Sidecar Crush

“Who?” Scarlett asked.

June furrowed her brow, like she was confused at the question. “George Townsend, also known as GT, starting receiver for Philadelphia. Buck was foolish enough to release him from his fantasy football team, and I was able to take advantage of his miscalculation.”

“Y’all playing for money again this year?” Cassidy asked.

“We are, although the gambling aspect is not why it appeals to me,” June said.

Cassidy glanced at me. “If you hadn’t noticed, Juney is a sports nut. Football is her favorite.”

“Baseball is a close second,” June said. “But I find the number of variables in football to be particularly stimulating.”

“You sure it’s not the big strong men smashing into each other that you find stimulating?” Scarlett asked.

June got that confused look on her face again. “No.”

“She likes numbers,” Cassidy said. “Has fun with all the statistics.”

“People like to believe there’s a high level of intuition involved in putting together a winning fantasy team,” June said. “But it’s all there in the numbers. Townsend’s total yardage has gone down, but his reception-to-touchdown ratio is in the top five in the league. He’s clearly the superior choice.”

“That’s great,” Cassidy said. “I bet Dad will be jealous.”

“He will be envious of my newly updated roster,” June said, nodding.

Cassidy laughed and patted her sister’s shoulder.

“How is it I wasn’t following your Instagram, Leah Mae?” Scarlett asked. She swiped her phone screen with her thumb. “Look at that cake. You get that from Opal?”

“Millie Waggle, actually,” I said.

Scarlett groaned. “What I wouldn’t give for a plate of her brownies.”

“Her cake was amazing,” I said. “It was so sweet of her to bake it for me. But I haven’t been looking at my Instagram all that much. Too many comments I don’t want to see.”

“I don’t know, this doesn’t look all that bad,” Scarlett said. “Mostly people are talkin’ about your clothes.”

“Really?”

“Well, not on the cake picture,” Scarlett said. “I’m just skimmin’ these comments, but that’s mostly what I see. People asking about your clothes and where you got them. This one here says, who cares if she sucked Brock’s dick, look at her jeans.”

We all burst out laughing again.

“You’re kidding,” I said.

Scarlett handed her phone over to me.

I thumbed through some of the comments on my photos. I did see a few references to my supposed scandal on Roughing It, but Scarlett was right. There were a lot of comments about what I was wearing. I was very pleased to see all the likes and comments on the photo of my cowboy boots. People loved them.

Take that, Kelvin.

“You ever thought about doing something with this?” Scarlett asked.

“With what?”

“With your sense of style,” she said. “I basically want to steal all your clothes every time I see you.”

“Same here,” Cassidy said, raising her hand.

“Thanks,” I said, and took another sip of my drink. “I’ve always liked to have fun with what I wear. It’s kind of like art to me. Art you wear around with you all day. Want to hear something weird?”

“Sure,” Scarlett said.

“It all started with Callie Kendall,” I said. “Her mismatched button. Remember how we all copied her that summer, and changed the top buttons on all our cardigans? Just the idea that I could change my clothes to make them unique kind of blew me away. I started modifying more of my clothes, then. At first it was just buttons, but it wasn’t long before I was ripping seams and resewing things. Making new silhouettes, or adding accessories.”

“Is that why you’re always so cute?” Cassidy asked. “Because I kinda figured it was just something models innately knew how to do that the rest of us don’t.”

“I guess,” I said. “Remaking my clothes and styling new outfits is… well, it’s what I do for fun. It’s relaxing.”