True Places(37)
Lisa threw pillows on the floor for them to sit on. “Brynn, when are you gonna have us over so we can meet her?”
“By ‘her’ I assume you mean the Stray.” Brynn sighed. “The answer is never.”
“Oh, come on,” they chorused.
“No, really. The zoo is closed.” She pulled out her phone, anxious to change the subject. “Tinder roulette, anyone?”
“Hell yeah.” Kendall put down her Vitaminwater and clicked open the app.
Lisa volunteered to call time for the first round. “Ready, sistahs?” Brynn and the others poised their thumbs over their screens. “Okay, go.”
The four girls swiped left across profiles, saying no to guy after guy. The rules were they had to swipe left until the timekeeper called time. The guy who was on the screen when they stopped was the one they had to swipe right for. They had to keep up a steady pace; no hovering over a hot guy hoping time would be called, making a right swipe mandatory.
“Tick-tock,” Lisa said.
“Come on. Say it.” Steph was the shyest of them all and hated this game. She felt guilty about swiping left past so many people who didn’t deserve it.
“Bye-bye, hunky boy.” Kendall sniffed.
“So many hunky boys . . .” Ophelia had a boyfriend, a senior named Andrew, but was all about Tinder. Andrew might or might not know how much time she spent on it. Brynn knew Ophelia had hooked up with at least two guys from it. Ophelia didn’t care. “Judge me,” she’d said. “Then fuck off.”
“Stop!” Lisa held up her hand. “Like him. In fact, I dare you to super like him.”
“Not doing it.” Kendall held up her phone, which showed a balding man with moobs drinking Coors in a bubble bath.
They all laughed.
Brynn glared at Kendall. “You have to. Rules.” She turned to Lisa. “I accept your dare with pleasure.” She let them see Robby, a tall, athletic guy in a wrinkled white button-down, the UVA stadium scoreboard in the background. “Holding. A. Pug.” She swiped up with dramatic flourish.
“He’s gorgeous,” Ophelia said. “I’d do him.”
“Of course you would.” Brynn smiled at her, to let her know it was a joke. Ophelia was a lot of talk, despite the hookups, and claimed to have been a virgin until her current boyfriend. They were all virgins, as far as Brynn knew. Blowing guys didn’t count. They all did that.
Kendall called for another round of roulette. All the hits were lame. They hung out until Lisa’s mom broke it up around ten. Brynn texted her parents that she was getting a ride with Kendall’s dad. On the way home, her phone blinked with a notification from Tinder. Robby had liked her and sent her a message.
ROBBY: Look at you, pretty girl.
BRYNN: Your pug is adorbs.
ROBBY: Jason gets all the super likes. I’m his agent.
BRYNN: Lol
ROBBY: What are you up to?
BRYNN: In transit. Tell Jason I’ll catch him later.
ROBBY: Don’t keep him waiting. He’s drooling.
Brynn stashed her phone in her jacket pocket. Trevor’s party, such a coup only hours before, now seemed like a monumental waste of time. Campus parties were everything. She’d been to a couple before with her friends, but they had totally crashed them. They had been nobodies, high school nobodies—in other words, fresh meat. But going with someone like Robby, now that was different. That was goals AF.
CHAPTER 17
Reid sat with Iris at the counter while she scarfed down vast quantities of scrambled eggs, sausage, and toast. Whatever else she might have trouble with, eating was not on the list. She used her hands to eat almost everything, and when she did use a fork, she held it in her fist like a toddler. He was fascinated with what the Venn diagram of her knowledge and his might look like: what he knew and she didn’t, what they both knew, and what she knew and he did not. He guessed that, despite her ignorance of technology and modern stuff, Iris knew a lot about the world. It might not have been her choice, but she had pretty much renounced materialism, too, which was cool. Reid realized this didn’t mean Iris was made of starlight or even had deep thoughts, but he was curious about her. He wanted to ask her lots of questions but worried about spooking her.
His mother was on her phone, texting at near-Brynn speed. Incoming calls made soft dinging sounds every few seconds. Only seven fifteen and the world of Moms on a Mission was wide awake. His mom sighed and put the phone on the counter.
“Reid, remember Trevor’s party is tomorrow night.”
“I don’t think I’m going.”
“Not even for a little while?”
Reid stared at his empty plate. This wasn’t about Trevor Gillings. This was about Trevor’s father, who ran the bank where Reid’s father got funding for a lot of his deals.
His mother kept at it. “He’s been your friend since fourth grade.”
“Correction. He was my friend in fourth grade. He’s changed a lot, Mom. Not for the better.” Trevor was a classic lax bro: a partier and a slick guy with the girls.
Reid could see his mother struggling, pulled in one direction by Reid’s father’s insistence that his real estate deals were family business, and in the other by her view that Reid should be free to choose his own friends and spend his time how he wanted, within reason. His mother agreed with Reid in principle—she admitted it—but in practice it was murkier, because she had to go up against Reid’s father over it. Sometimes, like now, Reid got the impression she wished he’d toe the line just because it made things easier for her. He’d done that occasionally. But now he realized that his mother was perfectly capable of getting her way with Reid’s dad when it mattered enough. Over Iris, for example. It frustrated and annoyed him, not because he didn’t want Iris around, but because his mother’s loyalty had always been a rock-solid given. He’d always assumed she was in his corner because she believed in him, cared about him enough to defend him. Now he wasn’t sure.