All Too Well ⏤ Tim Shepard | ✓

CHAPTER THREE

"So, you and George Russell, huh?" Annie leans over and nudges Becca in the arm with her elbow, eyebrows wiggling in an innuendo.

Becca gives Diana an affronted look. "What did ya say?"

"All I said was that you was with him! It's the truth," Diana replies but has the decency to look sheepish.

"I wanna hear everything," Annie says, leaning forward in the deck chair and resting her chin on her elbow.

Becca looks away, squinting at the bright sun beating down on them. It's another hot July day with no clouds in the sky for respite. Sitting on deck chairs that Diana's brother took from the front yard of a middle-class family on the lawn of their public housing complex isn't the best idea ⏤ but then again, they've never come up with good ideas and aren't going to start now.

"There's nothin' to tell. We were talking and went to grab somethin' to eat." Becca throws in a jab at Annie because she can't help herself, "if you weren't sucking Billy's face off by his truck you woulda figured that out."

Annie rolls her eyes. "Don't get pissy at me 'cause you're gettin' no action."

A mischievous smile tugs on Diana's lips. "Well that's not true, is it? Becca has Tim Shepard and George Russell chasin' after her."

"Nobody's chasing after anybody," Becca snaps, fed up with the theories her friends are coming up with. Tim Shepard starts coming in for coffee at the diner they work in and suddenly he's interested in her and now she bumps into George at a party and he's suddenly interested in her. "You've both been smoking too much weed and it's fried ya brains."

"You say that now..." Annie's voice is light and cheery and it grates Becca down to the bone.

Becca kicks Annie in the leg. She kicks Becca back without hesitation.

"Between you two and my momma I can't catch a break," Becca complains, shifting down in her deck chair.

"What's your momma been sayin'?" Diana asks.

"Keeps hinting at me to get hitched. It's like she wants me out of the apartment or somethin." Becca rolls her eyes, recalling her latest conversations with her mother. Every time they talk it always comes back to Becca finding a man to marry, despite Becca's objections that it isn't what she wants right now.

Annie rolls her eyes. "Come on, Becca, don't be like that. You know your momma just wants you to be happy. At least she isn't like my folks always tellin' me what a sinner I am and that I'm gonna end up in hell."

Becca snorts, knowing exactly what Annie's parents are like. They don't approve of Annie's friendship with them, convinced that they're bad influences on their daughter despite Annie being the wildest out of the three of them. Besides that, Annie's the most stubborn out of all of them; nobody gets Annie Price to do anything she doesn't want to do.

Diana remains silent in all of this despite asking the question. She's not looking at them and is picking at a loose thread of fabric on her deck chair. Diana lost her parents three years ago and her two older siblings became her legal guardian until she became of age. Like Becca, time never healed Diana from the wound of losing both of her parents.

"What's the plan for tomorrow?" Becca asks, changing the subject. Besides Sundays, Friday nights are the only nights they were all free to hang out; Annie and Diana don't work and Becca finishes up in the afternoon.

"A big group is headin' to The Blend tomorrow. They were talkin' about it at the river," Diana states. "Bruce said to come and to bring you along too."

"All this time you've been teasing me about Tim and George and you've been asked out?" Becca exclaims.