Page 59 of No Interest in Love

“Nah,” I lie. She gives me a look. “Okay, it’s bad enough that if I were these people, yeah, I’d give me dirty looks too.”

“That damn toilet. I should leave him.”

I manage a laugh through my fuzzy brain. No food, little water, and exercise must be messing me up, because I’m finding Shay hilarious.

“Does it hurt?” I ask.

“No. I forgot it was even there. I thought something was on my face the first hour of this never-ending walk.”

“Something is on your face.”

“I kept trying to wipe it off.”

I laugh again, and a low grumble hits my gut. Shay and I are walking surround-sound systems, because hers starts going too.

“Our stomachs are talking to each other,” I mutter, trying to keep my grin, but I lost the energy around mile marker five.

“Is yours begging for bacon?”

“Always,” I say, and then ignore another round of hunger pangs. “And a big pile of pancakes.”

“Waffles.”

“No…I saidpan-cakes,” I enunciate, and she wrinkles her nose at me.

“Pancakes are like the saddest of waffles. They are the waffles that fell on the floor and got trampled.”

“You’re officially delusional.” I bump into her, but I’m not sure if it’s intentional. “Pancakes are fluffy clouds your grandma makes you on Monday mornings when you know your day’s gonna be total shit. But then you have that pancake and it’s all good.”

“For the sake of our nonarguing week, I won’t rebut your insane pancake campaign.” Then she bumps into me. Again, I’m not sure if it’s intentional. “But I do love that you think highly of your grandmother.”

“My grandma is the sweetest woman in the whole damn world. I’m gonna buy her a house one day.”

Shay turns her head just a tad to look at me. “Is that why you don’t have anything left of your advance from the movie? Saving up or something?”

She catches on quick. And here I am, just trying to get one foot in front of the other.

“It all went to her, yeah. Few years ago I lost a buttload of money doing stupid stuff. Grandma bailed me out.”

“Did you gamble it all away like in21? Or were you drained of all your money like Andrew Garfield inThe Social Network?”

“It’s so hot when you reference movies.” I don’t even know why I say it out loud. “But no. It wasn’t anything worth a movie script.”

“I thought your whole life was a movie,” she says with a lift of her eyebrow. I shake my head and adjust my grip on the handle of my carry-on.

“Well, NYU isn’t cheap.”

“You said you blew it on something stupid. School isn’t stupid.”

“No, but blowing all your student loan money on keggers is. What’s even more stupid is letting your sweet grandmother pay for all your classes with the money she got from selling her house.”

She sucks in a breath through her teeth. “Um, yeah. I don’t think I can associate with you anymore.”

She pretends to walk away, but she’s heading out toward traffic so I grab her shoulders and steer her clear of the oncoming bus.

“I tried paying her back. She didn’t accept checks, so I started forwarding money into her account. Then she found out and stuffed it back into mine, so now I’ve got it put away where she can’t see it. She’ll get the money in the form of a house. She’s always wanted one with a green door, a big porch, a swing in the front, and room for a dog out back. I’ve been looking, found a few.”

Shay bumps into me again, and the ripped-up shirt she’s wearing slides from her shoulder. “You’re looking already?”

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