Page 97 of Bad at Love
“I can tell. What about?”
“The flight home,” I lie. I lie because there’s no way I’m going to tell her my real fears right now.
“Ah,” she says, buying it because I probably do look scared. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you nice and liquored up at the airport bar.”
“Ugh, don’t mention liquor right now, I’m going to be sick,” Jane says. “Lucky for me, I’m taking the Amtrak back to Boston. I’d hate to be crammed on a plane for five hours all hungover.”
“Again, Jane, you’re the only one in pain,” Naomi points out.
“Yeah, yeah,” she says. “But aren’t you guys all on the same flight?”
“Same row,” Naomi says.
Jane gives her a devious grin. “You should take the middle seat between these two.”
“As long as I get a window,” Marina says.
“Oh hell no,” Naomi protests. “I always have to have the window.”
“No,” Marina says, eyes full of panic. “I like to look out it and dream.”
“Yeah well I get airsick. Don’t you remember when we flew to Chicago?”
Marina looks at me. “Laz,” she whines.
“Don’t go crying to your boyfriend,” Naomi chides her. “Like a crying kid running to their mother.”
But I’m stuck on the wordboyfriend.
Is that what I am?
What are we?
I look to Marina for the answer.
She gives me a small, shy smile.
I smile back.
Nod.
Guess that’s what I am.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MARINA
“SO MUCH LOVE”
“Matcha latte for Martina!”the barista calls out.
Loudly.
Right in my ear.
It’s not like I haven’t been standing by the pick-up counter for five minutes or anything.
Normally I would grumble about the fact that I’ve been coming to this coffee shop for years now and they still can’t get my name right. Normally I’d complain about how long it takes to make a matcha latte.
