"Drop my best friend of 10 years for just happening to be a boy?" Kyra sneers. "Jealous much?"
I shrug as I start up the car. "Yeah, guess I was. What ever happened to him, anyway?"
"Can we just get to Pamela's as fast as possible, please?" Kyra's turned so she's looking out the window. "If it isn't obvious yet, I have somewhere I need to be. ASAP."
"Doctor's appointment?" I say lightly.
"Exactly," she says shortly.
Silence. She's close enough to grab, to kiss. Even her profile is hot to me. Fuck. Maybe I just need to get laid with someone new. This is beyond fucked.
I can hardly concentrate on the road, with her just a seat away. She'd look better in my lap. On my cock.
Landon.
"Pamela still lives in the same place?" I ask.
"Yep." Kyra chuckles. "The yellow paint in her bathroom's a bit more ragged, and that crazy hippy next door had her two Australian sisters move in, but that's about it."
I find myself smiling, remembering the time we played a game of drunk Uno with them. I'd never been much of a card game person, but something about that night, about how delighted Kyra was every time she got to roar "UNO!" won me over. "Some things never change."
"No, they don't," Kyra says softly, almost sadly.
We're nearly there when she speaks again, "He made a move on me."
"What?"
"Andy. Once I was single, one night we were at a bar with friends, then outside just us and - he tried kissing me."
"And?"
"And he got angry when I turned him down. Claimed I'd been leading him on for years. Our friendship kind of petered out after that."
"Well." Part of me wants to fling it in her face - 'Ha, called it! And all those times you played innocent' - but I really just like that she isn't snapping at me for once. That I'm not the one in the wrong. Except, in a way, ever since that night, I'll always be in the wrong and we both know it. "I won't pretend that I'm sorry."
"He wasn't that bad, you know," Kyra argues, face firming up now. "We just got our wires crossed along the way, and then..." She shakes her head. "It doesn't matter, anyway. People grow apart. Nearly all my old friends have."
Another forced exhale. "Don't know why I'm telling you this. Anyway - we're here."
I'd hardly noticed that I'd pulled into Pamela's weed-crowded cobblestone driveway. Maybe because I've been trying to concentrate on not kissing Kyra.
You could, now.
"Thanks," she says, opening the door. "See you tonight."
And then she's gone and the opportunity too. Good thing, probably. She's agreed to the dinner - no point in pushing things.
Although, as I drive home, I can't help but wonder what she's doing now. If it really was a doctor's appointment and, if not, why she lied about it.
Chapter 6
Kyra
"Kyra, hey!" Pamela's coral lips peel into a wide but surprised smile as she opens the door. "What are you doing here? Don't you have to pick up - "
"Madison, yeah," I say. "Long story short: my car broke down, I didn't trust a taxi to get me there, and my phone died too. A peach of a day, but is there any way you could give me a ride?"
"Of course!" She's already grabbing her car keys from the purple cat hook by the door and heading out. "Let's do this. What a day."
"I know," I say, following her to her blue Beetle. "But the good news is that I killed it in court today. How was your day?"
"Of course." She rolls her eyes as if it were a given as we get inside. "And you know me: same old, same old. Did the work thing, then some old man tried to argue with me about wallpaper. I put him in his place."
"You busy bee," I say. "You had time to do that and plan out Goldtree's newest cinematic offering?"
Interior decorating is her side hustle, although it's actually her passion too. It just doesn't make quite enough to pay the bills yet.
She makes a skeptical noise as she starts up the car and hits the radio - the station's playing 'Come Together', the Beatles singing away. "Honestly, there isn't much to do at work lately. I think my boss is a little too invested in this case against Storm Media, if you know what I mean."
"Jeanine has been sitting at the back for every court date," I confirm with a small smile.
She snorts. "Typical Jeanine." She honks at a pigeon slowly wobbling across the street then, as it flutters away, puts her foot on the gas. "Anyway. How is the whole Landon thing?"
"It's not a thing," I say.
"OK... how is the whole 'having to see your shitty ex at work' thing?"
"Pretty much shitty," I say.
If anyone knew how broken up and destroyed I was after the break-up, it was Pompom. She bought me an X-Large packet of 3-ply Kleenex from Costco, forged a doctor's note so I could miss an ill-timed legal exam, even helped me in a Burn-My-Ex's-Shit bonfire on a small scraggly beach. Plus, she was there when it all went down.