Page 30 of The Girl He Loves

I say, “Which I would do anyway.”

Jayne is tapping her finger to her lip. She stops and says, “I can find you work. There’s always inventory and uploading pictures and stuff. Some of which you can do from home. You tell me what hours you want to work, and I’ll make it happen.”

I want to weep at her generosity. “I don’t know what I can commit to. Weekends maybe? It’s only for three months, and Tyler and I can make adjustments in the short term for a long-term gain.”

Paisley says, “We should start you a GoFundMe.”

I groan. “Please don’t.”

“I’d contribute,” Josie says.

“Me too,” echoes Jayne.

I cover my ears. “I’m going to ignore you. You know how I feel about these things.”

Josie, who’d been putting Pad Thai on her plate, stops and sets everything down before she faces me, hands on hips. “I hate to be the downer in the room, but if you’re doing classes at night and working long hours in the day, you aren’t going to have a lot of time to work for Jayne. Let us help. We can afford it.”

“I did a quick re-figuring of my budget on the drive home. As I see it, I have a month and a half covered. Maybe I can take out another student loan to cover the difference? I’ll find a solution,” I say with more assurance than feel.

Josie opens her mouth to protest, I’m sure, when the doorbell ringing stops her.

“I’ll get it,” Paisley says. She hands me her plate. She comes back moments later leading Dax into the room. He’s carrying a large plastic grocery bag. Tyler is at his heels, clearly thrilled to see him again.

Dax says, “You’re having a party, and I didn’t get invited. My feelings are hurt.” He feigns a sad face.

“I deleted your number,” I lie. But I’m peeved he left so suddenly on Saturday.

And darn him. He looks so good I can’t help but take him in for a moment. I blame the wine. His dark green T-shirt stretches across his broad shoulders, and his jeans are snug across his muscular thighs. I bet if he turned around, his jeans would be cupping his bum in all the right places.

“You could've messaged me on Instagram, seeing as you follow me.” He winks.

“Now I’m glad I didn’t invite you,” I say, and hand Paisley back her plate. I don’t get one for Dax, but Jayne does.

“What’s the occasion?” he asks.

The room is quiet. I suspect my friends are letting me give him only the information I want him to have.

But Tyler beats me to it. “Mom got a job but first she has to do something called an enter-ship. I don’t know what that is. It sounds like it has something to do with aliens. And the job’s in Orlando, so she’ll be driving a lot. But Mom doesn’t know how she’s going to pay for everything while she’s on the enter-ship. I guess that means I’ll be staying with Mimi a lot. Because my dad is a deadbeat.” He looks at me wide eyes. “I hope you come back from the enter-ship.”

I brush a lock of hair from his forehead. “You have to stop saying your dad is a deadbeat.”

“Uncle Doug said it when he tried to fix the dishwasher before Dax fixed it. He was telling Mimi it was too bad my dad was such a deadbeat and it pisses him off you have to worry about money.”

I pull him close to me. “First, ‘pisses’ is a bad word. Please don’t say it anymore. And second, that’s Uncle Doug’s opinion about your dad. It doesn’t mean it’s true. I don’t think your dad is a deadbeat. Your dad gave me you. How could that make him bad? Never. It never could.”

Tyler smiles and leans into me. “You won’t get stuck on this ship, will you?”

“It’s called an INTERN-ship. That means, while they train me and teach me the job, I work for free. Once I know everything, they start to pay me because then I don’t need someone with me all the time to make sure I don’t goof up.”

His face brightens. “That’s a relief.”

I say, “You’re telling me. I’m woefully unprepared to deal with aliens, space travel, and anything that comes with that.” The group chuckles.

“Can I have more noodles?” he says. I oblige and dump them on his plate. Afterward, he escapes back to the living room.

Dax says, “Wow, sounds like today was a great day.” He puts his plate on the table. “Looks like I made a good call when I stopped by the store for this.” He opens the grocery bag and takes out three gallons of various flavored ice cream and endless toppings including sprinkles and toffee. Both my favorite.

Josie claps Dax on the shoulder. “You can stay.” She picks up a jar of maraschino cherries with the stems still on. “Why the stems?”

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