I never doubted she was in there. Not for one single second. “Okay, smart stuff. Dollars. What’s your point?”
“So, you know what it’s worth. You sunk a few thousand in parts. Hell knows how many man hours you’ll put into it.”
“Uh-huh…”
“You gonna repaint it?”
“Yeah. I know a guy. I’m not sure what colo–”
“Red.”
I bring my gaze up slowly and catch the reddening in her cheeks. “I mean, red is how it came off the showroom floor.” She nervously fusses with her meatballs, picks a little cheese off, and contemplatively chews on it. “I just thought cherry red would be nice.”
“How do you know someone didn’t repaint it over the years? How do you know it started red?”
She refuses to meet my eyes. She can barely lift her head. “I scratched the paint back until I knew.”
“You scratched my car? What the fuck, Lenaghan?”
“I wanted to know the color!” When she begins rewrapping her sandwich, my heart races. She’s a wild horse. Ready to dash. Scared of human contact. “I only scratched under the hood, on the inside of the frame. Just enough to see. I didn’t hurt your car.” Her eyes finally lift and meet mine. Hers are redder than they were a minute ago. “I’m sorry, Ang. I was just looking. I won’t tou–”
“Hey.” With a frown, I lock my shit down and refuse my body permission to get up and go to her. “I was just kidding. You’ve known me forever, I’m not mad. I never get mad, especially not about scraping back a car I already told you I was gonna repaint.”
“I’ve seen you mad.” She looks at me through her lashes. Unintentionally alluring. Unintentionally torturous. “Remember that time we went to that party in senior year? Kari was already off at her first year of college, so it was just me, Jess, and Britt. You got hella mad that night.”
“Because you werehellaunderage, acting like fools at that fuckwit’s party. You called me, slurring your words, giggling like a bunch of hyenas, but you didn’t say where you were. Remember what you said?”
Her bottom lip trembles with the ghost of a smile. “I have not told half of what I saw.”
“Fuckin’ riddles.” Sitting back, I run a hand over my face not unlike I did that night. “I sat in my car on the edge of town and thought about it. You and your sisters were off getting drunk somewhere you shouldn’t be, swimming, probably half drowned already, but you call me up, drop a cliffhanger riddle, then turn your phone off so I couldn’t call back.”
“Actually, Britt tackled me into the pool. I was gonna text you the answer after ten minutes, but the phone sizzled out and zapped my ass when I put it in my back pocket.”
The soft giggle that rolls up her chest, the fact she’s right here in front of me, not drowned in that pool and no longer partying with fuckwits, allows me to chuckle.
“How’d you figure it out? You came to us an hour after I called. We looked like drowned cats, laughing like idiots, stumbling around and spraining ankles in hooker heels, but you put us in the Charger, sat us on towels so we wouldn’t ruin the seats, and drove us home.”
“Marc called me. To shoot the shit. To hang out.”
Thoughtfully, her eyes narrow. “Okay…”
“Marco Polo. You were saying Marco.”
Her lips twitch. “I was. And you were supposed to say…”
“Polo.” I shake my head. “You were at Ricky Hernandez’s house. Ricky Hernandez just so happens to share a similar name with a famouspoloplayer. It was the vaguest fucking riddle I ever heard in my life.”
She snickers. “Well, I was gonna call you back to give you more, but like I said. Ass. Electrocuted.”
“There was never a moment in my life that we couldn’t count on Britt to nearly kill everyone.”
“You were so mad,” she laughs. Unwrapping her sandwich again, she takes a small bite. “Get in the fuckin’ car,” she mimics in a low voice. “I oughtta beat your asses. You’re lucky the guys don’t know about this, or they’d beat your asses, too.”
I remember every second of that night. Two blonde’s and one brunette. All three in itty bitty outfits with smudged makeup. All of them too scared to call their brothers, too drunk to know to stop laughing like fools. “I still didn’t tell them about that.”
“No?” Her eyes sparkle with something I haven’t seen for at least two years. Fun, flirting, laughter. “Why not?”
“Because by that point, it was pretty much the equivalent to aiding and abetting a criminal. I didn’t do the crime, but I sure as shit helped you idiots cover it up. I wasn’t going down with that ship. You’re lucky Kari wasn’t with you, because Marc woulda been up your asses like sand at the beach.”