“Jack!” I greeted, relieved. “Fuck, am I happy to see you.”

Jack raised an eyebrow, but he was smiling. “You did text me this morning offering to come pick me up, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Okay, then I dunno why you’re so surprised to see me. This is my house.”

I rolled my eyes and unlocked the doors so he could climb in. While he tossed his sports bag in the back, I rolled down my sleeves so he couldn’t see the goosebumps all along my arms.

“Just making sure you didn’t die in your sleep,” I assured him, putting the car in drive. I put on my blinker and looked both ways at least three times before pulling away from the curb. The extra care was warranted.

“Do you usually worry about it?” Jack asked, amused. He was scrolling through his phone.

“I just read an article the other day-”

“Gross.”

“-about how even sleeping requires a lot of brain function. I know you don’t have much to begin with, so I got worried.”

Jack reached over and slugged me in the arm, causing me to swerve. We hadn’t pulled out of his neighborhood yet, but still, “Are you trying to kill us!”

“Oh, no, I have more brain function than to do that, apparently.”

“You were just disproving that, asshole!” I threw him a glare from the corner of my eye, but he was looking at his phone and therefore didn’t see it. I continued sending him the evil eye for the next couple of minutes until he glanced at me and finally noticed.

His lips twitched up at the corners. “How long have you been making that face?”

I couldn’t help grinning. “Like, five minutes. The other drivers probably think I’m out to get them.”

“Speaking of out to get them, can we pick up some coffee on the way?”

“That... was a terrible segue, but sure.”

“I bet you don’t even know how to spell that.”

“Spell what?”

“Segue.”

I crossed my eyes a bit. “Uhhh...”

Jack laughed. “Exactly.”

“I know one of them is that scooter-thing. Like, from Mall Cop?”

Jack patted my cheek. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty.”

I swatted at him blindly, not taking my eyes off the road. “Pretty girls get free drinks, right?”

“You’re not that pretty,” Jack explained. “More like a five, pretty.”

“Five is about how much our drinks will cost.”

“Good thing. That’s all you have to your name, right?”

“I’m literally going to strangle you,” I warned him darkly.

Jack cackled. “You’re the one who wanted to pick me up.”

“It was my birthday last week, you dick! You can’t treat me to a cup of coffee?”

“Key word being was.” He paused. “And last. Because you suck.”

I blurted out a laugh before I could muffle it, and cursed immediately after because that signalled the end of the fight. Which annoyed me, because I already had a comeback all lined up. I was going to be all, “That would be key words,” and he would be all, “shut up,” and I’d be all, “Is that the best you can do?” which would mean I won. But, whatever. I’d get him back tomorrow.

My throat closed up.

“I’ll treat you to coffee,” I told him.

Jack whooped loudly, but his face was actually rather stoic, as he still had his nose stuck in his phone.

What the fuck was I doing?

“You know I love you, right?”

Jack looked at me.

“Like, if you were to die today. You know that, don’t you?”

He stared. And then, “What’s supposed to happen today?”

“What?”

“The sixteenth. What’s supposed to happen?”

I flicked on my blinker, preparing to turn into the coffee shop drive-through. “I don’t know what you mean.” I didn’t know he remembered. I hadn’t said anything about it since Saturday.

Jack turned back to his phone. “Right,” he said. “You know I would tell you anything, right?”

“So would I,” I told him.

“Right,” he repeated.