Page 86 of A Dead End Christmas
Nobody had doubted her, even though she'd been talking to four of the biggest football players in our school. Such was the power of Molly Chen.
Shortly after that, my gift had kicked in, and nobody had invited me to parties anymore, so it hadn't really mattered. Still, it would have been fun to have a poker face now and then.
Molly gave Jack a suspicious look, but he only returned a bland smile, so she shrugged, grabbed my arm, and pulled me down the hall. "You're driving. My car needs a new muffler, I think."
"It does," Jack called out. "Want me to take care of that while you're shopping?"
"No, but thanks. I have an appointment after Christmas to get everything fixed. Lucky thinks I should get a new car, but I'm going to drive this one until it dies under me. Why should I give my hard-earned cash to the capitalist auto industry?"
I rolled my eyes. "No dissing the capitalist industries when you're talking to your best friend, the business owner, while we drive out to that palace of commercialism—one of the biggest malls in Orlando."
She grinned. "Fine. But I get to pick where we have lunch."
"You just ate your second breakfast! You're like a hobbit, except without the hairy feet!"
We bickered and joked and laughed and told secrets all the way to the mall, as we'd done together for all our lives. I loved catching up with Molly.
"I miss our bad-movie Fridays, now that you're always off on tour," I admitted. "I make Jack watch bad movies with me, but it's not the same."
I deepened my voice and put on a serious face. "How can 'the safety was on' be a plot point that saves the day? That gun doesn't even have a safety!'"
She laughed, but I held up a finger. "Oh, no. That's nothing. Don't even get me started on any movie with shapeshifters in it. Also: He criticized the weapons inFifth Element, the battle strategy inDracula Reborn, and the command structure inStarship Troopers! Who pays attention to thecommand structure? Giant bugs attacking the universe, Molly!Giant bugs!"
She was now laughing so hard she got the hiccups.
I sighed. "Watching movies with an ex-rebel commander isn't a job for the faint of heart."
She held up a hand and held her breath for a count of ten, which mysteriously made her hiccups go away like it always did for her and had never once for me.
"Listen," she finally said, gasping a little. "Lucky has gone whole-hog into the business-owner thing. He's suddenly gone from somebody who used to have to pawn a guitar or two once or twice a year to get by to somebody who wanted to talk about mygeneral liability insuranceon our last date."
"Yes!"
"What?"
I pointed. "I mean, yes, I finally found a parking space. But no, that's crazy! Liability insurance?"
I swung into the parking space so far from the mall entrance we should have brought skateboards to cross the lot, and the guy in the ugly truck behind me smashed his horn at me.
Like I cared. "Get here earlier next time, buddy!"
"Your window is closed," Molly pointed out. "He couldn't hear you."
"Like I'd say anything with my window open?" I snorted. "This is Florida. He'd probably shoot me. What did you say?"
"To the ugly truck guy?"
"No, to Lucky."
She unfastened her seat belt, sighed, and leaned her head back against the headrest. "I changed the subject, but the awful thing is he's not wrong. Dice broke another guitar over another guy's head at our set in Little Rock last week, and this guy was shouting about suing."
I shrugged. "Dice—or should I say Veronica Dunstan-Blueblood—"
"Dunstan-Smythe," Molly said, weary patience in her tone. She knew I wasn't crazy about her sometimes-drummer, sometimes-bass guitarist, who caused a lot of trouble for Molly with her roller-coaster love life and propensity toward violence.
"Whatever. The anger management didn't take?"
"Apparently not, and it's the fourth time the court ordered her to take them. They're going to just lock her up. Not to mention—"
