Lexi Cocker - Faleena Hopkins Page 0,4
her night.
She doesn’t have one.
But…
It’s close.
Equally forbidding.
Maybe even moreso.
On the other end of that text is a Cocker and he’s either a cop or a firefighter, because the stock broker is too busy with Madison and Lucky to keep pulling this shit.
Slender brown eyebrows tangle up as Zoe sighs, saying over the music, “I’m sorry, just a second. It’s my brother, Nate.”
Under the same cloak of Classic Rock, I whisper, “Poor Zo. With their radar, she’s gonna be fifty before she gets laid.”
Samantha says, at normal volume, “They’re worse than Max and Caden!”
We walk over to our beer pitcher on a wooden ledge carved with initials of lovers and narcissists, pouring the tiniest bit that’s left of our brew into mugs that lost their frost an hour ago.
I frown, “Runnin’ empty,” admiring its amber stream no matter how meager the flow. “I’m a li’l tipsy.”
“Same.”
“Better finish the game.”
Sam’s brown eyes flit to the unlucky twosome.
“Ahem!” I cough, and shout less subtly, “Zo! Yo Zo!” jogging my thumb to the board. “Your turn! It’s down to you and Sam who buys next.” I turn our empty pitcher upside down, making a sad face as stray drops fall from it like tears. “Time’s a-wastin’!”
Hipster-iffic begins to walk over to us with her, which surprises Floaty-head. She offers her unlucky suitor the sweetest I’m-sorry-but-you-weren’t-invited smile. “My brother’s on his way.”
“So?”
“He’s a firefighter.”
“I like firefighters.”
“He won’t like you.”
Coveted beer spits from my mouth, making the table near us flinch and cower.
Didn’t hit them.
Weenies.
Samantha laughs her ass off, albeit from behind her hand.
Zoe has zero-to-the-zip clue how funny she was.
Nobody likes to be laughed at, but we weren’t at him. It’s our cousin who surprises us all the time.
Hipster-iffic sneers, “Fuck you guys then!”
“Hey!” I shout at his back, “Don’t swear at ladies you flanneled ass-wipe!”
He flips me off and disappears into a sea of people having a much better time than he is.
Samantha mutters, “He didn’t have to tell us to fuck off.”
As Zoe aims her dart, she agrees, “Did his momma not teach him right?”
“You’re lucky Nate interrupted.”
I hit Sam’s arm. “What?!”
“Well, in this case she is!”
A red-tailed dart flies through the air and hits a poster of the band Phoenix, one we’ve seen play live here in town a million times with our cousin Eric and his wife, Wren.
Zoe covers her mouth. “Oh no!” Dropping her hands, she looks at us. “I hit Ginny in the forehead! That’s not bad luck is it?”
“See! I wouldn’t wear my hair straight,” I point to the mass of perfectly symmetrical ringlets flying like a halo around Ginny’s head, “if my hair curled like hers!”
“You always say that,” Sam smiles.
“It’s true!”
“Nice shot, sis!” Nathan squeezes through like he was birthed by the crowd.
I cross my arms, breasts propped on them. “Nate, what the hell are you doing?!” At his sneakily proud smile I grunt in annoyance, “Zoe, did he warn you he was coming?”
“I guessed he would after I told him we were at The Local.”
“Loosen your leash, boy!” I poke his grey Henley shirt with our empty pitcher. “And get us a refill!”
“The second command I’ll do.”
“Give the first a shot, too!”
He smirks, “Nope,” throwing Samantha a wink, “Hey Sammy, good to see you.”
“You off duty, Nathan?”
“Just now. Been a long couple of days. Which beer?”
“Choose your favorite.”
Zoe gives him a big hug, “I don’t mind you being here.”
Squeezing her just as tight, he locks eyes with me over her shoulder, “See?! She doesn’t mind I showed up.”
As he reenters the birth canal, I shout, “That’s because she doesn’t know what she’s missing!”
Samantha swats my arm. “Stop.”
“It’s true!” I walk to grab our darts, yanking them out as I explain. “This is a truism passed down through the ages: Sex is awesome. Okay, I might’ve dumbed it down a bit. But if the word ‘awesome’ wasn’t so overused people might see that it actually does apply to sex.” I reach for the one in Ginny’s head, tug it out, “With the right person,” and spin around, smiling as I add a flirty, “Or…people. Let’s not forget Marion and her two hot lovers!”
Zoe blinks at me from under long eyelashes. It’s not like she complains about still being a virgin. She’s kinda okay with it.
It drives me crazy!
Samantha switches subjects.
Well…kinda.
“How’s Brad?”
I smile, “Good,” swinging my hips to Janis Joplin’s Bobby McGee as I hand her our darts. “I wish he were the type of man who’d come with us to a place like this…but you can’t