Walking Disaster

a while, trying to find the motivation to move. Hangovers sucked, and my head was pounding. I could hear Shepley’s muffled, deep voice, so I decided to
drag my ass out of bed.
    My bare feet slapped against the wood floor as I trudged into the kitchen. Abby stood in my T-shirt and boxers, pouring chocolate syrup into a steaming bowl of oatmeal.
    “That’s sick, Pidge,” I grumbled, trying to blink the blur from my eyes.
    “Good morning to you, too.”
    “I hear your birthday is coming up. Last stand of your teenage years.”
    She made a face, caught off guard. “Yeah . . . I’m not a big birthday person. I think Mare is going to take me to dinner or something.” She smiled. “You can come if you
want.”
    I shrugged, trying to pretend her smile hadn’t gotten to me. She wanted me there. “All right. It’s a week from Sunday?”
    “Yes. When’s your birthday?”
    “Not ’til April. April first,” I said, pouring milk on top of my cereal.
    “Shut up.”
    I took a bite, amused at her surprise. “No, I’m serious.”
    “Your birthday is on
April Fools’
?”
    I laughed. The look on her face was priceless. “Yes! You’re gonna be late. I better get dressed.”
    “I’m riding with Mare.”
    That small rejection was a lot harder to hear than it should have been. She had been riding to campus with me, and suddenly she was riding with America? It made me wonder if it was because of
what had happened the night before. She was probably trying to distance herself from me again, and that was nothing less than disappointing. “Whatever,” I said, turning my back to her
before she could see the disappointment in my eyes.
    The girls grabbed their backpacks in a hurry. America tore out of the parking lot like they had just robbed a bank.
    Shepley walked out of his bedroom, pulling a T-shirt over his head. His eyebrows pushed together. “Did they just leave?”
    “Yeah,” I said absently, rinsing my cereal bowl and dumping Abby’s leftover oatmeal in the sink. She’d barely touched it.
    “Well, what the hell? Mare didn’t even say goodbye.”
    “You knew she was going to class. Quit being a crybaby.”
    Shepley pointed to his chest. “I’m the crybaby? Do you remember last night?”
    “Shut up.”
    “That’s what I thought.” He sat on the couch and slipped on his sneakers. “Did you ask Abby about her birthday?”
    “She didn’t say much, except that she’s not into birthdays.”
    “So what are we doing?”
    “Throwing her a party.” Shepley nodded, waiting for me to explain. “I thought we’d surprise her. Invite some of our friends over and have America take her out for a
while.”
    Shepley put on his white ball cap, pulling it down so low over his brows I couldn’t see his eyes. “She can manage that. Anything else?”
    “How do you feel about a puppy?”
    Shepley laughed once. “It’s not my birthday, bro.”
    I walked around the breakfast bar and leaned my hip against the stool. “I know, but she lives in the dorms. She can’t have a puppy.”
    “Keep it here? Seriously? What are we going to do with a dog?”
    “I found a cairn terrier online. It’s perfect.”
    “A what?”
    “Pidge is from Kansas. It’s the same kind of dog Dorothy had in
The Wizard of Oz
.”
    Shepley’s face was blank.
“The Wizard of Oz.”
    “What? I liked the scarecrow when I was a little kid, shut the fuck up.”
    “It’s going to crap everywhere, Travis. It’ll bark and whine and . . . I don’t know.”
    “So does America . . . minus the crapping.”
    Shepley wasn’t amused.
    “I’ll take it out and clean up after it. I’ll keep it in my room. You won’t even know it’s here.”
    “You can’t keep it from barking.”
    “Think about it. You gotta admit it’ll win her over.”
    Shepley smiled. “Is that what this is all about? You’re trying to win over Abby?”
    My brows pulled together. “Quit it.”
    His smile widened. “You can get the damn dog . . .”
    I grinned.
Yes! Victory!
    “. . . if you admit you have feelings for Abby.”
    I frowned.
Fuck! Defeat!
“C’mon, man!”
    “Admit it,” Shepley said, crossing his arms. What a tool. He was actually going to make me say it.
    I looked to the floor and everywhere else except Shepley’s smug ass smile. I fought it for a while, but the puppy was fucking brilliant. Abby would flip out (in a good way for once), and I
could keep it at the apartment. She’d want to be there every day.
    “I like her,” I said