“Can I borrow your Jeep?” asks Max, and Alicia says, “No, I already said I’d meet the girls in town.” Come on, Max thinks, his date evaporating in front of him. How’s it fair that Alicia’s the one with the car, just because she’s more financially savvy than him? She can get one of her friends to pick her up. It’s not much for him to ask, one evening. Come on, let me take it, he thinks.
Next to him, Alicia stiffens, her limbs stuttering rigid. She drops the keys into his palm.
Max’s stomach swoops, a rollercoaster drop. “Shit,” he says. “Lish, no. Take the car if you want to.”
His sister’s head (his sister’s head?) tilts sideways, unnatural. She blinks at him. “It’s up to you.”
“Take the car,” Max says. His voice is shaking. He doesn’t feel like going out after all.