“You mean you don’t?” gasped Tommy. “I’m very disappointed!”
Al shook his head sadly, looking to Helen as if to say, Do you see what I have to put up with?
And for some reason it was that — their silly banter — that put her over the edge, and she began to weep, there in the back of the beat-up SUV in the middle of a howling snow storm. Not in anger or sorrow, but in gratitude, in happiness that she had friends, and they made stupid jokes, and really, Ben could go f**k himself. She threw her arms around the two men and hugged them, tears flowing. And they hugged her back.
They really are incredibly cute, said her brain as they held her tight, rocking her. It’s pretty warm in the car. Imagine what this would feel like with your clothes —
Oh, f**k off, she told her brain, reveling in thei
