“Whatever. Put your shirt on and I’ll think about it.”
I give Joel a ride and curse myself for doing it. Mind-blowing sex is a mutual exchange, but since when did I also become a free hotel room and complimentary taxi service? Next time, I’m kicking him out right after—I don’t care how toe curling the morning extracurriculars are.
After picking up Leti, I drop Joel off and trade him for Rowan, and then I drive myself and my two best friends to IHOP. Thanks to my driving and ability to tune out Rowan’s pleas for me to slow down, we beat the church rush and don’t have to wait to be seated.
“So I suppose you’re all wondering why I called you here today,” Leti announces once we’re settled in a booth. He clasps his fingers on top of the table, and I share a look with Rowan. She’s sitting next to him, looking just as confused as me.
“Uh, I called you here,” I argue.
Leti reaches across the table to take my hands in his. In a lavender My Little Pony T-shirt, with his wavy ombre hair pulled back by the bright rainbow sunglasses on top of his head, he says, “Sweetie, we’re staging an intervention.”
“We are?” Rowan asks.
Thanks to Joel, I got next to no sleep last night, so I really don’t have the patience for this. Pulling my hands away, I say, “What the hell are you talking about?”
My eyebrows are scrunched tightly in Leti’s direction when our server, an elderly woman with more than her fair share of pancakes collected around her middle, pops by to take our drink orders. As soon as she’s gone, Leti gives me another teasing smile. “The first step is admitting you have a problem.”
I lift my eyebrow at him. “And what’s my problem, pony-boy?”
“You’re an addict. We’re here to help you.”
My gaze swings to Rowan, but she just shrugs and shakes her head.
“Okay. I’ll bite.” I dramatically take Leti’s hands in mine again and drape myself across the table to meet him halfway. “What am I addicted to? High heels? Hair spray?”
He grins and says, “Oh, something much more dire.”
“Lip gloss? Glitter nail polish?”
He smirks at me. “You’re addicted to whatever is causing you to have those ghastly purple bags under your eyes, and my guess is that the culprit is hot and spiky and rhymes with bowl.”
I can’t help chuckling before I release Leti’s hands. “Jealous?”
“Incurably.” He turns his pouting face to Rowan. “Are you sure none of the other guys are gay?”
“Positive.”
“Bi?”
Rowan shakes her head, long blonde strands tumbling from her messy bun. “Sorry, don’t think so.”
“Curious? Confused? Impressionable?”
Rowan and I both laugh, and Leti sighs and deflates in the seat.
Our drinks arrive, and I’m tearing open three sugar packets at once when he asks, “So what exactly are you and mohawk-boy anyway?”
He and Rowan stare at me expectantly while I finish stirring the sugar into my coffee and answer, “Why do we have to be anything?”
I don’t expect them to get it. Rowan hopped from being in a three-year relationship to living with a guy she’s head over heels in love with. And Leti flirts around a lot, but he seems to be holding out for the right guy. If we weren’t friends, I have no doubt these two would think I’m a slut. And technically, I guess the shoe fits, but so what? I like boys. I like sex. And if I’m safe about it and no one gets hurt, what’s it matter what I spend my nights doing or who I do those things with?
Leti takes his sunglasses off his head and points them at me. “Well you two aren’t nothing. You’ve been hooking up for months now. How many times is that? Like a thousand?”
“What’s it matter?” I ask defensively. “I just haven’t gotten bored with him yet.”
Rowan gives me a look. “Do you remember when you told me I liked Adam, and I kept insisting we were just friends?”
I hold up my hands to derail that crazy train before it picks up steam. “Joel and I are NOT you and Adam.”
“Aren’t you?” Leti asks.
I swing my sparkly purple fingernail back and forth between the Tweedle sisters. “Look, ladies, this isn’t some cheesy Disney movie where Rowan gets a boyfriend and their two best friends end up together too and it’s like one big happy weird little freaky family. This is me we’re talking about. And Joel.”
“Okay, first off,” Rowan says, stirring her orange juice with a straw, “Shawn is Adam’s best friend, not Joel. Joel is more like . . . a mascot.” She grins to herself and stops stirring. “And second, you’re different lately.”
“Am not,” I argue, casting an exaggerated smile at our server when she interrupts our conversation to set down our food. Rowan immediately snatches up the syrup and soaks her pancakes. Then she hands it to me and I do the same.
“Are too,” she insists. “You care what Joel thinks of you. You never care what anyone thinks of you.” She pours a second coat of syrup on.
“Joel is a game.”