Nothing Less (Landon Gibson 2)

“Who’s that?”

Nora’s eyes widen. “King Joffrey, the little blond twat.”

Huh?

“You really don’t know who I’m talking about, do you?” She’s staring at me in disbelief.

I shake my head.

“You’ve never watched Game of Thrones?”

“Oh. No, not yet.”

“No way!” Nora rushes toward me, grabbing hold of my wrists. She smells like coconut. “Please tell me you’re joking. I had you pegged soooo wrong. Which rock do you live under, and how do you stay away from spoilers online?”

The college and job rocks,I want to say. But that would be rude . . . and also lame.

“I haven’t had time yet. I plan on watching it. Everyone talks about it, but I don’t have the right online accounts.” I sound like a robot.

I do have that one Facebook page that I always forget the password to and have to reset. I have about ten Facebook friends, half of them my family. My mom’s Facebook page is full of baby updates and belly pictures, and Tessa’s is full of Pinterest posts. My mom is obsessed with tagging me on stuff. Pictures, quotes, images of puppies. The last time I logged on to my account, she had posted pictures of us from her wedding and tagged me. Soon enough, all of my mom’s friends were commenting things like:

“I remember pinching those cheeks when he was just a baby!”

“Little Landon has grown up to be such a handsome young man!!!”

“When can you expect Landon to marry, Karen?”

To that last one, my mom responded, “When him and Dakota finish college!”

Things were so different last year. Even a few months ago, my life was completely different from the way it is now. I was supposed to be living with Dakota by now, starting our future together.

Enough about Dakota.

“You have to watch it,” Nora insists.

I half agree with her. “I might.” I don’t know if I even have time to watch a TV show between school and work and Nora and Tessa and Hardin and Dakota and my mom and baby sister and Ken.

Between her fingers Nora rolls a paper straw-wrapper. “What shows do you watch?”

I tell her that I’ve been watching whatever Tessa watches lately. Nora sits down at the table closest to me and tells me that I’m doing myself a disservice by not watching Game of Thrones. She tells me that she loves to hate-watch the Bachelor shows. I tell her, truthfully, that I’ve never seen an episode. I see the stars’ faces plastered on the gossip magazines, all lined up in the magazine kiosks that I pass on the way to class, but I couldn’t tell you any of their names. She tells me that someone named JoJo is a fool for sending home a cowboy from Texas last week.

I listen to Nora talk and decide that I like the way her words feel as they fill my ears. She talks with her hands, and so gracefully that I don’t ever want her to stop talking. She’s one of those people who take words and make them important. She gives them a meaning they couldn’t even dream of having without her lips giving them life.

“So, how about you?” she asks finally, and I can’t even remember what she was going on about. I was too focused on her animation and how full of words she is to hear what she actually said.

“Um . . .” I fumble with my words, pushing my memory to do me a solid.

“Plans for tonight?” she asks, half-smiling.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I shrug. “I’m not sure yet. Hardin’s here in town until Monday.”