get my jeans on. People need to stop bringing me fucking pies!” I yell, coming out of the closet.
Sadie snorts, pouring more wine as she’s texting someone on her phone. “You don’t have to eat the entire pie.”
“I do when they’re chocolate.” Reaching inside my dresser, I dump all of Collin’s clothes onto the floor and then find my fat jeans. “I’ll wear these.”
“I can lend you money,” Nahla says again when I start counting the quarters in my change jar, wondering how expensive a drink will be at a bar.
“No way.” I can’t take money from her. She worked hard for it, and I’m not a charity case. “But you can buy me a drink.”
“Deal.”
Downstairs, we look like quite the crew. Nahla is still wearing her clothes from work. Business pants and a white blouse. Sadie, she’s wearing one of my dresses with a chip clip synching it tighter in the back. Remi’s wearing the same outfit she came in and still looks ten times better than me—the one wearing mom jeans and a slutty top.
At the door, Emmie is standing there with a pie in hand.
“Oh, hey,” she eyes us, smiling. “You guys going out?”
“Yep.” I wave to her mom in the car.
“Snatched.”
Nahla frowns. “Did she just call us snatches?”
“We look the part,” Sadie has to add and then half-smiles at Remi. “No offense.”
“Oh, none taken. I don’t even like Snickers.”
If you’re thinking to yourself, what the fuck? We all are.
Emmie rolls her eyes. “Snatched. Good. Cool.”
“Oh. I knew that.” Remi laughs, waving her perfect hand around, her blonde hair blowing in the light breeze. Yeah, so an hour ago, she took her hat off, and her hair fell perfectly from it and cascaded over her tiny bony shoulders in beach waves.
If I’m wearing a hat during the day, you better fucking believe my hair looks like a squished bird’s nest on a rainy day.
Nahla shakes her head, digging out the keys to her car. “We were just on our way out.”
“Tatum is with Karen tonight,” I add.
“Oh, yeah, right.” Emmie hands me the pie. “Here. Mom made you a pie.”
“Not another pie,” I groan.
Emmie laughs, stepping off the porch and toward her mom’s car. “Okay, well, I’ll swing by tomorrow and take Tatum to the park for a bit.”
As she’s leaving, Nahla clicks the remote to her Mercedes. “Let’s take my car. I had the least amount of wine.”
“I’m totally sober,” Remi informs us. “I can drive.”
“No way, mistress. I’m letting you come out with us, but I’m not getting in a car you probably fucked my husband in.”
Paled white face and wide eyes find mine. “I, uh… we can take her car.” She points to Nahla.
Yep. Theory confirmed. Oh my God, why am I doing this?
I hand Nahla the keys to my van. “We won’t fit in your car, so let’s take the van.”
She agrees, reluctantly, mumbling about never wanting to drive a minivan in her life but changes her mind when she’s inside it. “Oh, cool. The doors open and close by themselves?”
“Yep. And there’s a mini-fridge in the console.”
Her eyes dart to the console. “I might have to get one of these.”
I sit in the passenger side, Remi and Sadie in the back, when I realize the pie is in my lap. Crap. I hand it over my shoulder to Sadie. “Here. Put this somewhere away from me.”
Nahla starts the van, and the second the radio kicks to life, the dashboard lighting up, my eyes burn, tears surfacing, for reasons I don’t know. Maybe it goes back to speedballing. I don’t know if I’m on an upper or a downer, or maybe a combination of them both.
What I do know?
Me and these mom jeans glued to my ass are ready for a changeup.
The battery includes two baseball players, the pitcher and the catcher. A pitcher and catcher from the same team are known as “battery mates.”
SYDNEY
Rula Bula is an Irish pub bar on the ASU strip, which means it’s popular for college kids. Seeing how I’m with two of them, I shouldn’t be surprised they chose it, and I’m not in any mood to complain. As long as they serve me a drink, I don’t care at this point.
The second we walk inside, I realize that I shouldn’t be here. I think, and don’t put much weight on this, but after twenty-five, you steer clear of shit like this. I will say there’s a live band so it makes it slightly more enjoyable.