Page 85 of Forever Mine
“We’re goingto a soccer game, not the prom. Hurry up!” I shout.
April is almost as bad as Jayson when it comes to primping. We got back from the beach an hour ago. Eat, shower, dress, all in quick succession. Julien’s game starts in less than thirty minutes, and everyone else is already there. I hate running late. It’s a pet peeve.
April saunters out of the bathroom with blue streaked hair pulled into a high ponytail.
“Bossy pants much? How does it look?” She does a model pose and flicks her hair, which causes her glasses to slip down her nose.
“Rocking the Smurfette look.”
She rolls her eyes. “Har har. Very funny.”
“You look very pretty. Grab those,” I tell her as I lace up my sneakers.
She picks up my blue and silver pom-poms and gives them a shake.
“I’m totally stealing these,” she says and starts twerking.
My sweet, book nerd stepsister twerks. Good god.
I push her out of the room. “I can’t unsee that. Ever.”
“You are such a drama queen.”
I set the alarm and lock up.
“Hi, Mrs. Landon!” April yells, fluttering the pom-poms enthusiastically.
Mrs. Landon waves to us from her small front porch as we hoof it across the parking lot to my car. I introduced them yesterday when Mrs. Landon was watering her zinnias. I don’t see her as often now after moving into the dorms. I’ll need to up my drop-by visits to check in on her more often.
I unplug my car from the resident charging station. As soon as we get inside my POS, April goes straight for the A/C controls. After baking in the sun all day, the inside temperature of the car is like climbing into an oven. Luke-warm air blasts out when she cranks the air conditioning to max.
“We could take my car.”
Checking my rearview and side mirrors, I slowly back out of the parking space. “Brad would go ballistic if it got scratched.”
I made her park the Mercedes at the end of the parking lot in no-man’s-land because no one likes to park there. The grackles that nest in the pine trees shit everywhere, including on your car if you’re unlucky enough to have parked in the drop zone. There’s one parking spot that stays shit free because there are no overhanging tree branches.
Giving up on the A/C, April rolls down the passenger window.
“Since you brought it up…”
I glance at her before making a right turn. “Brought what up?”
“Beverly.”
I had an ominous feeling that the topic of my mother would come up at some time this weekend.
“I did not.”
April holds up two fingers and taps each one as she says, “Brad equates Beverly. Hence, you brought it up.” She flashes me a peace sign.
“Your logic is as wacky as your math. Duke made a mistake letting you in.”
She smacks me in the shoulder with a pom-pom. “I’ve waited all weekend for you to tell me, and I’m tired of waiting.”
Playing dumb, I reply, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
There’s more traffic than usual for a Sunday, so I decide to drive to the lot for my dorm and walk to the soccer stadium from there.
