“Glad we cleared that up,” I said. “Is there a point to this conversation? Because I didn’t need to come over here to listen to you talk about the guys.”
“Of course not,” Maria said. “You’ve always taken their side—in everything. Even when they weren’t taking yours.”
“Our history is our history.” I spread my hands. “Not much I can do to change that. I’m sorry you got hurt. Both of you.”
“You actually mean that,” Patty said, disbelief etched into every syllable.
“We used to be friends,” I reminded them. “That’s changed, I get it.”
Maria sighed. “Stop being so damn nice, just slap us and get it over with, then we can all go back to icy silences.”
I laughed.
Seriously, I laughed, and they both stared at me.
“Sorry, girls. Look—this issue you have, I can’t fix it.”
“You could if you told them no and walked away,” Patty muttered and folded her arms as she slumped back in the chair.
“You think if I wasn’t around they’d be back asking you out?” Did they genuinely believe that?
“Maybe,” Maria said. “Not that I want to really have him back, it would just be nice to be wanted.”
Patty scoffed. Yeah. I didn’t believe Maria either.
“Well I do want Archie back. I spent all of junior year trying to get his attention, and when I finally get it, he dumps me for you. I should have known, the other girls he dated all said the same thing,” Patty stated. “So could you just pick one of them and leave the rest for us?”
Wow.
“I’m pretty sure if Archie wanted to still be dating you, he would be. I don’t make decisions for them.” Even if they’d made them for me.
“You can’t say they don’t do that to you,” Maria echoed my own internal thoughts. “C’mon, Frankie. You’re not blind. Between the four of them, they’ve dated half the girls in our class.”
I was aware.
“And?”
“Do you seriously want to be that girl?” Maria stared at me. “You’veneverbeen that girl. Even if you were always in the way, you were… at least decent.”
“What do you want me to say, Maria?”
But instead of answering, she focused behind me, and that was my only warning.
“Yeah,” Jake said from behind me. “What do you want her to say, Maria?”
“You weren’t invited to this conversation,” Patty said, frowning.
“Good to know, not here for you,” Jake retorted, then glanced down at me. “Hey, Frankie…”
“Hey,” I said. “I’ll be back over at the table in a minute.”
“You can blow them off now, Bubba and I just got out of practice…”
“Wow, Jake,” Maria drawled. “Nice.”
“I can be,” he said with the fakest smile I’d ever seen him wear. “Want to see me when I’m not?”
“Pretty sure you’re going to get suspended if you get not nice again,” Patty said. “Be a damn shame if someone complained, wouldn’t it…”