Chapter 4
EVERETT
“S o,” I bit the inside of my cheek. How was I even supposed to go about this? “You know how your cousin got married?”
I hope you do because I sure don’t.
I had no clue who her extended family members were or even if she was still in co ntact with them. I’d seen family photos in her restaurant, and they were massive. Like around fifty-people-gathered-around-a-gigantic-fountain big. Someone in there had to have been married, right?
Jahnvi gave me a confused look. “A-all of my cousins are like five or six.”
And I’d blown it with my first sentence.
She pushed herself up with her elbows and faced me in her seat. Not that it did much, she was still not even close to meeting my eyes.
I couldn’t even stop it; my eyes involuntarily rolled, and I clenched my jaw. I pretended to look out my side mirrors so that she didn’t see it.
Jahnvi has a habit of being...nosy. Even nosy was a bit too nice.
She’s been downright intrusive ever since we were little.
It wasn’t something I minded, but today I wasn’t in the mood.
She has a habit of flinging so many questions at me that I’d get annoyed and just end up telling her the truth anyway.
And I could already tell she was getting ready with one of her strings of questions.
“Why did you offer to give me a ride today?”
“Because it was cold and you made the stupid decision to wear a skirt.”
“Why is that any of your business?”
“It isn’t. I was just trying to be nice.”
“Ha! You’re never nice, especially to me. What’s actually going on?”
“Nothing!” Jesus , this girl. If I hadn’t needed to figure out where the hell I was supposed to find fresh flowers for marriage wreaths, I would’ve stopped the car and thrown her out.
She could walk the rest of the way. But unfortunately, she was the only person I could think of who probably had a good idea of how Hindu marriages worked.
Plus, her dad had catered many weddings, and I could clearly remember him calling around to try and find fresh jasmine flowers for the bride’s hair.
“Right, I believe you. Not! Who do you think I am—?”
“Jahnvi. You’re Jahnvi, this annoying-ass girl that lives across from me and goes around questioning everything I do,” I snapped, pressing the brake a little forcefully.
She huffed and sank in her seat. “Well, I mean, you did ask the first question.”
“I did. I should’ve known better than to think I’d get an answer out of you.”
“’Scuse me?” she scoffed. “What is that supposed to mean?”
I pulled into the school’s parking lot. It was virtually empty, as anyone would think it would be on a Saturday morning at 6:45 a.m. I parked right near the entrance and grabbed my bag, trying my best not to pay attention to the she-devil who had started prodding me.
“Hey!” She grabbed my suit sleeve and hissed, “What. Is. That. Supposed. To. Mean?”
I looked up to see our coach waving us toward him. I had lost track of the time because of Jahnvi and my “master plan,” which wasn’t working out at all. Jahnvi wasn’t going to give me anything, so I was just going to find out everything for myself.
I should’ve known asking her was a bad idea.
However, Jahnvi wasn’t going to let it go.
“Okay, okay!” I wrenched my sleeve from her grip. “Let me speak in a language you understand. You know today’s tournament?”
Her eyes narrowed. I don’t know what this girl gained in beating me, but she was always so competitive, especially when I was involved.
“What about today’s tournament?”
“If I win, you’re going to get me all the info of the person you guys get your wedding wreaths from—”
“Why though? Are you getting married?” she sneered.
“I wasn’t done! If I win, you get me all that information with no questions asked. I know it’s a hard thing for you to shut your mouth, but that’s the deal. That okay?”
Everett, you’re a genius as always.
It was a good deal, but I still bit my lip because I knew she would do anything just to win and prevent this from happening.
I mean, this was the girl who had tried to mess up my kitchen so that I would be late to one of our most important tournaments.
Like, she literally woke up hours early to sneak into my restaurant and fling pots around.
I was late to that one tournament, and I still won first while she got second.
I won’t deny it, she was good. Really good. We competed in something called dramatic interpretation. It was pretty simple: You get ten minutes to act something out from a play script without props. I hadn’t seen Jahnvi’s speech yet this year, but she’d beaten me in the last tournament.
It wouldn’t usually bother me. I wasn’t necessarily as competitive as she was—but today was another story.
I needed to find out where her dad gets his flowers.
Jahnvi ran after me as I speed-walked to the bus. “Wait! But what do I get from this? You’re the only one benefiting right now!”
“What do you want then?”
I could hear her heels clack against the bus stairs as she climbed onto the bus after me. “I want you to tell me what you meant,” she hissed from behind me.
I stopped in the aisle and turned around. “Huh? What do you mean?” I whispered back.
She usually never really deals with makeup, but she was wearing a full red lip and eye makeup. She’d used the eyelash wand thing and eyeliner. It made her seem older and somehow magnified her expressions, which was probably what she was going for. It would make her speech more intense.
She was also wearing perfume, which I could smell very clearly since she was standing so close to me. We were so close that I could see the little blue tint that her contacts caused around her eyeballs.
She looked at me through her lashes. “Back in your car, you said something about how you ‘shouldn’t have tried to get an answer out of me.’ What does that mean?”
I almost laughed in her face. “Really? That’s all you want to know?”
“Yes.”
“Final answer?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes!”
“All right. Your choice.” I smiled at her and sat down.
She sat down across from me, weirdly contorting her legs so she wasn’t flashing people with her skirt.
She gave me another frown and put in her headphones.
“Prepare to lose, Everett. I’ve packed like three Red Bulls that I’m gonna down and already drank like five cups of coffee.
I can literally feel the blood pulsing in my veins. ”
I raised my eyebrows. “Go see a doctor.”
“So that you’re free to get first?”
“I don’t need you gone to win.” I smiled at her and put my headphones in. “It’s called actual talent, Pickles.”
She slammed her hand down on the seat, making a few people look in our direction. “You think you’re so cool, don’t you, Everett? So aloof and confident. I can’t wait to ruin it today.”
“Dunno, ‘aloof and confident’ seem to be working. I think I have more first places than you do at the moment, J.”
“That’s changing today.”
“That right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay.”
“Okay!” She turned away from me to look out the window.
I put on my own headphones and closed my eyes, trying to get a good nap in before I went in and gave it all I had. Jahnvi needed to lose.
My restaurant depends on it.