“Hey, baby girl.” She’s back home in Montana right now, visiting her parents with her sister.
“Hi,detka. What are you doing?”
“Just got out of the shower. Crew’s going to be here in a minute. A bunch of us are going bowling tonight.”
I don’t miss the way her smile falters slightly. “Oh, that’s cool. That’ll be fun.”
“Yeah, should be. What about you? What did you do today?”
“Stassia and I went and rode the horses up the mountain earlier. We aren’t doing anything tonight, though.”
“Well, that sounds like it was a fun day!” Her parents live on a ranch and own quite a few horses. She’s always been very into them since she was a little girl.
A knock sounds at my bedroom door before it pushes open and Crew walks through. His gaze locks on mine and full, pink lips pull into a goofy grin, which, of course, cracks a smile on my face too.
“Anderson.” My focus is directed back to my phone, where Calina is staring at me. “Are you even listening to me?”
“I’m sorry, baby girl. What were you saying? Crew just got here.”
“Oh. I asked if you were going to be out late, or if I can expect to hear from you later?”
“Well, it’s midnight bowling, so we’ll probably be out pretty late. I can call you in the morning, though?”
“Yeah, sure. Hope you have a fun time.”
“Thanks, Cal. Talk to you later.” Ending the call, my eyes find Crew again. He’s messing around on his phone, sitting casually on my bed.
“Hey, bro.”
Looking over at me through his lashes, his lips slightly curl. “Hey. How’s Calina?”
“Oh, uh, she’s good. She’s in Montana for part of the summer.”
“She coming here at all?”
Talking to Crew about Calina feels so weird, and I don’t understand why. We’ve always talked about girlfriends or hook-ups, so the fact that this feels different is awkward. In all honesty, it probably has something to do with his confession about being left behind.
“Uh, not sure yet. We talked about her possibly visiting, but nothing is concrete.” Clearing my throat, I look anywhere but at Crew, fidgeting with my fingers.
He stays quiet for a moment longer than what’s comfortable. “Dope,” is all he finally says. “So, we’re going out to eat with Aston and Knox before bowling, right?”
“Yup. We’ll probably get going here soon.”
“Remember that time senior year when we went midnight bowling and got fucking trashed, then ended up at the beach?”
I laugh at the memory, because it’s a fucking good one. Bowling used to be a regular occurrence during high school. This particular time, Crew and I went with some friends from school. Luca was there, and we all came prepared with several bottles of liquor. We’d sneak out to the car every few rounds to drink. “How could I fucking forget?! You drank almost that entire bottle of Bombayby yourselfand then puked on the side of the road on our way home from the beach.”
“And you made out with that random fucking chick in the back seat while Luca drove!”
“Fuck, what was her name?”
“I don’t know… Chelsey, maybe?”
“Nah, that doesn’t sound right.”
Almost identically, we tilt our heads to the side, deep in thought. The light clicks for us at the same time, both of us shouting, “Clara!” in unison.
“Yes, that’s it.”