“By the way, do you cook?” Evan asks.
“I do. I mean, nothing gourmet, but I do okay.”
“Want to help me make dinner at Christopher’s? He has the best kitchen—no offense—but he doesn’t cook. He is definitely good for groceries and very expensive wine, though.”
“Might as well get used to the teamwork,” I agree.
Evan laughs. “That’s the spirit. We’re going to show Finley that she’s the luckiest girl in the world.”
CHAPTER 32
Finley
“You’re a playlist bully,”I tell Fiona when she skips a song I’m singing for the third time.
The words are said without malice, though. Yes, it’s annoying that she keeps choosing to cut short my vocal concert, but I’m having fun with my sisters as the three of us all get ready to go out for the night on dates.
“I can’t help it. It’s a patience thing, nothing against your music in particular. Ask Frannie. I just can’t listen to an entire song when I’m amped up.”
“It’s true,” Frannie chimes in, tossing yet another sweater out of her closet and onto the bed, which is already piled high with clothes deemed not worthy of date night with Hunter. “Fi only has about thirty seconds in her before she has to jump to the next song.”
“That shows an appalling lack of appreciation for lyrics.”
“I just need a good beat when I’m vibing.” Fiona is in her bra and panties, sitting at her vanity table and doing a makeup regime that looks complicated and terrifying. She has her hair bound up in something that makes it look like a unicorn hornjutting from her hairline, and she’s been dabbing and blending and brushing for a solid ten minutes.
“How are you going to get dressed without smudging your makeup?” I ask, genuinely curious. I’m not necessarily a fresh-faced girl, but my makeup routine is pretty simple. I haven’t done contouring or worn false lashes since a New Year’s Eve trip to Vegas with some friends two years ago.
“I’m wearing a dress that I am stepping into. Kyle and I are going to a restaurant in Charleston that doesn’t have prices on its menu. This is not a cropped sweater and jeans kind of place.”
“Whose idea was that?” I ask, looking down at my own fashionably torn jeans, cropped sweater, and black and white sneakers.
Should I be dressing nicer for dinner? But the guys and I are just meeting at Christopher’s, not going out. I assumed dinner at home meant casual dress. The cropped sweater is loose at the hem and is a strategic choice to give any or all of them the opportunity to slide a big hand under it and get the party started post-dessert.
“Kyle’s. She thinks I’m a foodie.”
“You are a foodie,” Frannie says, tossing yet another shirt with a look of pure disgust. “Why are all my clothes so boring?”
Frannie’s clothes do tend to land solidly in basic bitch territory, and there’s nothing wrong with that. She’s been dating Hunter for months, so I’m surprised by her obvious date-night anxiety. “You can borrow anything of mine,” I tell her. “But why are you stressing? Hunter loves you.”
“Hunter has never said he loves me,” she confesses in a rush of words. “I told him I loved him in a text, and he didn’t respond to it. He just said, ‘See ya tonight.’ I totally blew it!”
With that, she flings herself down on her bed on top of a zillion articles of clothing and pounds her fists, kicks her feet, and shrieks into a prairie dress.
Alarmed, and filled with so much happiness over my own dating life, I immediately try to reassure her. “Sweetie, that doesn’t mean anything. It could just mean that he wants to say it to you in person for the first time, not in a text.”
“Which is what I should have done!” she wails. She rolls over onto her back and swipes her hair out of her face. “I just blurted it out in a text because it felt natural to do that.”
She’s not crying, which I take as a good sign.
“What are you guys doing tonight?” I ask.
“We’re going to a movie and then to his place.”
“Oh God, you have to sit through a whole movie worrying about dropping the L word?” Fiona asks. “That sounds horrible.”
“Not helpful,” Frannie mumbles.
It’s really not.
