Interim(72)

She tilted her beer and drank greedily. It wasn’t until she started on the second that she realized it’d been several hours since she ate. The alcohol hit her with fantastic force, fumbling her next words.

“Do those shicks really snowboard naked?” she asked.

Jeremy glanced behind him. “You’ve had one beer, Regan.”

“I know!” she laughed.

“Do you think those ‘shicks’ snowboard naked?” he teased.

She screwed up her face in thought. “I’m thinking no. But then again, if I had that girl’s ass, I’d do it.”

“You’d snowboard naked.” He didn’t pose it as a question.

“Hell yeah. That’s epic.”

“Epic?”

“Look. You hang out with popular kids long enough and you start sounding like an idiot.”

Jeremy chuckled. “Well, there are no naked chicks on the slopes. Chicks in bikinis, yes. But none of them naked.”

“Oh, yeah! I’ve seen those girls! They’re crazy,” Regan said.

“You think?”

“It’s cold up there!”

“You never shed your ski jacket? I get hot when I snowboard. I take it down to a T-shirt most of the time.”

“I never do. I’m always cold. Always.”

“That’s too bad,” Jeremy said, looking her over . . . Paying extra attention to her chest . . . Imagining what she looked like in a bikini . . . Imagining what she looked like naked.

Regan smiled to herself. “Bikini snowboarding.”

“Our version of South Beach surfer babes, I guess,” Jeremy replied.

She whistled low. “It’s gotta hurt like the dickens when they fall.”

Jeremy laughed hard.

“What?” Regan cried.

“The dickens?”

“What’s wrong with that?” She couldn’t help it and burst into a fit of giggles.

“Absolutely nothing. I think it’s great,” Jeremy replied.

Screw the axle. He walked to the sink and washed his hands, then to the counter where he pulled himself up beside her. He was careful to keep their knees from touching, but she wasn’t.

“I really do try not to say weird things,” she confessed. “Brandon’s always on me for saying weird things.”

Jeremy scowled. “There’s nothing wrong with the things you say.”

“He doesn’t like my clothes,” she said. “He said I look fat in high-waisted jeans.”

Jeremy sighed.

“Do . . . do you think I look fat?” she asked softly.

“What? Are you kidding me?” He grew angry. “It’s not my place, but I think you should dump him. I mean, if he makes you feel bad about yourself.”

Regan nodded. “I know.”

He wanted to press the issue. Her “I know” wasn’t an answer. He didn’t know what that meant. Would she dump him or not?

“He used to be nice,” she said thoughtfully.

“He was never nice.”

“So, he just put on a show for me?”

“Yeah.”

“Soooo, I’m an idiot?”

“No. You probably really thought he changed. You wanna see the good in people.”

“Is that bad?”

“Maybe unrealistic.”

“You think I’m stupid?”

He exhaled slowly. Jeez. Insecure much?

“No, Regan. I don’t think anything about the way you act and think is stupid. I could never think that.”

She smiled and leaned into him. She bumped his arm with her own and asked about his progress on the car. He didn’t really want to talk about it. He wanted to keep talking about Brandon until he convinced her to dump him. But then he remembered it was her birthday, and who the hell wants to talk about Brandon on her birthday?

He listed off a few repairs he was currently working on.

“I’m distracting you. I know it. I should leave,” she said.

“You’re not distracting me at all.”

“What were you about to do?”

“Slide under the car for a while.”

“Why?”

“To work on the axle.”

“What’s an axle?”

“An important part of a car.”

She pointed to a cushioned board with wheels at the four corners.