"How are things at the bakery this morning?" I ask her.
"Oh, hell no! You are not changing the subject. Nice try, though. Why was he giving you the I-want-to-do-bad-things-to-you eyes? And what the hell did you do to your forehead? I swear, you hurt yourself more than any person I have ever met."
I know her well enough to know she'll never let up unless I give her something. "Fine, he woke me up with the mower at 8 am after a shitty night. I fell out of bed and hit my head on my nightstand before stomping outside to yell at him. I didn't realize I was bleeding, so he took me inside and he bandaged me up," I say, pointing at my forehead, "because this was his fault. After that we had... a weird moment."
The light turns red and Olive eyes me hard, dropping her chin, rolling her eyes and making aggressive air quotes as she asks, "What exactly constitutes a weird moment? And side note, you've hit your head on that nightstand like three times now."
"Yeah, I kind of want to burn the thing into a pile of ash and melted hardware."
Olive laughs. "I'll help you. That nightstand is ugly as sin, and it clearly wants you dead. But don't change the subject. What was weird? Did he have a closet full of melted dolls? One of those maps on the wall with a bunch of strings connecting things? A room dedicated to his love of puppets?"
"Oh my god, no. At least I didn't see anything weird. No, his house is totally normal."
Olive glares at me over her sunglasses. She's not going to let this go. The sun warms my shoulders as I stare back at her, not wanting to give in to the silent treatment, but I can't stand it when she does that.
"You're like a dog with a bone, you know that? Fine. We were fighting, and... I kissed him. I lost my head for a minute. That's all."
Olive gives me a wide-eyed, surprised smile. "Have you ever made the first move before?"
"No, and I didn't make a move. I just... I got carried away for a second."
We pull into the bar parking lot and my sister parks her car facing the front of my Jeep. With the sun shining and spring in the air, this parking lot feels completely different.
My phone buzzes in my pocket before we can get out. The screen reads "Unknown”, so I throw my phone into my purse with an annoyed huff and step out of the car.
Olive digs around in her trunk, looking for the jumper cables while I hop out and lift the hood of my Jeep. I throw my key in the ignition and turn it out of habit. The damn thing starts right up.
Olive pops her head over the top of her trunk with a confused look. "What the hell? I thought you said it was dead last night."
"It was." I'm just as confused as I stare at the dashboard. There are no warning lights. Nothing is flashing or smoking or looks like it's about to explode.
"It wasn't even turning over last night. I don't understand." Now I'm annoyed. A dead battery is one thing. I figured I just left the lights on or something. If it's randomly working and then not working, that's probably something worse, like wiring or gremlins.
"Well shit. Let's just take it to Asher and Lukas. They can sort it out for you."
She's right. Besides, Asher will peck at me like a hen if he finds out I had car trouble and didn't let him check it out. Olive follows me on the short drive to our brother's auto shop so I can drop it off before we head to the bakery.
When we pull in, Asher is standing in front of a vintage sports car with the hood popped, holding a thermos of coffee and yelling his head off at our younger brother.
"It sounds like shit! The throttle isn't right!"
Lukas is behind the wheel with the door open as he revs the engine.
"What?" Lukas yells from behind the wheel, still revving. I can tell, even from here, that he's fucking with Asher.
"I said it sounds like shit! The throttle is off!" Lukas cuts the engine mid-sentence, so Asher is suddenly screaming into the quiet morning air. Lukas chuckles as we walk over. Asher just rolls his eyes.
Olive’s voice is dripping in playful sarcasm as she says, "You've clearly got the florker misaligned with the rigger."
"Twerp," Asher says as Lukas pulls her in and gives her an aggressive noogie.
She screams like a wounded bobcat and fights her way free. "Knock it off, dickbag!"
"Nah, I've gotta get it out of my system while Brooks isn’t around. He doesn't let me give you noogies anymore."
"Oh really?" she replies sarcastically. "He doesn't want you giving his fiancée a noogie? How shocking! Maybe it's because we aren't eight years old anymore. Even though you still act like it."
Asher rolls his eyes again and interrupts before they can get into it some more. "What's up?" he asks me because I'm clearly the voice of reason in this menagerie.
"My Jeep wouldn't start last night but it fired right up this morning. I didn't even have to jump it. I have no idea what's wrong with it. Can you just take a look at it?"
Asher gives it a thoughtful look. "That's odd. I put a new battery in it a couple months ago. Maybe a loose cable... I dunno. I'll figure it out. I'll drop it off at the bakery later."
"You're the best!" I tell him before hugging both my brothers and heading back to Olive's car.