Frenemies

His laughter followed me the entire way. Humiliation burned through me, but really, I should have known there was no way I could pull that off. Should’ve waited until Maya had left and then just put it on the kitchen window or something.

Ugh.

I kicked my muddy sneakers off before going inside.

“Well, that went well,” Hannah said dryly, shutting the door behind us.

Grandma was apparently done with her Netflix binge because the living room was empty, and thank God. I’d never live this down if she saw me looking like something that just erupted out of a swamp.

I pulled off my sweater and t-shirt on my way upstairs. I wasn’t going to justify responding to Hannah right now.

Mostly, I had nothing to say. I was too busy hating myself for such a stupid idea because it was one more win for Mason.

Ugh.

And of course the store wasn’t open tomorrow, so there was no way I could get out of this inevitable conversation.

Ugh, ugh, ugh.

CHAPTER NINE – IMMY

Pancakes And Obituaries

The familiar ‘dun, dun, dun’ of the song Another One Bites the Dust shook my bedroom floor.

This was not how I wanted to start my Sunday. If Grandma was playing Queen, it meant she was planning on guilting me into a date. I’d done it for her three times now, and not one of those dates had worked out.

I rolled over and checked my phone on the nightstand.

Eight-fifteen.

Wasn’t she supposed to be at church? This was my only day off this week, damn it.

Dun. Dun. Dun.

Followed by Grandma’s shrieking rendition of the chorus.

“Jesus Christ.”

I had no idea why I was muttering his name—he wasn’t helping me right now.

I peeled myself out of the sheets to standing, yawned, then made my way downstairs. There was a huge stack of pancakes in the middle of the kitchen table.

I hit the button on the CD player to stop the music.

“Hey!”

“Why aren’t you at church?” I asked, grabbing one of the chocolate-chip pancakes and tearing a bite out of it as it was.

Grandma looked disapprovingly at me. “Church was canceled.”

“Canceled? Does God have the flu? Or maybe a migraine. I know I’d have one if I had to listen to your singing every day. Oh, wait,” I finished on a deadpan.

She swatted at me with her spatula. “No, Pastor Beaphar is sick, actually. So I made pancakes.”

“Are you feeding the entire neighborhood?”

“I thought you could take some to Mason and Maya as an apology for attempting to climb up his wall last night.”

My lips thinned. “How do you know about that?”

“My ladder is against his house, Imogen. I’m not senile yet, child. I figured it out.” She put another pancake on the tower. “Why did you try to climb his house?”

I briefly explained yesterday lunchtime’s antics and how it ended up in last night’s fiasco.

Predictably, she laughed so hard she burned a pancake. “I take it back. Seeing you in the mud was probably enough of an apology.”

I glared at her. “Give me the pancakes. I need to go explain anyway.”

“You’re gonna go like that?” She looked me up and down pointedly. “You look like you just rolled out of bed.”

“I did,” I replied through gritted teeth. “Your little concert woke me up.”

She slid eight pancakes onto another plate and held it out to me. “Well, I read the obituaries on my phone this morning. Theodore York died this week. We used to date, you know, back in the day. I’m simply reminding you that I could be the next one to bite the dust.”

“Grandma, you’re not dying.”

“Yet.”

“By your logic, the same applies to me!” I yelled back.

I rested the plate on the stairs for a moment while I grabbed a sweater from the hooks in the hallway to hide the fact I wasn’t wearing a bra. Yeah, I could go upstairs and get changed, but it was just delaying the inevitable.

Besides, it wasn’t like he’d never seen me first thing in the morning.

I tugged on the waistband of my shorts and grabbed the pancakes before I made my way over to Mason’s. Giggling came from the general area of the backyard, and I raised my hand to knock on the door right as it opened.

Instead of hitting the door, I hit Mason.

At least it wasn’t in the face.

“Good morning to you, too,” he said dryly, eyes sparkling with laughter.

“Well, that’s what you get for opening the door when I’m about to knock.” I sniffed. “Grandma made enough pancakes to feed the five thousand, even though church is canceled.”

“Since when did church get canceled? Is God all worshipped out for the week?” He put the trash bag he was holding into the can at the side of the house.

“Apparently, the pastor is sick.”

“Don’t they have a deputy for that?”

“I have no idea. Do I look like I go to church?”