“This has officially become the second most awkward conversation of my life.”
“What was the first?”
“The one I had with Joey last night after—”
“Conversation over.”
“Good. Or not good if you’re killing me.”
“Not going to kill you. But you are going to fix this.”
“How am I supposed to ‘fix this’? There’s nothing to fix. I’ll tell her about the job. She’ll say ‘yes,’ ‘no’ or ‘let me think about it.’ And that’s it. She’s an adult. You can’t make her do something she doesn’t want to do.”
“If she says no because she thinks I’m offering it to her out of pity because of the breakup or you’re offering it to her because you slept with her, then I’m not going to be happy.”
“That’s not much of a threat.”
“Do you want me to be unhappy? Do you? Bad enough you broke my heart in high school. You want to do it again?”
“I’m going.” Chris stood up.
“You remember when I kissed you at the ski lodge?”
“Nope.”
“Me, neither. I chickened out. But I wanted to.”
“Was that the night we took ’shrooms on a dare?”
“So you do remember.”
“How did we survive our senior year?”
“Sheer dumb luck, man,” Dillon said.
Chris stood up, leaned across the desk and slapped Dillon on the arm. “It’ll be okay. Even if Joey says no, we’ll find someone for the job.”
“I know.” Dillon nodded. “I just remember how it was, the three of us hanging out at the lake all summer. Those were good days. No jobs. No money. Just all of us being stupid kids and not caring about anything. I want a little of that back, you know?”
“I know. I’d like that, too. Minus the drugs and the no money.”
“Right.”
“I’m having lunch with Joey. I’ll tell her more about the company. If she sounds interested, I’ll mention the job.”
“I want my sister back from the middle of the ocean.”
“Maybe she likes living in Hawaii.”
“What does Hawaii have that Oregon doesn’t?”
Chris leaned over and glanced out the window.
“The sun.”
“Overrated. Now go. Get my sister to move back. Sweet-talk her if you have to. But not that way.”
“What way?”