“I know. It’s complicated and I’m being a stubborn butt.” He yanks my shoelace untied. “‘I’ll think about it’ is good enough for me. I’ll cover for you tomorrow so you can do the dog thing with Daniel.”
I sigh in relief. “Thanks, Griff. I owe you like ten million.” I retie my shoe.
“Yep. You’re one lucky son-of-a-cuss to have a friend like me.” He starts singing the genie’s song from Aladdin. I join in while drumming the dryer lid with my knuckles until someone in the apartment above the laundry room stomps their foot and yells, “Skip track!” and we laugh so hard I nearly pee myself like an ancient Pomeranian.
12
Closed for Business
Daniel
Early Sunday morning, Mitchell scares the bejesus out of me while I’m pumping the bike trailer’s tires in the garage. “What are you doing?”
“Inventing sliced bread.”
“You’ve been weird lately. Something’s up.”
“I’m—” Ugh, I’m no good at thinking fast. “I’m taking Frankie’s old bed to the kennel. Since Mom says we can’t get another dog. They can use it.”
“Why don’t you just ask Mom to drive it? Duh.”
“You know what would be great? If you’d stop acting like you’re looking for a chance to throw me under a bus.”
His eyes narrow as he watches me hook the trailer to Vlad the Rapid. “So.” He crosses his arms. “I know for a fact that Fiona’s not busy this morning. You set me up on a blind date with her, and I won’t tell Mom you’re sneaking—”
“Mitch. Fiona has a boyfriend.”
“The guy’s a jerk who takes her for granted. She deserves better.”
“You’re better?”
“Yes.” He kicks the garage doorframe. “You’re friends with her. If you tell her you want to meet her, she’ll do what you say. And then it’ll be me instead of you that shows up. With this.” He takes something out of his pocket and shows me. It’s a tiny silver Avengers music box.
“I’m not lying to her. She’s my friend.”
“Fine, I’ll tell Mom you’ve been sneaking out at night. And that I found your hoodie behind the shed and it smelled like pee.”
I look up at him. He looks back at me evenly, his arms still crossed. His jaw set.
He knows this is messed up. And he’s doing it anyway because he’s that tied in knots over this girl.
I grit my teeth. Mitch has a competitive streak a mile wide. He once told me I’d spent thirteen and a half hours doing stuff with Dad during Christmas break, and that Dad had only spent six hours with him. He lives to get even. I can’t tell him no or he’ll bust me and Chewbarka will be killed.
But man, I do not want to do this to Fiona. It’s so unfair to her. I focus on the trailer tires, trying to think up some other solution that won’t involve lying to her.
Mitchell takes out his phone. “I could text Mom right now.”
“Fine,” I snap at him. “Just . . . ugh. Really? Really?”
He at least has the decency to look a little sick that his gross plan worked. “Tell her you want to meet at Frosty Stop. Eleven o’clock.”
I curse Mitchell out mentally, then text Fiona: Can you meet me at Frosty Stop at 11? Need to ask you something. I am a complete freaking jerk.
I guess, Fiona writes back. Everything cool?
Yup, will tell you what’s up when I see you. She’s going to destroy me for this. And I’m going to deserve it. “She’s in,” I tell Mitch. “If I’m not back before Mom gets home from church and volunteering, tell her I went to the kennel.”
“You didn’t put Frankie’s bed in the trailer. Are you actually going there?”
“Do you actually care?”
Mitch steps into the shadows of the garage. He picks at a chunk of dried dirt on an empty pot and looks at me sideways. “I’ve thought of like fifty reasons for you to sneak out every night and come home reeking of outhouse. None of them are good. Are you like . . . okay?”
I wheel Vlad and the trailer out of the garage and yank the door down behind me. I am never, ever playing spin the bottle again.
Sometimes when I’m biking, my brain spits out an insight I belatedly realize has been stewing in the back of my head. Like a computer program solving an equation while the user does something else, and then boom: an answer. On the way to meet Ash, while I’m thinking over everything I told her about Cole, it occurs to me that saying I’m sorry and crying was just me doing the same thing that drove him to drop me in the first place: focusing on myself. On how I felt. I felt sorry, I felt regret, I felt guilty. And I expressed that.
What I should have done was what he always did for me. I should have said I understood where he was coming from. Cole is brilliant at repeating what someone says so they know he’s understood them. I should have done that in June, when he was mad I kissed Fiona. I should have said I didn’t think about how much it would hurt you to watch that happen.
There’s more I need to think about with this, but I’m nearly to the corner where I agreed to meet Ash. The second I see her, a surge of nerves hits. She’s on Sir Reginald Bevis the Steadfast, one foot on the ground and the other on a pedal, rolling back and forth. A purple helmet that matches her frilly purple shirt dangles from the bike’s handlebars. She sees me and her face lights up.
My heart does the same thing. It’s . . . surprising. And reassuring. I was starting to think something was wrong with me since I’ve never caught feels for someone the way it seems like everyone around me has
