Page 104 of The Bad Girl List

Our eyes meet, and we both laugh with our mouths full of food. I manage to swallow without choking. “Is it really better than your taco truck in the city?”

She nods, eyes smiling with amusement as she swallows the rest of her bite. “The green salsa needs a little work, but the carnitas is mind blowing. Which is why I’m not sharing any with Tequila. You’re on your own, dog.”

“Yeah, you’re on your own, Tequila,” I say.

My dog whines again, tail still thumping, dark eyebrows still moving back and forth as she eyes us with hope.

Dom and I move in unison, both of us grabbing a chunk of carnitas from our burritos and tossing them onto the ground. We look at each other, grinning.

“She has our number,” Dom says.

Tequila makes the carnitas disappear in less than five seconds. She yips again, head tilted and tail thumping.

“Should we give her more?” Dom asks.

“No. Too much and she’ll get the runs, which will end up all over my house.”

“But look at her eyebrows.” Tequila’s eyebrows are still shooting back and forth as she looks between us. “And her eyes. How can you say no to that?”

“Very easily.” I lean over the side of the table and say, “Tequila, no more.”

She immediately sits down in the dirt, resting her head on her paws.

“Good girl.”

Tequila thumps her tail in response.

“You’re a lucky girl, Tequila,” Dom says. “You have a good daddy.”

“She saved me,” I say. When Dom looks at me quizzically, I add, “Tequila, I mean.”

“How so?”

I hesitate, wondering how much I should tell her, worried that talking about Elle will mess things up again.

Screw it, I think. If there’s anyone that’s earned my complete honesty, it’s Dom.

“The trip to Tijuana was something Thomas arranged a few months after Elle died,” I say. “I was in bad shape. Days would go by without me leaving the house. I would lay in bed and zone out to Netflix. Mom brought me groceries for a while, but finally stopped in an effort to get me to come out. I’d eat weird meals, putting together whatever I could find in the pantry just to avoid going outside.”

I shift, wondering what Dom thinks of this. But when I look at her, I don’t see any discomfort. She’s listening with full attention, her burrito resting on the table.

“Thomas thought I needed to cut loose and go on a binger to get out of my funk. He arranged a guys’ trip to Tijuana. I didn’t want to go, but he came to my house, packed a suitcase with my things, and stood in my bedroom singing old Disney songs until I agreed to go.”

“Thomas knows Disney songs?”

“We all do. When we were kids, every Sunday night was Disney night. Mom made buttered popcorn and we’d watch a Disney movie together.”

Her face relaxes into a smile. “That sounds nice.”

“You’re only saying that because you’ve never heard my brother sing.”

“Oh, I heard him,” she says. “He sang up a storm at karaoke.”

Thinking of karaoke reminds me that she was with Kevin last night. I stuff down the surge of jealousy that accompanies this thought. I have no right to be jealous.

“My brother is good at a lot of things, but singing isn’t one of them,” I say, trying to keep the conversation light. “That doesn’t stop him, though, as I’m sure you saw last night. He says enthusiasm makes up for talent. So anyway, there he was, singing at the top of his lungs. I threw in the towel and agreed to go on the trip just so he’d shut the hell up.”

“I can totally see that,” Dom says. “How was the trip?”

---