Page 102 of Better Than the Movies
I said, “Daisy in the fleshisa monstrous antagonist. She toys with his affection, cheats on her husband, and lets Jay cover for her when she drives over her husband’s mistress. Then, when he’s murdered and left to be a pool bobber, she leaves town without ever looking back.”
“Well,” he said, reaching out and grabbing his water glass, “those are all valid points. I still don’t think she’s the villain here, but you’ve succeeded in knocking her down a notch for me.”
“Aha—victory is mine.” I dipped my fork into the creamy baked potato and scooped out a bite. “At this rate, before I die I’ll be responsible for turning hundreds of readers against Daisy Buchanan.”
“A life well lived, I suppose.”
We’d just finished with dinner when dessert showed up—he’d taken the liberty of ordering cheesecake for me ahead of time—and I very nearly fainted with gratitude.
I stuck my fork into the cheesecake and asked, “How did you know I love cheesecake?”
He leaned his face forward and said, “I didn’t—I just wanted it.”
I smiled and felt the cheesecake slide against the roof of my mouth. “Well, it was still thoughtful.”
“Hey, you guys,” came a voice from behind me.
I picked up my water and took a sip.
Michael said, “Hey, Lane.”
The water went down the wrong tube and I started coughing. A tiny squirt shot out of my mouth, but I quickly recovered, catching the spray with my napkin, though it took me a solid ten seconds to stop coughing. I could feel the eyes of everyone in the restaurant on me as Michael asked, “You okay?”
I blinked away tears and nodded, a couple more cough-spurts forcing their way out before I was able to say, “I’m f-fine.”
Another cough.
I tried for a calm smile as I took a deep breath and attempted to regain my composure.
“I hate when that happens.” Michael tried making me feel less embarrassed by grinning and saying, “I swear it happens to me, like, once a month.”
“Same,” Laney said, walking around the table as if to make sureI could see just how pretty she looked while I tried being a human fountain. “Drinking is hard, right?”
Michael laughed and she smiled at him, and I kind of felt like spitting water at the two of them. Not because I cared that they seemed adorably perfect, but because it made me miss Wes. Laney must’ve realized she was just standing and staring at my date because she blinked and said, “Oh. Well, I should go back to my table. Have fun tonight, guys.”
“You, too,Lane,” I muttered, and did a little wave with my fork. Yeah, some attitudes were hard to change.
Michael looked a little lost for a second after she walked away, but he recovered and took a bite of his cheesecake. “Wow—this is really good.”
I nodded and stabbed my cheesecake with my fork, scraping the filling all over the fancy plate. “Yeah.”
I don’t know what I was thinking, but I asked, “Did you know her when you lived here the first time? Laney, that is.”
His mouth turned up a little and he grinned. “Oh, yeah. She was a total brat back then and used to tell on meall the timeat recess when I didn’t let her play kickball with us. I hated that little snot.”
Okay, that made me smile. “I hated her too.”
“Honestly, I expected her to grow into a total witch.”
Hadn’t she?
“But somehow she didn’t. Did you know that she volunteers every weekend at the animal shelter?”
“Wow.” Seriously? Even though I was suddenly empathetic to Michael and Laney’s star-crossed-lovers plight, that didn’t meanI wanted firsthand knowledge that Laney Morgan was a better human than me. “Um, no, I didnotknow that.”
“And she’s saving up so she can go on a mission trip this summer.”
I wanted to flip the table and yell something along the lines of “Are you fucking kidding me?”
