Page 3 of I Would Stay Forever
He sauntered over. “So you do know my name. I wasn’t sure, what with the whole sir-calling thing back there. I guess it’s just your pet name for me?”
I narrowed my eyes and shoved the coffee at him. “Don’t burn your tongue.”
There was only so much I could insult a customer, after all, and I’ll already filled my quota for the day.
“So I couldn’t help but overhear you two talking,” he said. I bit back a groan and glared at Zoey, already seeing where this was going. She just blinked back innocently. “And in case it wasn’t clear, I would love for you to come to the car wash.”
Yeah, no thanks.“I don’t need your pity invite.”
He had the gall to look offended. “You think it’s a pity invite?”
“If you wanted me to come,” I leaned forward on the counter, pressing all my weight into my hands, “you would have asked sooner. You overheard her talking about it, and now you feel bad. Pity invite.”
“It’s a sad little world you live in, Novak,” he said, clicking his tongue and shaking his head. I just continued to stare at him until he rolled his eyes. “Fine. Consider it a pity invite. I don’t care. But I would so love to see you there.”
He winked at me, glanced at Zoey, and then walked out the door.
Zoey turned with a look that could only mean one thing. She opened her mouth to say something, but I held up a hand.
“Not one word.”
two
Moving halfwayacross the world at twelve years old wasn’t exactly an easy transition for me. It was a million changes at once. All the worst parts of a normal move—new house, new school, new friends—combined with the culture shock of living in Canada.
But perhaps the most bizarre transition of all was learning that, for whatever reason, the girls here found my brother…hot. And unfortunately, he had the idiotic sense to pick the worst girl of them all to start dating.
I was walking onto the driveway when I spotted Tiffany, AKA the devil incarnate. She was standing at our front door, hands on her hips in a way that made it clear she was annoyed (but what else was new?). At first, I thought the door was open and she was arguing with Sebastian (again, nothing new), but as I got closer, I realized it was closed, and she was alternating between slamming her first against it and just standing there, waiting for someone to answer.
I paused at the bottom of the porch steps, chewing on my lip as I considered what I should do. We had a side door that I might be able to reach without her noticing me, but it was almost impossible to open—you had to push down on the doorknob andthen kick the bottom corner twice and pray for the best. But maybe that was preferable to walking past Tiffany.
I stepped back to do that, but I waited too long, because she spun around at that moment. She was scowling, but when she spotted me standing there, she plastered on the biggest fake smile that I’d ever seen. I did my best not to judge my brother’s girlfriend out of respect for him, but the girl made it hard. She was so obviously two-faced, trying to suck up to us so we would tell Sebastian to stay with her. After she broke up with him for the third time, she cornered me at school and asked me to talk him into taking her back. Since they obviously weren’t together at the time, and I was hoping it would stay that way, I’d told her to screw off. Unfortunately, the breakup only lasted two more days, and I’d learned that I should always assume they would get back together eventually.
“Lav!” Tiffany said in a sickly sweet tone. I’d never given her permission to call meLav—a nickname that reminded me way too much of lavatory—but she never listened to my corrections. She insisted that all the cheerleaders went by nicknames (“you should call me Tiff!” she announced the first time I met her), so she couldn’t possibly call me Lavender. I certainly wasn’t going to offer up my childhood nickname ofLovey, which left me no other options.
“Hey Tiff,” I mumbled. Maybe I should have called her Tiffany to show her how annoying it was to be called by a different name than you preferred, but calling her Tiff saved me the headache of an argument. I’d seen her fights with Sebastian enough to know that she could go on yelling for hours.
Tiffany glanced over shoulder at the closed front door one more time, her smile faltering, then rolled her shoulders and came down the stairs. She looked more like she was skipping onto the football field for the half-time performance thanwalking off a porch. I wondered if that came naturally to her or if she was putting on a show.
“I was looking for your brother,” she said, as if there was any other reason she might be trying to bang down our front door. “I guess he’s not home.”
My eyes darted to Sebastian’s sleek black car, parked in the driveway, right behind Mum’s SUV. Sure, he might have walked somewhere, but I knew his schedule well, and it seemed more likely that he was hiding out in his room. I wasn’t sure whether he was intentionally ignoring her or if he just had headphones on and couldn’t hear the knocking. Either way, I was sure they weren’t on good terms right now, because otherwise he would know she was coming over.
“Uh-huh,” I said. When talking to Tiffany, it was best to keep my responses short and boring. I gave her nothing to get angry about.
“So, uh…” She held her hands behind her back and sauntered even closer to me. When she came almost toe-to-toe with me, I backed away to leave a normal amount of space between us. “I’ve been thinking—Sebastian and I have been getting so serious lately.” Yeah, that seemed unlikely. “And I feel like you and I barely know each other. Don’t you think we should hang out more? We’re basically sisters-in-law.”
My eye twitched. This girl couldn’t go more than three weeks without dumping my brother and she was considering herself mysister-in-law? She was out of her freaking mind.
Of course, I couldn’t say that to her, so I just started inching past her and said, “You know, I’d love that, but I’m so busy with my summer job right now. Maybe in the winter, okay?”
“The winter?” she demanded, the sweet tone evaporating from her voice. She seemed to notice her mistake a second too late, because it was back in full-force with her next words. “ButI was thinking we should get together sooner than that. Like maybe right now. We could watch a movie or something?”
I started up the stairs and unfortunately, she followed me. How predictable. Clearly, she and Sebastian were either in a fight or broken up, and she was just using me as a way to get into the house.
Not going to happen.
“Sorry, I’m…” I scrambled for an excuse. Homework and volleyball practice were my go-tos in the school year, but neither could work now, obviously. “Sick.”
