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‘Fever?’ I feel my forehead as if I’ll be able to tell. ‘I haven’t had a fever since I was in high school. I thought that was a childhood thing?’
‘It’s a humanity thing. You are eating a burger that promised misery. Maybe that special sauce is poison,’ she jokes.
What is in that special sauce?
‘Jovi!’ I holler, and he appears like a genie. ‘You put rat poison in this thing?’
‘No,’ he laughs. ‘But it’s going to feel like I did. We don’t call it the coronary burger for nothing.’ He glances at my plate and smiles, pulling his phone from his back pocket and snapping what is probably the worst photo ever. ‘Congratulations, you’ve now got a twenty-two-dollar credit and your photo on the wall of fame.’
‘I feel like that wall is more shame than fame,’ Laney says not impressed even a little.
God, I think she’s right. I groan, shoving the nearly empty plate out of the way and dropping my head onto the tabletop with a thunk.
‘I gotta go home. Like, yesterday.’
‘First you have to bring us home,’ Laney reminds me.
‘I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but we are not having three-way, I respect your sister too much for that.’ I side-eye her, watching her smirk to herself.
‘You drove us,’ Laney insists.
‘Oh yeah…’
‘Shit.’ I drove them. Great idea, River. Show off your cool car and now die in front of them. You’re really pulling out all the stops tonight. I reach into my pocket, fish out my keys, and set them in Jade’s hand. ‘You know how to drive a stick?’
‘Yeah,’ she says hesitantly.
‘Good, ’cause you’re driving. Which I can’t believe I’m even suggesting ’cause I hardly let anyone drive that car. She’s my baby.’
‘Dork alert; his car’s his baby. Not exactly a red flag, but close,’ Laney says, not so under her breath.
‘Laney, he’s sick.’ Jade sticks up for me. ‘Come on, help me get him to his car.’
‘I got it.’ Jovi and another employee, men much larger than Laney and Jade, throw my arms over their shoulders and practically drag me to my car as the girls follow.
Jade fumbles with my keys, and without moving too drastically and upsetting whatever is already angry inside me, I press the button that unlocks my beloved BMW 328i, a car my parents bought me in high school. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. Before I can get in, my stomach objects, and I veer off to the side of the food truck, my head in the bushes.
‘People don’t believe us about the misery thing,’ Jovi tells the girls. ‘As far as I know, everyone survives. He’ll be just fine in a couple of days.’
‘And if he’s not?’ Jade asks like she’s an angry mother.
‘He signed a form saying I’m not responsible.’
‘He did? How did I miss that?’ She seems confused. Thankfully, they give me some time to expel the burger trying to kill me, and when I’m done, I practically crawl back to my car.
Jade sits in the driver’s seat with the car running, her hands on the wheel. ‘I’m nervous.’
‘Why?’ Laney asks from the back seat. ‘It’s just a car, and you’ve been driving for a decade. Put it in gear, and let’s see what this thing can do.’
I raise a hand Laney’s way. ‘Do not see what it can do,’ I order. ‘We’re not replaying Tokyo Drift. I already feel like I’m dying, and I will jump out of this car while it’s moving before I puke in it.’
‘I’ll go slow; just tell me where.’
I type my address into my dash GPS as she speaks. That way, I don’t have to talk.
The GPS starts ordering her around, and slowly she lets off the clutch, jerking only once, smoothing out and driving like I’m an instructor at the DMV.
‘You could at least go to the speed limit, or this will be the longest drive home,’ Laney gripes from the back seat.
