“Gross. No!” She slams her drink down on the table. Nothing sloshes out because she finished it in two gulps. “Clothes!”
Come to think of it, she does have a very cute dress on. I am in hospital scrubs, which are way better than those backless gowns they force on some patients. And really, after everything that has just gone down, the last thing I need is for Annar to see my naked butt. So thank goodness for pants and all.
“Shopping,” Callie is saying, “is a religious experience for me. Know what I mean?”
I squint at her. “Um—”
She hushes me. “Sometimes when I shop, I get this feeling. You know, the one you get when you eat chocolate, and it’s divine?” Mmm. Chocolate. I could use some of that stuff. “Or when you kiss someone for the first time? Really great clothes do that to me, too.” She sighs blissfully and closes her eyes. “That’s one of the things about your boyfriend I do not miss. He doesn’t shop. He doesn’t have that feeling when he shops. Maybe it was a sign that I always ignored.”
“He doesn’t shop,” I confirm. “Except when he’s buying things.”
“Exactly!” Callie sits up again and throws out a megawatt smile. “I knew you’d understand. Steve!” She turns to the bartender and holds up some fingers. “Two more, good sir!”
Steve brings the drinks over in record time, leading me to wonder if he’s got a row of pretty Mai Tais already mixed up behind the counter. If so, maybe I ought to go back there? “Put it on my tab,” Callie graciously commands, and he just stares at her so hard that she’s forced to repeat the order.
“Like I would make you pay,” he finally says, his words all jumbly.
“I think that guy likes you,” I whisper, pointing as Steve trips on his way back to the bar.
“Oh, Steve,” Callie sighs. “Yes. Steve will wash my car if I ask.”
To prove her point, Steve calls out that he’d be happy to do so, and it makes us and the two guys nearby laugh ourselves silly.
“I’ll wash your car, baby,” one of the neighbors says, and they drag their chairs over to sit next to us.
“I’ve got a secret,” Callie puts a finger up to her lips and issues a long warning for silence. “I don’t have a car.”
This only makes us all laugh harder. After awhile, one of the guys says to me, “Hey. You’re wearing scrubs. You hurt or something?”
I look down at the light blue scrubs. Am I? I pat my chest. It feels okay.
“Those are ugly,” Callie says, frowning. “I’ll tell you what. Lemme go shopping for you. You can get something-something that’s pretty and I can get my rush. It’s a win-win situation, know what I mean?”
“You,” I say, motioning to the guy who asked me if I’m hurt. “You look familiar. Why do you look so familiar to me?”
“I’m in one of your classes,” he tells me. He kicks back in his lounge chair and calls out for another shot. “I sit behind you when our prof actually decides to lecture.”
Both Callie and I scream out “Stalker!” and everyone dissolves into fits of giggles once more. How could I have hated this girl? She’s like my sister. Like, if I ever had one and all.
“Only sometimes,” the guy assures me, still smiling. It looks like somebody threw a tomato and hit him in the face. “Your hair. It . . . it smells really nice.”
I squint at him and then flip a piece of it to study. Does it?
The other guy hoots like an owl. This one scratches at his neck and tells me, “You sometimes fall asleep in class. There was this one time I dropped a book, so I . . . had a sniff. It’s really . . . nice.”
“Don’t insult a girl by telling her her hair is nice,” Callie snarls. She’s leaning forward, her brows and nose scrunched up. Does she smell something bad? Oh my gods, does my hair smell bad?
“What’d it smell like?” I demand. “My hair I mean? When you were sniffing it in class?”
“Strawberries,” comes the answer, and I stare hard at the guy, amazed at how he can talk without moving his lips.
“Amazing!” I jab Callie. “Did you see that? This dude is like a ventranloquinst! Or, um, you know. The guys with the dummies?” I pretend to have a dummy on my lap. “My name is Chloe,” I try saying, but I am not good. My lips totally move.
Callie’s hand shoots out and touches the guy’s lips. He jerks back, startled. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
And then the drink in my hand is pulled away. I marvel, “HE CAN MOVE THINGS WITH HIS MIND!”
“He must be a god.” Callie’s eyes go saucer wide. “Quick! Superdude! Make our chairs levitate.”
The man in question is no longer looking at us. He’s looking up and above us. Is this how his craft works? The guy next to him, the one who is kind enough to want to wash Callie’s car, leaves without even saying goodbye.
“Well,” Callie huffs. “There goes my clean car.”
“You don’t have a car,” says the superhero-god sniffer in front of us, lips still clamped shut.
“How do you know that?” Callie demands, enraptured.