Page 66 of Beyond the Bright Lights

I was lucky that person was a regular and decided not to sue me.

I'm sitting at one of the picnic tables, picking at the carved names, when Ginger finds me.

“Hey Beyotch,” she quips.

“Hey Hoe,” I counter.

She sets a glass of water in front of me, and I gulp half of it down.

“Everything okay in there?”

She nods and sits across from me. “Mylan frantically searched for you while on stage then bombarded me once he was done, asking where you were. I told him you were outside and needed a break from his clingy ass.”

I gasp. “You did not.”

She shrugs. “I did, and it’s true. He’s clingy as fuck.”

I roll my eyes and smile.

“Seriously, though, why are you out here? You okay?”

We’ve talked some about me hooking up with Mylan, but most of the time, our conversations were interrupted, either by someone walking up to ask for a drink or by Mylan, Bruno, or Eloise being nearby and not wanting them to overhear. Talking over text isn’t the same.

“I’m okay, but I’ve missed you these past couple weeks.”

“Right? That Hollywood dude is taking up all my Lana Banana time.”

I laugh and reach out, taking her hand. “I have no idea what I'm doing.”

“You’re—”

“Having a hot summer fling. I know, I know.”

“Do you?”

I toss up five fingers.

“Oh hell no. You did not plead the fifth on me.”

“Tell me about you and Bruno,” I say, baiting her with the change of subject.

She bites. I'm a horrible friend and while we’ve talked plenty about me, I’ve barely offered an ear for her to talk about her budding relationship with Bruno.

My friend’s dark brown face lights up underneath the bright moon. She blushes. “He’s amazing. So sweet. I feel safe when I’m with him, which makes sense since his job is to protect people.”

I squeeze her hand, urging her to keep talking.

“He makes me laugh at the dumbest things. He has these sayings; they sound so profound but make no sense whatsoever. I think it’s because the translation from German to English doesn’t make sense. The other day he told me I’m as beautiful as the ground when the rain falls. Like, what?”

I giggle, remembering one of those Brunoisms, as Mylan calls them. “I overheard him telling Mylan once to savor the moment like the last piece of pizza at a pizza party.”

“He’ll speak German to me, trying to be all sexy, and I don’t have the heart to tell him how unsexy the German language is.”

We burst into a fit of laughs that has my stomach hurting.

“So, you’re saying, German language, not sexy. German accent super sexy?”

Ginger grins and blushes. “Oh yeah, the accent is hot.”

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