Page 223 of The Long Way Home

“So Daisy, when you get done with your fun kitchen adventure, which is very delightful by the way, and not at all reminiscent of Hell’s Kitchen for me,” she glares at me for that and I give her a big grin, “will you be ready to go?”

“I already told you I’m not going anywhere,” she tells the pot she’s scrubbing.

“Oh no!” I cry. “You have you. You’ll be my only friend there.”

“Not your friend,” she says without looking up.

“Christian will be there,” I say enticingly and she freezes momentarily before she goes back to scrubbing.

“I thought I was your only friend there?” she tells me, eyebrow up.

I match her look. “I thought you weren’t my friend.”

“Come on, Dais—” Jack groans. “I need a dance.”

“Plus,” I interject, “you’re so pathetic over there with your cast iron pan of folded eggs on a Friday night,” I tell her before I duck behind her brother, lest she starts throwing things again. I slip my hand under Julian’s black distressed logo-print washed cotton-jersey T-shirt from Balenciaga, run my hands over his stomach, think of deplorable things and hope we might do them later.

“We’ll have fun!” I tell the girl who’s intermittently glowering at me and a pot I may or may not have ruined.

“I never have fun with you,” she tells me but I can tell that’s at least a sliver of a lie.

“I’m easier to be around the more you drink,” I tell her.

Julian nods. “That is true.”

I smack him and he presses his nose into the back of my head.

“Fine.” She lets out a frustrated groan and then stands. “But we’re still not friends.”

I lean in close to her brother’s ear and whisper, “For now.”

BJ

9:08am

Jo said you came after I left.

Oh.

On purpose?

No.

Really?

Promise.

How’s everything?

It’s okay.

How’s everything with you?

Yeah, good.

How’s Jordan?

She’s fine.

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