“TheThirsty Goose.”
Meredithwrinkled her nose. “The Thirsty Goose? Never heard of it.”
“Oh,I forgot you were the authority on bars,” Willa drawled, her voice drippingwith sarcasm. “Anyway, it looks like a nice place. Not one of those sleezyhole-in-the-wall type places.”
“Thejury’s still out on this Vinnie guy, though,” Mer jabbed with a teasing smirk.
Ilooked up abruptly from my perusal of the pile of clothes on my bed. “What?”
“I’mjust kidding,” she said, but her voice was so dry, I knew she was lying.
“No,seriously, do you think I should be worried?”
Meredithglanced at Willa, who smiled sweetly. “No,” she assured me gently. “But justkeep in mind you know nothing about him. Like, have you even looked him up onsocial media?”
“Well,I mean …” I shrugged, allowing my words to trail off, because I hadn’t. And nowI felt stupid.
Merflopped on my bed beside the mountain of clothing options, with her phone inhand. “No time like the present!” she declared, already beginning to type. “Yousaid his name is Vinnie?”
“Yeah,”I said hesitantly. “Vinnie Marino.”
Itonly took her a few seconds of typing and tapping before she read, “VinnieMarino. Thirty-four—”
“Ooh,an older man!” Willa exclaimed, holding a short, black dress up to my body.
“Bylike, four years,” I muttered, rolling my eyes.
“—fromBrooklyn, now living in Manhattan. Single, good. Employed at a pizza placecalled Famiglia Bella, not too bad, I guess,” Mer assessed, sliding her fingersacross the screen. Her eyes met mine with a coy grin. “Damn, girl. He’s prettyhot.”
Mycheeks heated wildly with my flush. “You don’t have to tell me that. It’s beentorture having to look at him the past few days.”
Willaglanced at Mer’s phone screen and let out a long whistle. “I bet. Holy hell.”
Icontinued to dig through the clothes while my sisters occupied their time bystalking Vinnie’s social media. They gawked at pictures of him, with andwithout his family, and they looked into his interests. They scowled at hissmoking habit, instructing me to get him to quit, and they cooed approvinglyover pictures of him with his sister’s kids. The two of them didn’t seem tohave much to say and I was grateful, until they began to browse throughpictures he’d been tagged in by others.
“Wait,wait, wait. Look at this,” Mer said hurriedly, her voice full of alarm. “Helooks stoned out of his mind.”
“Holyshit, yeah, he does,” Willa agreed, taking the phone and shoving it in my face.
Thepicture in question was indeed incriminating. A younger-looking Vinnie and hisbrother, Zach, stared out at me from behind the glass. Sitting on a beat-upcouch, with their arms around each other’s shoulders, red-eyed andsleepy-smiled. What was worse than the eyes, was the joint pinched betweenVinnie’s fingers and the small bag of white powder in Zach’s.
“Isthatcocaine?” I asked needlessly. I knew what it was—I was a nurse, forcrying out loud.
Willaturned the phone back to her curious eyes and raised her brows. “Uh … yeah.Sure looks like it.”
Mystomach knotted as the room fell silent. Wordlessly, I selected a tight pair ofblack jeans and a purple, sequined tank top, and as I got dressed, I ignoredthe way my sisters stared at me from the bed. I knew what they weren’t saying.They didn’t want me going out with him and they didn’t trust him. And if I’mbeing honest, I wasn’t sure I should either, but the picture was obviouslyolder and who knows where life had taken him since. So, I continued gettingready for my date, trying hard to not think about the redness of his eyes orthe contents of that bag.
Butas I did my makeup, Mer finally said, “I don’t think you should go out withhim.”
“Oh,come on,” I groaned, shoving my eyeshadow palette back in my vanity drawer.
“Heprobably took one look at you and thought, oh, this is a girl I can steal moneyfrom to buy my drugs.”
“Youdon’t know that,” I fired back, glaring angrily in her direction. “It’s an oldpicture.”
“Yeah,drugs do that to people. They make you look older,” Willa muttered.
“Willyou guysstop? You have no idea. Maybe it was a one-time thing. Maybehewasn’t even doing it, maybe it was his brother’s.”
