“What is?”
“The fish thing. I know you’re thinking it’s that joke about how girls smell—”
“Told by boys who’ve never been near a pussy in their lives.”
“And the girls are probably better off for it.”
“Probably.” A dickhead like that wouldn’t know what to do with a pussy, anyway.
“But this is even dumber. And I think Samantha already told you… Well, let’s just say I was awkward when I was younger. Even more awkward than I am now. Like a million times more.”
She doesn’t seem a bit awkward to me. Just like she isn’t with her sister or any of her close friends. But maybe that’s how she feels with people outside her circle.
And I remember how Samantha described her. Wild red hair, big teeth and braces, thick glasses. “Smart, too?”
“Pure nerd,” she confirms. “I moved here my freshman year in high school. My dad and Sam’s mom had gotten together, but Sam and I didn’t get along right away. She wasn’t ever mean, it was just that we had absolutely nothing in common. And she’d lived here all her life, had her friends, was a year ahead of me. So I was the little sister that she never asked for. But when her mom and my dad broke up, and he didn’t want me…she was so supportive and protective of my feelings, and made a point to hang out with me more. And that helped. Because I didn’t make any other friends that year.”
“Ah, baby.”
“No, that was okay.” She shrugs a little. “I’m never going to be the girl with loads of friends. And I prefer it that way. Most of the time, I’d rather just read or do my own thing.”
“I’ve seen that.” Whether on her phone or in paper, she’s always got a book ready to whip out and fill the time. “And considering that I was living alone in the middle of nowhere when you met me, you’ve probably figured out that I do all right on my own, too.”
“I did.” Her gaze is soft and warm. “I like that about you. And because people who do well on their own usually aren’t the type to fuck around with other people just to stave off boredom.”
Ah, hell. “Is that what happened to you?”
“Pretty much. Though throw in a crush, too.” She gives me a half-smile while shaking her head, as if a little embarrassed and disbelieving now of the girl she’d been. “It was the summer after my freshman year. Sam had softball practice, and she’d drop me off at the library pretty much every day on her way into town. Then I’d take my books over to the park and read until she was done. And also watch the boys play basketball.”
“The crush?” I ask with a rumble in my chest.
“Yep. Though he wasn’t playing. He’d broken his foot and was…” She rolls her eyes. “Looking for something to do. And there I was, with hearts in my eyes after the first word he said to me. Pretty much every day, he’d come over and talk, and soon I was trying to dress cuter and be less dorky. And he would compliment how I looked and said I was pretty…and I fell for it so easy. He didn’t trick me into anything sexual, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“What?” I snarl.
She grins at me. “You’re getting so tense. But it wasn’t like that. Or actually, it was. But not the same way. And maybe he was heading toward that, but I made the mistake of letting him take a few pictures of me. Not even naked pictures”—she says that hastily, maybe because I’m growling again—“but he came one day with this camera, and said he wanted to learn photography since he had nothing else to do that summer, and then said things like, ‘Oh, show me your sexy face. How you would look for our first kiss.’ So I rolled around in the grass in the park that day and felt so pretty and sexy. About two days later, Sam comes home with a black eye and a fat lip and a stack of pictures that she’d gone around collecting from his friends. But she didn’t get them all. And the one that got shared the most was my kissy face.”
She purses her lips for me now, exaggerating a wet kiss. And holy fuck, I’m hard in a second.
“That’s goddamn hot.”
A giggle shakes through her. “Okay, but also imagine these really thick glasses that make my eyes bug out. So…Alicia the Fish. And oh my god, it didn’t end. Not after the summer, not after school started—not after the next year, or the next. Every fucking day, practically. I’d find tuna cans in my locker, or someone would offer me their goldfish crackers or the fish sticks from the cafeteria. Even when the braces came off, and when Mom got me contact lenses, it didn’t matter. And Sam, she would go after anyone who messed with me, and ended up getting in so much trouble with the school. So many times, to the point where she was going to be expelled if she kept it up. Because they never went after the kids who were doing it, just her for reacting. So I stopped telling her when it happened. And I’m pretty sure that became part of the game for them…doing it behind her back. Then of course when she graduated, my senior year became a free-for-all.”