Page 75 of How to Lose at Love

“Are you spending the night at the house tonight?” the blonde—Tiffany—asks Ryann as she climbs into the back seat with my brother and the other chick, the three of them buckling their seat belts, three adults stuffed back there like sardines.

No one answers.

“Hello.” Tiffany rudely waves her hand in the air between the front seat and back seat, palm hovering above the center console. “Are you spending the night at the house tonight?”

I tilt my head and narrow my eyes. Why does she give a crap where Ryann is spending the night? Why is she even asking? The neighbors have never spent the night at our place. Why does she care if Ryann is?

Ryann’s head shakes as if she was lost in thought. “I’m sorry, were you talking to me?”

“Yes.” Tiffany rolls her eyes.

“Oh. Um.” She pushes some hair behind her ear. “Not sure yet.” Shrugs. “I like my sleep, know what I mean?” Laughs. “This one here snores like a freight train and gets nighttime sweats, so…”

Snores? Nighttime sweats? What the fuck! “I do not snore.”

I don’t.

“How doyouknow?” The imp is grinning, daring me to tell the entire group of them she couldn’t possibly know whether I snore or not because she’s never slept with me.

“Because I would know.”

“Didn’t you tell me once that you almost had to wear one of those masks because of your apnea or whatever it’s called?”

“Ew.” Tiffany wrinkles her nose. “You have to wear a mask to bed? That’s so weird.”

“Yeah,” Ryann goes on, “so like, sometimes I like to just sleep in my own bed so I can sleep. Otherwise it’s like sleeping next to Darth Vader, and I’m not really intoStar Wars.”

My jaw drops.

For once, I’m left speechless.

“You should totally spend the night tonight,” they say at the same time.

“Why?” Ryann cocks her head to the side and laughs.

Tiffany’s mouth guppies—as if she weren’t expecting Ryann to challenge her on something so simple. As if she were expecting her to agree because she was being put on the spot.

“Because…we’re going to spend the night, and it’ll be fun.”

Come again? Since when do these two spend the night at our house? This is either a new development or a power struggle to show Ryann who has the upper hand and the most access to the three Colter brothers.

“Fun?” Ryann isn’t taking the bait. “Fun forwhom?”

Tiffany, for all her confidence, pouts in the back seat. “Like, I thought you were dating. There are a thousand girls at this school who wouldn’t hesitate to spend the night and here you are, going home to sleep because he snores?”

I cannot believe she has the balls to say shit like that to Ryann’s face—and in front of mine, no less.

The nerve of these chicks.

I’m going to have a talk with my brother about getting them gone—like, gone, gone. That’s for damn sure.

Nothing I can do about it now, though.

sixteen

ryann

“A blow job is better than no job.”

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