Page 78 of Revenge Cake

I’m too in my head to call her out on her sarcasm. At my continued silence, she frowns. “Oh my god, are you really getting upset?”

“I don’t know,” I say, in a daze.

“It was high school. You were a baby. It’s more funny than anything.”

“I don’t think it’s funny. Lauren…” I take a deep breath before meeting her eyes. “Do you think I’m needy?”

Her face freezes momentarily, but then she sucks in her lips, fighting a smile. It’s the smug look she gives me anytime I say something stupidly obvious, and it used to make me want to hit her when we were kids, but I can’t summon even the slightest irritation. Only anxiety.

“Logan,” she begins tentatively. “Is this really news to you? Have I not been telling you that for years? Has Armaan—and all your friends—not said it one hundred times?”

“My friends are just jealous of my game.”

She sucks in her lips again, and this time I kind of want to hit her even now as an adult.

“They are!” I shout, inwardly wincing at my childishness.

“You have to have a girl, honey. All the time. You find new girls within minutes after your breakups.” Her voice grows tight, as if she’s holding back laughter. “Literally, in Lani’s case.”

Oh shit.

I stand up from my desk and start to pace the room, running hands through my hair as memories of both nights I went to Keira’s house come flooding back. I knew even then it was a selfish move. How did I not also realize all of this? How could I have been so stupid for over half of my life?

“So, you think I always have a girlfriend because I need attention?” I ask, unable to stop the memory of Lani’s words from wrapping around me, squeezing my throat. Once you started to doubt your love for me, you immediately sought someone else.

“Well, yeah, and it’s understandable. Just think about how little attention we ever got from Mom.”

“Yeah, you’ve said that before, and it’s crazy! Mom gave us too much attention. She would have controlled our entire lives if she could.”

“Yes, but controlling someone is not the same as hearing them.”

I nod slowly, straining my brain for even a single memory of being ignored by Mom, and still I come up short.

But then my mind shifts to that recently surfaced memory of Grandma Louise and those conversations at the kitchen counter and the drawling sound of her raspy voice when she called me “honey” or “punkin,” and I’m gripped with a longing so powerful I want to be sick.

“Grandma Louise paid attention to us,” I say quietly.

A smile tugs at Laurens lips. “She did.” Her smile holds as she shifts her eyes away from mine. “I miss her.”

“Me too.” It’s all I can say without crying, and fucking hell I don’t want to cry right now. I’ve been sad enough lately. I don’t need to cry over a grandma who’s been gone for more than a decade.

“I miss Dunkaroos,” Lauren says softly. “Remember those?”

Warmth fills my chest at the memory of Grandma Louise’s pantry shelves, overcrowded with cardboard boxes and plastic bags with cartoon characters on them, as if she spent months preparing for our summer visits. She probably did. My lips lift into a smile. “She always fed us such shit food.”

“I know! Mom always told her not to, but she didn’t care, because she was a bad bitch with her curly acrylic nails and her indoor smoking. Remember how the walls of her living room literally had stains from smoke? God, I miss that.”

“I love the smell of cigarettes because of her.”

“Me too!” Lauren shouts. “Anytime I see someone smoking, I’m like blow that shit in my face, honey!”

When she drawls “honey” with a terrible southern accent, I burst into unexpected laughter. Lauren joins me, and we laugh off and on for several minutes, wiping our eyes occasionally and quoting more of Grandma’s southernisms in our shitty southern accents, and then bursting into laughter again.

CHAPTER 33

Logan

It’s nine thirty in the morning. Ten and a half hours and counting until Mia’s birthday party.

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