull right before they started, Samir was sure of it) and would probably crow about it for the next century—Dolly went upstairs to take her shower, and Pinky and Samir followed a few minutes later.
“What is your problem?” Pinky hissed.
“My problem?” Samir hissed back. “You were the one acting like you hate me!”
She folded her long arms against her torso as they emerged onto the second floor. “Oh. I wonder why.” Mockingly, she added, “ ‘Not all of us feel the need to fight with the adults around us all the time, sweetie.’ ”
Samir wondered how one person could be so irritating. “I do not sound like that!”
“ ‘I do not sound like that!’ ” Pinky said in that same mocking, nasally tone.
“Very mature.”
Pinky laughed. “I am so getting under your skin. Seriously? That’s all it takes?”
“ ‘Seriously? That’s all it takes?’ ” Samir said in a high-pitched voice, mocking her too. He was vaguely aware that they were in the hallway and could be caught any moment, but she was just too annoying to let it go.