Best Served Cold

“Yeah. It might surprise you, but I’d give up my store if it meant she could have hers back.”

A small smile crept across her face. “Noted. Let’s go.”

I followed her out to the front and slipped past her. Rae glared up at me as I dug in my pocket and pulled out my keys. “Here.” I held them out to Marnie. “Drive my car home.”

“How are you gonna get home?” She looked at them.

“I’ll drive Rae home in her car and walk back.” I jangled my keys, and she finally took them. “Don’t be a dick, do the limit, and if you stop off to buy pot or see that jerk you’ve been dating not so discreetly, I’ll kick your tiny ass.”

“You’re a dick,” she shot back at me. “I’m going straight home. Don’t you worry.” Before anyone could say anything else, she waved goodbye to the girls and disappeared through the front door.

“Why aren’t you going?” Rae looked at me.

“Can you strip wallpaper?” I raised an eyebrow. “No. I didn’t think so. I’m going to help Sophie finish and then take you home.”

“Why can’t Sophie drive me home?”

“Because then your car would be on the road and you’ll probably get a ticket,” Sophie said. “Stop being so awkward and arguing for the sake of it. Besides, I don’t want to take your moody ass home.”

Rae huffed. “I’m putting an ad out for a new best friend.”

“Make sure they have the patience of a saint. They’re gonna need it.”

Rae flipped her the bird, but Sophie just grinned.

“What am I supposed to do while you two do the paper?” Rae asked, wincing as she adjusted and moved the ice on her foot. “Sit here and do nothing?”

“Basically,” I said, walking around the other side of the counter to join Sophie. “There’s not much else you can do, is there?”

She muttered something under her breath and looked out of the window.

Sophie gave me the kind of look that said, ‘You’re not going to get on her good side like that,’ but I ignored it and got to peeling off the paper.

I knew Rae.

And I was getting under her skin just by being here.

Although being the reason she probably had a broken toe wasn’t necessarily my best move.

***

One hour and thirty minutes later, we were done.

Just as well, because the pain was finally getting too much for Rae. She’d definitely broken it given the rainbow of blues and purples that were now forming on her second toe.

“I hate you,” she said, leaning on the window as I locked up. She hadn’t even put her other shoe on because it hurt too much, but she didn’t want anyone to see me carrying her down the street, so she had decided to hop down to her car.

I handed her back her keys. “Just let me carry you. Get on my back. You can’t hop all the way down the street to the parking lot.”

“I can do whatever I like,” she muttered.

“Except get your shoe back on.”

She smacked me. “Fine. I’ll get on your back, but I don’t have to like it.”

How did I know she was going to say that?

I bent down for her to climb up. It took a couple of attempts, but I finally was able to grab hold of her thighs and pull her up. She wrapped her arms around my neck, and as her breath tickled across the back of my neck, I couldn’t help but remember the last time she’d been on my back.

We’d been at the beach, and she wanted to go deeper into the water, but she was deathly afraid of jellyfish. I mean three-year-old-afraid-of-the-dark afraid. I’d never known anyone to be so scared of them before. She’d never gone higher than mid-calf in all the time I’d known her. It didn’t matter that I’d reminded her that jellyfish didn’t live on the sea floor, and if there was a jellyfish in the water, it was going to get her whether she was on my back or not.

That day, as she’d giggled into my shoulder, I’d taken it as she just wanted to be on my back.

Today, she wanted to be anywhere but.

“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” I stopped next to her car. “Nobody saw us. Your reputation is intact.”

She snorted. “Let me down.”

Carefully, I lowered her to the ground where she leaned against the side of the car. It beeped when she hit the button on her key fob, and she let me help her get in the passenger side without causing too much of a fuss.

I went to the other side and got in. I’d driven this car a hundred times, and it was still as impossibly neat and tidy as it’d always been. “Let me guess—your papers are still in an envelope in the glove box, there’s still a tub of gum in the center console, and a pair of spare flip-flops behind the passenger seat.”