“You’re sounding very domesticated these days.”
“Fuck you,” I say while smiling.
Cash shakes his head, laughing. “I’m going to stay away from chicks from now on. There must be something in the water.”
“So you aint gonna call Lilly?”
“Fuck yeah, I’m calling her! Did you see her tits?” I look over at him; he’s holding out his hands in front of him like he’s got huge melons balancing in them.
“You’re full of shit,” I laugh. Out of all of us, Cash is the one who wears his heart on his sleeve.
“Never mind don’t look at her tits.” He says. I look over to see a look of confusion on his face before he ask “So are you and Liz living together?”
“Yes, but don’t tell her I told you that.”
“So you’re living together but she doesn’t know it?”
“Pretty much.” I shrug.
He laughs. “Let me know how that works out for you.”
It’s after seven when I finally pull up to the house. Liz’s car is in the driveway, so I decide to check her trunk. As soon as the trunk light comes on, I can see that she had pulled up the carpet to get to her spare, but there is no spare, and no extra tire that could have been Jen’s. I look around, wondering where she would have put an extra tire.
“What are you doing?” I hear Liz ask from the front porch. I look up to see her arms crossed over her chest; Lolly is sitting calmly at her side.
“Hey, baby. Nico said you had a flat,” I lie, and watch her face pale.
“Uh, yeah. I met November for dinner, and when I got out to my car, I had a flat.” Her voice wavers a bit at the end, and I have to stop the smile from coming across my face.
“Where is your spare?” I ask, slamming the trunk. I walk around to my truck and pull my bag from the back. Lolly finally decides to come off the porch, but Liz Is stuck in place.
“The spare?” She looks around like it’s going to appear out of thin air. Cute. I shake my head, then bend down to pet Lolly.
“It’s sad that you come to me before my girl does,” I tell Lolly. Standing, I walk slowly towards Liz. “Yeah, baby. The spare tire for your car.”
“Oh, that! Um…I had to leave it at the tire place.” I can tell she’s lying when she doesn’t make eye contact.
“Well, I need to get a new tire for my truck tomorrow, so I’ll just pick yours up when I go.”
“That’s really not necessary,” she mumbles, barely loud enough for me to hear.
“It’s no problem.” I lean forward and grab her wrist, pulling her to me. “You haven’t kissed me,” I say, putting my face in her neck and breathing her in. I missed her smell; and as I lift my head, our eyes meet.
“You know, don’t you?” she whispers, tears filling her beautiful eyes.
“Let’s say Nico put two and two together.” I watch her lip start to tremble. “Hey, what’s that about?” Using my thumb, I swipe the tears from her cheeks.
“It’s not my fault!” she cries, her face landing in my chest. I drop my bag, pick her up, and take her inside. I walk to the couch and sit with her in my lap.
“Talk to me.” I say quietly, rubbing her back. Her breaths are heavy before answering. Then she tells me the whole story about Jen and her friends laughing, saying her name, and leaving the restaurant, and then how she found her tire slashed.
“You know that my car is always unlocked?” I nod; I do know that she never locks her car. I hate that shit. “Well, when I popped my trunk to get the spare tire, there wasn’t one in there. Then I looked at my phone to call someone, and I had no service. So I looked around and noticed Jen’s car, and for the first time I realized that we had the exact same car.” She sits up and looks at me. “I was so mad. She has always been evil, but ever since we got together, it has gotten a million times worse. So I took my jack out of the trunk, went to her car, got her tire off, realized that I would need the jack to change my tire, so I kicked the jack out from under her car, ran back to my car, changed the tire as fast as I could—which by the way is pretty damn fast.” I smile because she says all of this in one breath; she’s so fucking adorable. Her eyes drop to my mouth, and her finger comes up to trace my lips. “I love your smile,” she whispers, and I kiss her finger, making her smile. “Well, once I got the tire changed, and the slashed one put in my trunk, Nico pulled up and asked if I was okay. I started feeling guilty about what I had done, so this morning when I got up, I went and had my tire fixed and put back on my car. Then I took Jen’s tire back to her house, made sure no one was around, and left it next to her garage.