Give me a burger, cheddar, and skip the side.” I keep my mouth locked in the tight-lipped smile while she sets down my water and scribbles my pretty basic order on her pad. I think maybe she’s new here; I should tip her good. I blink a few times, silently counting the seconds, until she looks back up at me and tells me my food will “be right up.”
There’s a happy sway to her hips that bobs her ponytail from side-to-side as she walks away and I laugh lightly before returning my gaze to June. “Why couldn’t I get stuck on a girl like that?”
“Because she just got her driver’s license and you’re narrowing down your college choice,” June replies.
I point at her and nod in agreement, then excuse myself to the restroom to follow through with my charade. My hair is a mess, having rushed from yard work to the diner without a break in between. I spend a few minutes at the sink, soaking my hands and running my fingers through my hair, wishing like hell I had a hat. I’d dry my hands on the front of my shirt, but now that I glance down at it, there’s dirt all over the front. I grab a towel from the dispenser and pat my hands dry before taking the towel to my shirt to clear some of the dirt off and, what the—? My pants are worse. Who am I? I bend at my waist and brush along the seams of my joggers, actual leaves and twigs getting knocked to the floor.
“Ha.” I laugh out loud at myself.
I give up when major chunks of nature are no longer stuck to me, and wad the towel into a ball and toss it across the room into the trash bin. Guilty or not, I do feel lighter now that I’ve bared my soul to June. I’ll just go back and take her lecture or her advice on how to get over crushes—like she ever did—and then I’ll go home and crash face down in my sheets to make up for the zero sleep I got last night. I tossed and turned with stress for seven hours, and I was pretty close to barging into Hayden’s room and begging him either for forgiveness or his girlfriend. The end goal changed every ten minutes.
The bathroom door opens with surprising ease and I almost crack heads with the person coming in while I’m exiting.
“Oh, shoot!”
There’s a strange element to being a twin that people don’t talk about. Even when you’re used to it, it’s still surprising to look right back at yourself. I had a slight warning, though, because shoot is a total Hayden word.
His palm grasps my shoulder hard, and at first I prepare myself for a fist in the jaw, but he shakes me instead.
“Damn, you scared me,” he says, gripping his hand to his chest. He’s all cleaned up, a nice white T-shirt and jeans. It’s kinda like we traded places during the tornado, like one of those movies, only I’m still stuck wanting his girl and he’s still got her. All I got was his frumpy-ass look while he got my style.
“Sorry. Hey, I didn’t know you were coming.” I scratch at my head as I swap places with him, stepping out while he steps in.
“Yeah, so much for a day off, I guess,” he says.
“We’ve got practice?” My face screws up with surprise because Coach texted us all this morning, telling us to work out and do sprints for the next two days and be ready to hit the gym at the junior high on Thursday. Ours is basically a shipwreck.
“Nah, I picked up a shift, and Mom gave me her car,” he says. It’s then that I notice the infamous red weenie shirt clutched in his fist. “First official day on the job!”
“Nice. I’ll let you change,” I say with a quick smile to excuse myself.
My back barely turned, Hayden catches the door.
“Oh, and Abby came with. We were going to hang but then, duty calls! She thought maybe you’d be up for running lines? If not, it’s cool. I can take her home.”
I don’t want to turn around. If I do, I’m either going to tell him that the phrase duty calls means he has to take a shit, or I’m going to massively fail at bluffing as I stammer my way through an excuse to avoid being alone with Abby.