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————
Holly could handle her drink a hell of a lot better than I could.
I was thankful for the lack of inhibition and how easy it was to stop worrying as much as I had been, even if it made me a little looser-lipped. And in my defense, I managed to keep the counterfeit relationship under wraps. Mostly thanks to Dana, really. She reminded me to shut my mouth multiple times.
“You okay, Lottie?” Holly asked, one robed arm around my shoulders as we walked back into the changing room.
I could hardly keep my bare feet pointing in the right direction. “Peachy,” I hiccupped.
Dana snorted. “Hunter’s gonna kill me for letting you drink this much.”
“I’ll vouch for you,” Penelope cut in. “She did it all herself, we swear!” she added with a giggle.
Holly plopped me down on the bench. My vision blurred in between the movements, as if I’d blinked and I was suddenly somewhere else. “That’s so weird,” I said to no one in particular, the words sounding odd, muffled as if they weren’t my own, and I couldn’t help but giggle at the idea of someone else speaking with my voice.
“You can dress yourself, right?” Holly laughed. She grabbed my pile of clothes and set it next to me.
“Oh, absolutely,” I lied.
I’d worn all black clothing, and everything looked exactly the same. By the time I managed to get my shirt on, Dana had already pointed out that it was backward and inside out.
The door opened and one of the staff members stepped through. “Your rides are here, ladies.”
“Shit,” Dana swore, her grin hard to hide as she slipped her jacket over her shoulders. “Lottie, come on, get your pants on. Hunter’s here.”
“Shouldn’t I keep my pants off then?” I giggled, the fit being cut short with a round of hiccups.
“Oh my God, Lots, don’t say that in front of his mom,” she whispered. She couldn’t stop her own fit of giggles as warmth spread across my cheeks.
“It’s okay. I’m sure she’ll forget about it by morning,” Holly said with a small smile. Her fingers slid around the back of her neck, pulling her long hair out of her jacket. “It’s not the first time I’ve heard someone talk about having sex with my son.”
Without registering anything in between, I was on my feet and my pants were on, a scarf that wasn’t mine wrapped around my neck. Holly and Penelope were gone and only the faintest memory of bear-hugging them in my underwear remained. Dana leaned back against the lockers, her arms crossed over her chest. Beneath me, the floor spun.
“Can we go now? Hunter’s getting annoyed,” she said, her eyes narrowing at me.
“Hunter’s out there?” I whispered, my eyes aching from being open too wide. I lowered my lids and immediately felt the irritation and dryness dissipate. “Can I see him?”
“So you’ve changed your mind?”
Changed my mind?
“You said you didn’t want to see him. That he was bad juju. Whatever the hell that means.”
“Why did I say that?”
“Hell if I know.”
“How are you reading my thoughts?” I asked, taking a step back from her and nearly falling over the bench that ran down the center of the room.
“What? I’m not. You were talking.”
————
We were in Hunter’s truck. I sat in the passenger seat, a blanket around my shoulders. Muffled sounds of Hunter and Dana talking slowly filtered in, along with the faint hum of the engine and the easy notes of something playing through the speakers.
Do we drive on the right side of the road?
“…just don’t understand why you let her drink this much.”
