The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life by Tara Altebrando Read Free Book Online

it light up on the seat beside her. “The Yeti?” I asked, reaching for my own phone.
    “No,” she said, then she sent a text and held her phone in her hand while she looked out the window.
    “Who are you texting?” I asked, because everyone Winter usually texted was here in the car.
    She said, “Carson wanted to know where we are,” without looking at me.
    It was weird that he’d texted Winter and not Patrick, but then again he knew Patrick was driving. But why hadn’t he texted me? Because he didn’t want to be too obvious?
    “What did you write back?” I asked.
    “I wrote Home Depot,” she said flatly.
    “Where are
they
?” I asked.
    “I didn’t ask,” Winter said, and I shook my head and said, “Do I have to do everything?” and I turned and grabbed her phone out of her hand and typed, WHERE ARE YOU GUYS?
    “Give me my phone,” Winter said, reaching, but I held it forward toward the LeSabre’s dash, so she couldn’t grab it.
    A second later, the phone buzzed and the text said, THIS IS JILL. JUNGLE GOLF. SO FUN!
    “Well?” Patrick asked.
    “That was Jill,” I reported, wishing so hard that she was out of the picture and that I was texting Carson for a better reason, on my own phone. “She said they’re at Jungle Golf.”
    “
Jill
answered?” Winter asked
    “Well, Carson’s driving,” I said. It wasn’t that hard to figure out.
    “Can I
please
have my phone,” she said, and I complied, and she looked at it and scrolled for a minute, then looked out the window again.
    Whatever, Winter!
    “So what are we going to do
after
Flying Saucers?” I said, and pulled out my list.
    “I thought there’d be head shaving,” Dez said randomly.
    “Or eyebrows,” Winter said.
    “I would never shave my eyebrows,” I decided on the spot, and Patrick said, “Never?” He was stopped at a red light again, so looked over at me. “Like if your life depended on it? If world peace was at stake?”
    “Okay, maybe if world peace were at stake,” I said with mock annoyance. Because you could never just say anything flip with Patrick around. He always wanted to know
why
you felt a certain way, what you
meant
. It could be exhausting.
    “What if the hunt came down to you and Barbone?” Winter asked.
    “Yeah,” Dez said. “Because we’ve been given the impression that there isn’t anything you wouldn’t do tonight, to keep the Yeti from going to Georgetown.”
    I pictured it: my face without eyebrows. It wouldn’t be pretty, no, but it would be worth it if it meant the Yeti would be coming to George Washington with me instead. I said, “Well, I guess if it came down to me and Barbone, I could live with an eyebrow pencil for a while.”
    “Would you eat bugs?” Dez asked.
    “Absolutely,” I said, puzzling again over that lady by the lake in the sky on the list.
    “
You’d
eat insects,” Winter said skeptically.
    “If it was the only way to win, yes.” I was trying to figure out when and how we could manage to catch an ant with our trap and keep it alive until Round 2.
    “I don’t believe you.” Winter shook her head. “I’ve seen you jump into a pool fully clothed just to get away from a bee.”
    “I was hot!” I protested.
    The jar of fireflies would have to be gathered at exactlythe right time of day, which was when, exactly? When
did
fireflies come out? And for how long?
    “Yeah, right,” Winter said.
    “Would you let Barbone slip you some tongue?” Dez pressed.
    “Gross!” I said, thinking more about where to get some 5T clothes for the Yeti; maybe at the sporting goods store? “And anyway that would never be on the list.”
    Patrick said, “I totally thought there’d be skinny-dipping.” And then as the conversation went on, he kept saying it.
    Again and again.
    “I really thought there’d be skinny-skipping.”
    “I bet there’s going to be skinny-dipping.”
    Finally I said, “What’s with you and skinny-dipping?”
    “Patrick just wants to see the two of