Free The Awesome by Eva Darrows Page B

up for making both him and Julie think I was a psycho hosebeast either. Instead, I said, “Yeah, sure,” and forced a smile that would have done a used car salesman proud. He took that as his cue to pull out of the driveway, his arm drizzled over the back of my seat.
    “I hope you like Mexican food. Julie picked a place downtown.” My treacherous brain immediately skittered back to Mom’s horrible fish tacos with their slimy green insides. I must have made an inadvertent ‘ugh’ noise, because Ian shot me a worried look. “I can call if it’s not okay. I think there’s a steak place across the street.”
    “No, no. It’s okay as long as no one orders fish tacos. Seriously. Those things are nasty. Like, uber nasty.”
    “Who eats them?”
    I glanced at the dwindling reflection of my house in the BMW’s side mirror. “My mom, but she’s uhhh... special. So that’s no surprise.”
    “Special? Like snowflake special?”
    I laughed before I could stop myself; I wasn’t sure if he meant to be funny. The poor guy could be asking an earnest question, yet I assumed he meant, ‘Is your mom dumber than pig crap?’ If that wasn’t the case, all the night’s progress was out the window and I’d have to apologize for alienating him with my dearth of social skills. Again. Fortunately, a smug smile played around his mouth. He’d meant it, the jerk. Cute jerk, but jerk all the same. “I’m telling her you said that.”
    “She’s a hunter too?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Don’t,” he said. “I don’t want to die.”
    “Nah. You’re safe. Janice is harmless.”
    “Is she?”
    “Sure.”
    For the most part.
    Sometimes.
    Maybe.
     
     
    W E WENT TO a restaurant on the east side of town. It only seated twenty people and wasn’t much in the way of atmosphere, but from the moment they brought out their homemade salsa and tortilla chips, I was in love. The food was amazing, the company was good, and wonder of wonders, Ian had no problem talking when there weren’t huge groups of people around.
    “How’s Liam?” Julie asked right after the main courses arrived. I’d gotten chicken quesadillas, Julie and her date John—the big guy she’d used as a human mattress at the party—got taco salads, and Ian pretended to order fish tacos before getting himself some fajitas. I’d kicked his foot under the table for the fake-out. He grinned.
    “Good,” Ian said. “His tour’s over in four months.”
    “Sweet.” Julie turned to look at me. “That’s his brother, my older cousin.”
    “Ah.”
    Ian motioned at his chest. “The fifty-eight on my shoulder was his football number. I got it inked when he left for the Middle East. He’s got my b-ball number in the same spot.”
    “Ian’s parents are such hippies they took him to get his first tattoo. They’re as weird as Janice,” Julie said, grinning as she dug into her dinner.
    “No one’s as weird as Janice.”
    “Janice is your mom, right?”
    I nodded and guzzled my soda, immediately regretting it when I felt the world’s biggest burp gurgling up from the depths of my stomach. Somehow I managed to swallow it, but not before I envisioned Uber Belch bursting from my mouth and disgusting everyone in a twenty yard radius. Ian would run out of the restaurant like someone had stabbed him with a fork, and I’d be left alone, thumbing for a ride home.
    Not good. From there on out I drank only water.
    “Yeah. She hates people calling her Mrs. Anything, and if you do she’ll... “
    “Wet Willy you,” Julie finished with a shudder. “I remember the first time she did it to me. It was so freaking nasty.”
    “Yeeeeep. Welcome to Life With Janice. We should have our own reality show.”
    Conversation drifted after that, from Ian and John’s basketball schedule to Julie’s new job at the grocery store, and inevitably, to hunting. It felt weird to talk about it so openly, especially with strangers, but it was liberating, too. It wasn’t a security breach to say