Ashley smiles at me. “I can’t wait.” And then she comes up to me and pulls me into a hug. “We’re going to have the best mother-daughter relationship.” When she lets go of me, she pinches my cheek and then steps away. Giving me a small once-over, she says, “And maybe while you’re here we can go shopping together, get you something more . . . modern?”
“That would make me very happy, seeing you two spend some time together.”
Over my dead and Mai Tai’d body.
Dad tips my chin up. “See you tomorrow.” And then with his hand to Ashley’s lower back, he guides her out of the souvenir shop.
Leaning against the wall with an open Pop-Tart package—when did she grab that?—Cora says, “Wow, just wow. Family reunion, two secret engagements, and no Fireball to skew our thoughts. What a night.”
I swat the Pop-Tart away and watch it hit the floor before looking into Cora’s eyes. “We’re not engaged, nor are we in a relationship, nor have we ever come close to touching each other. I just said that to save face.”
“What?” Cora whines. “Ugh, come on. You literally just peed all over my parade.”
“Ugh, you just had to escalate it with your oohing and ahhing.”
“I didn’t ooh and ahh, and why are you lying, anyway?”
“Uh, did you not happen to notice that my dad is engaged to a woman two years older than me? Or better yet, to a woman who was my archenemy in high school?”
Cora gasps. “Noooooo, really? Ooo, plot twist.”
“No, not plot twist. This is my life.”
Cora starts to giggle. Then snorts. Loudly. “How do you suppose you’re going to get the Master of Sneer to attend dinner with you?”
Shit.
Things I didn’t think through.
Ugh . . . crap.