Page 39 of Shane
“He’s way older than my Momma, so what else should I call him?”
“How do you even know their age difference?”
“She told me.”
“Teen mom told you what?”
“Very original,” he scoffs. “Mom told me she got herself a silver fox.”
“My father is not a silver fox!” I shout in frustration. “Did your mom tell you he hasn’t even been divorced for six months?”
“She did.”
“That’s not a red flag to you?”
“I don’t interfere in my Mom’s personal life. Just like I wouldn’t want her snooping around in mine.”
“So you mean to tell me that you have no problem uprooting your entire life in Jersey and moving into a strange house with people you barely know?”
“I know you.”
“Actually, you don’t.”
“I know everything I need to know. We go to the same university, so you’re smart. We’re in the same freshman seminar class, and you’re our project leader. We just took a plane ride together, and you held my hand to comfort me, so you’re compassionate. We kissed, so I know–”
“Let me stop you there,” I cut him off, not wanting to hear what personality trait our kiss revealed. “You basically threw me under the bus and assigned me project leader, and you made me hold your hand on the plane!”
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
“Have you hit your head on the ice one too many times?It’s the only way to look at it.”
“You could have pulled it away,” he says facetiously. “But you didn’t. Just like the night of the crawl when you kissed me.”
“I kissed you?” I repeat incredulously. “Ikissed you?”
“I love how you took the initiative on that. Women’s rights! By the way, I’m totally down with us doing that again, even if you end up becoming my stepsister.”
“I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.”
He lets out the heaviest belly laugh, and I’m so glad we can’t see each other because I inadvertently smile the way I always do when I hear or see Shane Sullivan’s joy.
It’s infuriating.
“Listen, stop joking around and get your mom to bail on Thanksgiving. The last thing I want is to have some weird ass family dinner with all of us. Then once we get back to school we’ll figure out a way toParent Trapthis shit and get them to break up.”
“Parent trap them?” he laughs.
“It’s a perfectly sound strategy. That’s why they made a movie about it twice!”
“You realize that was a work of fiction, not a documentary? We can’t break up two grown-ass adults in real life.”
“Who says we can’t?”
“Is this meltdown you’re having actually about our parents hooking up, or is this about us?”
“There is no us, Shane Sullivan.”
His voice drops an octave, and it makes my clit pulsate.