Page 23 of I Love You, I Hate You
Ashley shook her head with sisterly annoyance. “Whatever. I’m just saying, you should get out there more.” She turned to face him, blue eyes sharp. “Unless there already is someone?”
“Not really.”
“Not really? So thereissomething with Victoria!” she crowed.
“No, not her. I—Jesus, this is hard to say out loud, so you have to promise not to laugh.”
“When have I ever laughed at you?”
“You literally just did.”
“Fine, I promise.”
“I . . . talk to someone.”
“I didn’t realize they still did phone-sex hotlines,” Ashley said drolly, and then slapped her hand over her mouth. “Shit, sorry, forgot. I’ll be nice, I swear.”
Owen scrubbed a hand across his face, his palm damp with condensation from the beer. “I met her online. On Twitter, not a dating app. And we just . . . click.”
“And I assume she lives in, like, Siberia or someplace incredibly inaccessible?”
“Chicago, actually. We DM a lot.”
“What’s her name?”
“She goes by Nora online but I don’t exactly know her real name. We agreed to keep things anonymous.”
“So you guys like, what, sext?”
“How do you manage to sound ancient when you say that?”
“Because I’m married to a boomer.”
Owen shook his head and lost a battle with a grin. “No, we don’t sext. We just talk. A lot. She wants to keep things anonymous, so we’ve never even exchanged photos.”
“Think she’s lying about who she is?”
“It’s the internet, of course she might be. But I don’t think so, for some reason. It feels real.”
“Why not just make it real? Chicago isn’t very far away.”
“I dunno. Don’t really want to change how things are right now,” he said and drained the last of his beer. “But I should get going.”Before my dad gets back and we have to pretend to like each other for your sake.
Ashley gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder and he jogged down to the lake to hug Olivia goodbye. She left a large wet splotch on his shirt from her swimsuit and a metric ton of sand on his neck, but he didn’t mind.
Kimmy Clemenceaux, born Kimberly Clemons of Fargo, North Dakota, had the same lithe build as her daughter and the same dark, raven hair. The roots were a little silver nowadays, but in her mid forties she still had a sparkling smile and an infectious, throaty laugh. She was waiting at their usual table at Ron’s Roadside Tavern, a tiny hole in the wall just off the interstate twenty miles south of Minneapolis. Ron’s was sort of a shit hole, to be quite frank, with sticky floors and bad lighting and pitchers of cheap, weak beer, but it had the two things Kimmy and Victoria loved: wings and karaoke.
Victoria’s favorite memories growing up involved singing along to songs with her mother—in the car, in the living room, at the grocery store; anywhere there was music, really. She’d inherited Kimmy’s rich alto but with slightly less range; her voice wavered on the high notes the way Kimmy’s never did. By the time she was eighteen Kimmy was helping her sneak into bars for karaoke night. Not to drink—she was far too strict for that—but the mother–daughter duo quickly became famous for their duets in just about any town they lived in. Ever since law school, Victoria had made the drive down to Ron’s every few weeks for karaoke night, and it was usually her favorite night of the month.
“You’re glowing, baby,” Kimmy said when she rose to hug her. “Did you have a good day?”
The question threw Victoria for a loop, because shehad. With Owen, of all people. “Just happy to see you,” she evaded.
Kimmy already had their usual pitcher of cheap beer sitting in the middle of the small, unsteady table. “So how is work? You still killing it?”
“You know it,” Victoria said drily. Her mother was her biggest cheerleader and closest non-internet friend, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. “But I’m dealing with You Know Who again.”
“Rich Dickbag?”