Page 33 of Totally Played
He jumps up and leaps over the back of the couch.
“Oh my god, you are the best brother in the whole world,” he says, rushing toward me.
I hold out the container with one hand and cover my mouth with the other, and he laughs.
“I’m fine now, I swear.”
“You’re still probably carrying whatever thing you had. Take the food and get back on the couch. I’ll sit on the bean bag.”
“Yes, Mom.”
“If I were Mom, you’d be in bed with broth, not about to dig into barbeque ribs and wings.”
“So true. Remember when we both caught strep throat and she had us restricted to chicken soup and Jello for days. I still can’t eat strawberry Jello.”
“That’s because you decided to prove you could swallow a whole bowl of it in ten seconds.”
“It came out of my nose and everything. Yuck. Anyway, how were the guys? Did you smash them on game night?”
“They’re all great, I came second, and we invited Fort over, too, and Rachel.”
“Wow, she’s been angling for an invite since forever. Who’s Fort?”
I grab two waters from the fridge and plonk into the bean bag.
“Beau in our team, you know, the new guy?”
“Why are you calling him Fort then?”
“Because Lion’s friend Beau was there, too, and Ash thought it would be easier to use a nickname for one of them, and it turned out his name is actually Beaufort, so Ash came up with Fort.”
“Ash,” he says, pausing the replay of the game to turn his attention fully to me.
My face grows warmer, and I pop the cap on one of the bottles and guzzle it down.
“You know, Ashley, the guy you had me go on a date with,” I say between gulps.
“You went out again?”
“No. I mean, yes. But it’s not like that.”
Tony grabs his phone and swipes the screen a few times. “I knew something was off. He scored me really high after your date, but then I hit him up for another date this week and he rain-checked me.”
“Yeah, he’s going out of town,” I say, finishing off the water and opening the second bottle that I had originally grabbed for Tony, but my mouth is so dry.
He rolls his eyes.
“That’s just what a guy says when he’s not interested anymore. I knew I should have taken the hit and asked to reschedule.”
“No, he’s seriously going out of town, and hey. You said he rated you good, didn’t you? Why would he lie about going out of town if he scored my date high?”
He shrugs. “Maybe you’re a dud lay.” He laughs, and I reach over and toss a cushion at him. It hits him square in the face and falls into his lap on top of the container of wings.
“You’re washing that,” he says, peeling it up and flinging it over his head toward the bathroom. “Don’t throw things at your sick brother.”
“You said you’re better now.”
“I said I was feeling better. You said I was still all germy, so that means I’m still sick, and you can’t be mean to me if I’m sick.”
