bellowed from the door. He frowned, looking first at me and then Travis. “You two are alone in a bedroom?”
“I was changing out of my pool clothes,” I explained. “And then I destroyed their closet. And then I apologized to Travis for high school.”
“All of high school?” Jake asked, confused.
“No, just the parts that I messed up for him.”
“And I told Marley that there’s no hard feelings. It’s all good.” Travis slapped Jake on the shoulder. “So when are you bringing that piece-of-shit SUV in and trading it for an Escalade?”
“Pfft,” Jake snorted. “When you start offering fifty percent off for high school classmates. So, Mars. I hunted you down because Vicky says it’s time for your Spice Girls routine.”
I perked up. Vicky and I had spent part of junior high coordinating a spectacular dance routine to most of the Spice Girls’ catalog.
“If you gentlemen will excuse me, there’s an ass I need to shake. Spoiler alert: It’s mine.”
62
Jake
A rhythmic sawing noise woke me, and I wondered who the fuck let the lumberjack in the house. I opened one bleary eye and immediately slammed it shut against the abrasive light of day.
I had a Hostetter Hangover. Something I’d avoided for the past four years since the “drunk in the whirlpool tub” incident.
My headache had a pulse. It was a living, breathing thing, and I wanted to kill it.
A desert. The motherfucking Sahara Desert. That’s what was inside my mouth. There were cacti growing on my tongue.
Someone else moaned, and I realized my body was contorted around Marley. I could tell by the smell of her shampoo, the shape of the ass pressed against my crotch. Wait. What was happening with my crotch? It felt like it was being hugged.
I cracked my other eye open and looked down.
“How the hell did I get in bicycle shorts?”
“Huh?” Marley groaned into a Harry Potter pillow.
I didn’t have a Harry Potter pillow. Or bike shorts.
The horror was just sinking in when there was a cheery knock at the door. And then I was making eye contact with Ned Cicero.
“Marl—holy shit,” he squeaked.
I tried to wrestle the bedspread up and over my body.
“Are those my bike shorts?” Ned asked.
“Dad?” Marley finally roused herself from the depths of her hangover to join me in this misery. “Jake?”
“Apparently we decided to crash here last night?” I guessed.
It was coming back to me in bits and pieces. Whiskey and beer. Jell-O shots. Boone’s Farm Pong. It was easier to just stumble next door than call for a ride.
“I’ll just leave you to it,” Ned said, his voice two octaves higher than usual.
It. He was going to leave us to it.
He slammed the door, and I could hear the pitter-patter of his size eights as he ran down the stairs to get as far away from this nightmare as possible.
“Marley.” I shook her.
“Let me die in peace,” she groaned.
“Your dad just walked in on us in bed together, and I’m wearing his bike shorts.”
She rolled toward me, wincing at the motion. “Why are you in his bike shorts?”
“How the hell should I know? Also, I might be new at this relationship thing, but even I know it’s bad form to be caught in your girlfriend’s bed in her parents’ house.”
“We’re thirty-eight years old, Jake,” she rasped, exploring her own cotton mouth.
“It doesn’t matter if we’re eighty. It’s disrespectful! And now I’ve got my junk all over his bike shorts. What kind of message does that send?”
She yanked the blanket off me and wrapped it around her head. “Can we discuss this next week when I’m not actively dying?”
The door opened again. But this time, instead of a bewildered Cicero, it was a short stranger in a blue bathrobe. “This isn’t the bathroom,” he observed, backing out of the room. His gaze lingered on my bike shorts.
“Across the hall,” Marley croaked.
“Yep. Cool. Sorry.” He shut the door.
“Who the fuck is making all that racket? If it’s one of my kids, I’m selling them to the gypsies when they come through town again.”
Marley and I stared wide-eyed at each other before peering over the side of the bed. Vicky had made a nest in clean laundry and had one of Marley’s bras wrapped around her head to block the light.
“Are your kids here?” Marley demanded.
“That depends,” Vicky said, pulling a pair of sweat pants over her shoulders. “Where is here?”
“My parents’ house.”
“Oh, good. Then they’re probably not here.”
“Shit.” I reached for my phone and realized I had no idea where it