Page 14 of September Lessons
“Let me guess… he ditched you?”
“Embarrassing, isn’t it?”
For him? Absolutely.Christina was the most conventionally hot girl in Clark High. Like, damn, she hadabs.Which Carrie got an eyeful of since Christina wore sweatpants and a sports bra beneath her baggy jacket. That sports bra was totally padded, though. Not that Carrie would complain. She always enjoyed a good view.
“Is this your first party around here?” Christina asked.
Carrie glanced up from the floor. “Kinda surprised I was invited. Being new, and all.”
“Whatever! Around here, being new means you’re the coolest person around! Until you do something uncool, I guess. But you brought pizza to your first party, so you’re cool. You work at the pizza place, right? I think I’ve seen you in there.”
Carrie popped up, hand snatching the table as she leaned in front of Christina. “Yup. I am a pizza artist. I’mreallygood at kneading dough by now.” She glanced down at Christina’s meager cleavage.Freakin’ sports bras. They hide all the fun.Sometimes too many things were left up to the imagination.
“You should teach some of the folks around here how to make a decent pizza. Take Aiden, for instance. I went to a party this summer where he tried making out with me over a pizza. Like literallyovera pizza. He had set up this whole elaborate thing with pizza dough and pepperoni here in this kitchen. You know how he tried to get me to take my top off?”
“No idea.”
“He heard girls have pepperoni-sized nipples, and he wanted to know if it was true.”
Carrie did her best to not burst out laughing, because while that was too preposterous to believe, she didn’t want to accidentally offend the girl sharing time with her.
“Pepperoni-sized, huh?” Carrie drummed her fingers against the table. “You know, I know a thing or two about a ladies’ nipples, and I can safely say I’ve never seen any that are big enough to be pepperoni. Bet he was so hungry he hoped they’d taste like them, too.”
“Hungry? I think you mean horny.”
Carrie had two options. She could keep flirting and hope it worked out for her – and if it did, she better grab herself another beer, because Christina was juuuust inebriated enough that it would feel weird making out with her if Carrie wasn’t in on the drunken fun, too – or she could use this opportunity to ask a few questions about the beef between her and Leigh-Ann.
Because Carrie was pretty smart. When she heard,“The last party I attended was in sophomore year,”she knew that coincided with when Christina and Leigh-Ann stopped being friends, let alonebestfriends. Something happened at that last party Leigh-Ann was invited to, and Carrie was nosy enough to ask what.
Or she was nosy enough to ask Christina if that stuff about her nipples was true.
“So, you’re from Alabama?” Christina asked. “I like your accent. Sounds way more interesting from how we talk.”
I mean, you’re not wrong.Carrie still wasn’t sure what was going on with the local Oregonian accent, but whew, it was a mess. “Yeah. I’m from ‘Bama,’ as people keep putting it.”
Christina giggled. “Don’t let them bother you. They’re dumb. They can’t find Alabama on a map.”
“Can you?”
“Hmm. Right there between Mississippi and Georgia, right?”
“With a tuck of Florida’s panhandle up against ours. You should go down there sometime, down on the Gulf Coast. Ever heard of Mobile?”
“Is that where it is? Sorry, I don’t know the actual geography of Alabama well.”
“Why the hell would you? I knew jack about Oregon before I got here.”
Christina batted her pretty eyelashes like she had expected such a response. “It sure is nice having you here. You’re really nice. Hopefully you’re not hiding some terrible secret you’re about to smack us all with.”
“Now, why would I do that? I’m a pretty open book. Girl from rural Alabama. Too gay for her own good. I hear that’s not an unusual story around here. Maybe the Alabama part. I also hear a lot of you were born and bred here.”
“Not all of us. I’m originally from California. Although I moved here when I was a kid. Practically grew up here, I guess.”
“Not a bad town, huh?”
Christina blushed. “Guess not.”
This was Carrie’s chance. She figured she had about two minutes before someone came barreling through the kitchen, either to hurl themselves out the back door to shoot more rounds or to upchuck in the sink. She didn’t hold much hope that people cared about the trash she propped up against the cabinets.Someone will probably trip over it and strew cans all over the floor. Again.
