Good Time(37)

“Does peeling potatoes make you sad?”

“Ha, no.” He’s very observant of me, I’ve noticed. Observant in general. I like the way he pays attention to me. “I was just thinking that Thanksgiving might be at Rhys’ place instead of here. I don’t think he’s going to want to part with her after spending an entire month with her, because she’s amazing and Rhys isn’t a total idiot. So who knows, she might be living with him permanently by then and they’ll want to have Thanksgiving at their place instead of here. Which is fine.” I wave a hand to indicate the fineness of the entire situation and add a little shrug with my shoulder because by fine, I mean it’s only sort of okay, because I thought Lydia and I were living together this year. “Does Rhys have a real kitchen in his hotel suite, do you know?”

“He does. They all do. But I think they order everything from the hotel kitchen. They might just cater Thanksgiving.”

“Oh, no. Lydia would stroke out before she allowed that to happen.” I shake my head vigorously. “Girl Troopers don’t cater. She’ll be making pies from scratch and creating a centerpiece out of something she rescued from the Goodwill. But anyway, you can still come. I bet it’ll be the best misfit Thanksgiving ever!”

“Thank you, I appreciate the invitation.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Tell me how you got kicked out of the Girl Troopers.”

“How do you know about that?” I drop my fork onto my empty plate and gape at him. I might joke about it, but only with certain people because I’m actually very sensitive about it. It’s the Achilles’ heel of my childhood.

“Canon told me.”

“Canon knows! How does Canon know? Does everyone know?”

Vince’s eyes spark, his lips pulled into a smirk. “I’m joking. You told me. The other night.”

“Oh.”

“So?” he prods. “Tell me.”

“It’s embarrassing.” I slump in my seat.

Vince leans forward, bracing his elbows on the table and leveling me with a stare. “When I was eight, my mom took me to Disneyland. It was a really big deal because we didn’t have a lot of money. By which I mean she couldn’t afford a hotel in Los Angeles and tickets to the park, so we drove there and back in one day. Four hours each way in the car so she could give me an afternoon at Disney.” He takes a sip of wine and shakes his head. “And then I punched Tigger in the nuts.”

“What?” I laugh. “Why?”

“I was going in for a hug, but he moved and my arm was already in motion so bam! Right in the junk. I was fucking mortified, so I cried.”

“Did you get kicked out for assaulting Tigger?”

“No, but I felt like I ruined our day. I was too embarrassed to explain to my mom why I did it so she thought I was acting like an over-tired little punk. Looking back, it’s all so stupid. Why didn’t I just explain what happened? To my eight-year-old self it was too mortifying to talk about so I just clammed up. It still makes me cringe.”

He takes another sip of wine, raising his eyebrows over the rim of the glass as if to say, Your turn.

“Okay.” I sigh. “Fine.” I fidget in my seat a bit to get comfortable before I begin. “The first overnight camp was coming up. It was only one night but it was a huge deal, you know?” He nods. “We were going to earn a camping badge and stay in tents and it was just this huge deal.” I wave my hands around to indicate the importance and scope of the event. “But it was fifty dollars. Fifty freaking dollars, I still remember that.”

“Your parents couldn’t afford it?”

“No.” I shake my head. “They could. But they were divorced and turned it into a fight about money. My mom insisted my dad should pay for the overnight camp because it fell on his weekend. My dad insisted he paid child support to cover expenses like overnight camp and my mom should pay for it.”

“How old were you?” Vince asks, a line furrowing his forehead.

“Seven.”

“That’s harsh, putting you in the middle.”

“Yeah. I just wanted to sleep in a tent and eat a hot dog that I cooked myself. God, that stupid hot dog. I had a stick picked out.” I glance at Vince because this part is especially humiliating to me for some reason, and I’ve never told it to anyone. “I found this stick in my backyard and in my seven-year-old mind it was the perfect stick to roast a hot dog at camp. I thought I was going to bring my own stick to camp, along with my sleeping bag, which is dumb, isn’t it? I painted the end I was going to use as a handle with pink sparkly nail polish and kept it under my bed for a month.”

“But you never got to use it.”

“Nope.” I shake my head. “My entire troop came back with camping badges and stories I wasn’t included in. So I got this idea that if I could just get the camping badge it’d be almost the same as if I was there.”

“Okay.” Vince nods as if that logic made any sense.

“I had this keychain, it was a tiny stuffed gorilla, and Mandy Marshall was dying to have it. So I traded her, my keychain for her camping badge.”

“Industrious.” Vince smiles. I like the little lines that appear by his eyes when he smiles.

“It was all going well, until the next troop meeting when Mandy missed having her badge.”