10 Things I Hate About Pinky - Sandhya Menon Page 0,79

the looks of it, though, she was pretending the ball didn’t even exist.

“Pretty good,” she said now, tasting a bit of the gazpacho in her bowl. “My parents are going to be seriously impressed that I had anything to do with this at all.”

Samir smiled. “Well, you made it. I just gave you instructions. I’ll vouch for you.”

“Thanks.”

He blinked and looked away when she held eye contact. “So, um, who was that? On the phone earlier?”

“Gloria. She wants us to help her canvass the neighborhood later on in July. Oh, and I also got a text from Dolly. She wanted to know if we wanted to go swimming with Cash and her.”

Samir made a face.

“Yeah, I know. But she really wanted us to, so I’m thinking we should. I mean, if you don’t mind too much.”

“I don’t mind,” Samir said reluctantly. “Besides, we gotta keep up appearances, right? It’ll be weird if this is a double date and I don’t go.”

Pinky smiled. “Thanks.”

* * *

They walked out to the pier—Pinky dressed in her glittery black Kali bikini, Samir in his much more sensible plain blue swim trunks—after both sets of parents had had two bowls of the gazpacho each. Both of Pinky’s parents had looked like they might pop from pride when she told them she’d made it. Samir had flashed her a surreptitious thumbs-up; their plan was working. At least one thing wasn’t a total disaster this summer.

Now, Pinky held on to DQ’s leash. As they got closer to the lake, she tied it around a skinny tree trunk close by. Samir glanced at her occasionally, but she made no move to talk about their latest kiss. The girl was like a closed book—with some of the pages ripped out. He blew out a silent, frustrated breath, and she looked at him, one eyebrow raised, eyebrow ring glinting. “You okay?”

Okay, so maybe it hadn’t been so silent. “Yeah, fine.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Where are we supposed to be meeting them anyway?”

Pinky pointed to the water. Cash and Dolly were already in the lake; they came swimming up when they saw Pinky and Samir.

“Hey,” Dolly said. “Glad you guys could come. I just thought it’d be nice, you know, if the four of us could hang out a bit more. Make this summer a little more fun.” She smiled kind of desperately.

“Sure.” Pinky smiled stiffly at Cash. “Hey, Cash.”

Too cool to be verbal, he just tipped his head at her.

“Hey,” Samir said, slipping into the water.

“So, you staying the whole summer?” Cash asked, doing a lazy backstroke.

“I think so,” Samir replied, treading water.

Pinky splashed into the water and emerged beside him just as Dolly said, “Oh yeah. Everyone loves Samir. I think both our parents are going to be really sad when he leaves to go back home. They’ve kind of adopted him.”

Samir laughed. “I don’t know about that.”

“Really?” Cash said, his blue eyes steady on Samir. “That’s cool, man. Do you go to Pinky’s school?”

“No, I’m homeschooled,” Samir said, feeling that familiar warmth in his cheeks. People made all kinds of assumptions, none of them nice, when you told them that.

Cash was no different. He smirked. “Seriously?”

Samir met his eye coolly. “Yeah. Seriously.”

Cash shook his head. “Dude.”

Samir knew it shouldn’t affect him—Cash was irrelevant—but he felt his pulse kick up at the judgment in his voice. “ ‘Dude’ what?” he asked, his voice hard.

Pinky and Dolly exchanged a glance. “Why don’t we get our inner tubes—” Dolly began, but Cash cut her off.

“I don’t know, bro,” Cash said, a lazy, insolent smile on his face. “Being homeschooled is kind of… weird. Are you in some kind of cult or something? Like, do you have to impregnate your mom when you turn eighteen?” He chuckled at his own wit.

“Cash,” Dolly said, her face livid.

When Samir spoke, he made sure his voice was quiet and controlled, but firm. “Don’t ever talk to me like that.”

Cash swam closer to him, so they were almost nose to nose. “Oh yeah?” he asked, still smirking, though Samir could see the anger twitching just under the surface. “That supposed to scare me?”

Samir just stared at him, willing himself to not resort to anything physical, telling himself he wouldn’t be the first to lay a hand on this asshole. But he also wouldn’t be the first to look away.

And then Dolly was yanking Cash back, her face red.

“Stop it!” she said, looking up at Cash as she treaded water. Her breaths came in