leaves it half-full. Gage side-eyeballs me as he sets it onto a cardboard coaster that’ll be limp in under an hour.
We stare at each other.
He throws me a casual, “How was your week?”
And I fucking lose it.
Chapter Thirty-Four
GAGE
“How. Was. My. Week?!!!” Cherry looks like her head might explode like the engine that nearly burned off my eyebrows last Tuesday. “Are you kidding me right now? How was my week? Like everything is all—”
“—Casual.”
“Normal! I was going to say normal!”
“Normal for us is casual. At least that’s what we said it was.”
“Oh my God! Great! Just great!” She jumps off the barstool, and her sister and cousin start to follow, but I hold up my hand, stare at them. They sit down and I head after her, out the back entrance. Or exit. Whatever way you look at it, tonight clearly is the latter.
I’ve been avoiding this moment, but there’s no putting it off any more.
Guess endings always suck.
That’s why they end.
Outside I find Cherry waiting, but not for me. Her bright green eyes widen in shock upon sight of me, and she looks over my shoulder for her family.
“They’re not coming.”
She focuses all her fire at me. “How was my week?! I haven’t heard from you since last Saturday when you met pretty much my entire family, and then poof!” She flicks all ten fingers. “Gone!” Glancing around the parked cars and trees filled with chirping cicadas, she asks, stupefied, “Where’d Gage go? I don’t see him over here. Not over there either! No good-morning texts. No plans to drive to Myrtle Beach like we talked about maybe doing this weekend. Zip! And then you show up here, eat one of my precious fries, and act like we’re casual!”
“Look, I get it.”
She blinks at me, voice lowering to ask, “You get what?”
“You don’t have to do it this way.”
Her head swings back and then she starts to pace, muttering, “I don’t have to do it this way. I don’t have to do it this way??!” Facing me, she points at the asphalt. “I’m not doing anything on purpose here. This is who I am! I’m not one of those quiet ones!”
I smirk, “I know that.”
Her index finger flies up to warn me, “No sex jokes, Gage! Don’t even! This ain’t the time!”
“When have you ever used the word ‘ain’t’?”
“Right now! And I ain’t done usin’ it, ain’t I? No, I ain’t! You see, I’m not a girl who’s quiet and goes away quietly and does anything with a sock in her mouth even when there’s anger boiling right behind her smile. In fact, I just faked a couple of smiles on the patio, and you know what? It felt like shit! Because I don’t fake anything! I may be blunt, and yeah, I sometimes get loud, but everyone always knows where they stand with me!”
I cock my head, cross my arms, boots spread. “I like that about you, Cherry, all of that. Give me fire over water any fucking day of the week. But what I don’t need is a scene just so you can walk away feeling justified.”
Because people have gathered in the wonky parking lot now, and I just heard the back door take a long time to close. But our gazes remain locked, tempers rising.
She stomps her boot. “I don’t need a scene to feel justified! I can feel that way knowing I don’t deserve being ghosted.”
“If I was ghosting you, I wouldn’t have answered the phone!”
“You were just shocked it was the first time I called you first!
“I did notice that, yeah. Still wasn’t ghosting you!”
“Bullshit!”
“Not a liar. You can call me anything but never that!”
“I never called you anything. I’d never call you names!”
This makes us both pause to check if she’s right.
“Alright, bullshit isn’t a name. But it’s an implication.”
She waves, “Oooooooohhhh! I implied you were—”
“—a liar, which I ain’t!”
Her lips twitch at my using that word. “Gage, don’t make me laugh.” She stomps again. “I’m pissed at you!”
I rake my hair back, irritated gaze dropping to dark dots of flattened old chewing gum between us. “Cherry, I’m just being me — not trying to make light of what I knew would be a really shitty night. So just say it already!”
We locks eyes and she barks, “Say what?!”
“Say it’s over. You don’t want this.”
Confusion softens her, “What?”
“Alright, I’ll say it. I don’t want this. I’m not into casual anymore. Okay? Are you happy I did it and not you? Can you walk away