I’m in the car with Lauren Gerard and her two little girls, the four of us rocking out to Disney songs, when my phone rings in my pocket. The front lights up with a picture of my sister and me from Christmas, stretched out on towels at the beach.
Lauren turns down the music, and I answer the phone. “Hey, Cass. What’s up?”
“Hey, bro,” she replies. “You got a sec?”
I groan. My sister Cassie may be thirteen months older than me, but since our dad died, I feel like I stepped in to fill his shoes. It was little things at first, like scaring off her douchey boyfriends and being her DD at parties. Once I got drafted, I became her main financial support. Right now, I’m putting her through the last two years of her PhD program in Comparative Literature.
Yeah, Cassie got all the brains. She just doesn’t know how to turn that bookish cleverness into a job that pays. Oh, and she’s a slob…and she forgets to do things like pay her cell phone bill. But she’s my only sister, and Mom can’t really help her on her meager nurse’s salary.
So, Cassie leans on me. And damn it, but I let her. It’s always all been on me. She’s only calling now because she wants money.
“What do you need, Cass?” I say.
“Well, hello to you too—”
“I’m in the car, so spit it out.”
“Fine,” she huffs. “The deadline is approaching for this really cool opportunity to study French in Bordeaux this summer. I talked to my advisor, and she says it’ll be a quick way to complete my language requirement for my program.”
I sigh, glancing over at Lauren. She gives me a weak smile and a shrug. “It’s for your program?” I press. “Like, it gets you credits to graduate on time?”
“Yeah, totally.”
“How much?”
“Umm…it’s only like nine thousand dollars,” she replies. “And it’s all-inclusive.”
“And there’s not a scholarship or anything?”
“God, Ryan,” she huffs. “If there was a scholarship, don’t you think I would have applied? If nine thousand dollars is really that big a deal—”
“I never said that,” I say, bristling at her tone. “But this isn’t going to be like the summer you spent drinking and riding bikes with your sorority sisters across Tuscany, right? You’re actually going to school? You’re like, learning and shit?”
I can practically hear her eye roll through the phone. “Yeah, Ryan. I’m learning and shit. Want me to send you the website link?”
My hackles rise higher at what I know is meant to be a jab. “You know, since you’re the one asking me for the favor, you could try saying something that sounds a little more like ‘please.’”
“Please,” she says quickly. Her voice softens a little. “God, you know I hate having to lean on you like this all the time. Please, Ry? My program is almost done. This is my last summer, so this is, like, the last big thing, I swear.”
I sigh, looking out the windshield as we head over the bridge into downtown. “When do you need the money by?” I say at last.
“Tomorrow.”
“Fuck,” I mutter.
“Mommy, he said Daddy’s bad word,” Estelle calls from her booster seat in the back.
Lauren glares at me, and I flash her a look of apology. “Fine, Cass. I’ll transfer the money over tonight, okay?”
“Thanks, Ry,” she chimes. “You’re the best.”
We hang up, and I glare down at the phone.
Lauren smirks. “I can’t wait to see you as a girl dad someday. You’ll be worse than Jean-Luc.”
I groan, dropping my phone in the cupholder as I crank the tunes back up. I was already in a shitty mood because of the weirdness with Tess earlier and Shelby’s warning. Now it’s a hundred times worse. But it’s nothing a little “Hakuna Matata” can’t fix.
