“Congrats.” I kiss her. “I knew you were still swim team material.”
She sighs. “Well, that makes one of us.”
We kiss for a moment then we hold hands as we walk back over to the others, who’ve quit drinking each other’s saliva.
“Did we miss anything?” I ask everyone.
“Pete was just telling us how him and Jim handled club hacker,” Emma says proudly.
“How’d you do that?” Shar asks Pete.
“Wait. How did your try out go?” Emma asks.
Shar’s face lights up like a Christmas tree. “Great. I’m pretty confident I’ll be on the team. Although one of the assistant coaches seems to hate me.”
My brow furrows. “Who?”
Shar bites her top lip. “That girl Tanya. The one who’s always with Melinda.”
“Oh, she’s a nobody,” Emma says. “As in, I’m sure nobody gives a fuck what the bitch thinks.”
“So, what did you guys do with the hackers?” Shar asks Jim and Pete.
Pete looks at Jim.
“OK, fine, I’ll tell them,” Jim says. “We just pointed out that, having hacked the school, Pete has all of their home addresses. And that no security system in the world will keep me from breaking in and smashing their precious computers to bits if they don’t leave Pete the hell alone.”
“Did they take you seriously?” I ask.
“Definitely,” Pete says. “Especially after he said his baseball bat is of the metal variety and that he’d magnetized it so it’ll erase whatever it doesn’t smash.”
“Because magnets erase computers?” Shar asks. She likes to think she’s knowledgeable about all things computers because she watches Mr. Robot religiously. I don’t watch it with her because that Elliot guy’s bug eyes freak me out.
“Exactly,” Pete and Jim say at once. Too bad they aren’t soulmates. Emma and January could have some fun and so could they.
January turns to Shar. “Do you hate me for what happened with Arja?”
“No,” she says. “I just hate that she’s manipulating us into doing a spell to make this poor guy fall for her.”
“What’s so bad about that?” Confusion wrinkles January’s forehead.
Shar rakes her fingers through her hair. “Well, we’ll be taking away the guy’s free will, forcing him to fall for her. Isn’t that black magick?”
“Witch, please,” January says. “Witches do spells like that every day. If that’s black magick, then ninety percent of witches practice it.”
“Wait. What happened with Ajra?” Emma asks.
“I accidentally teleported into her room,” January says. “And she walked in on me. “
”Holy shit,” Emma says. “What did she say?”
January sighs. “I teleported out of there before she could say anything.”
“Why’d you teleport there anyway?” Emma asks.
“I found my murderers behind Happy Accidents and torched them so I didn’t want to go back. I figured Shar’s was a good halfway point for me to stop and catch my breath on the way back here. It’s not like I was gonna try going the whole distance at once and risk teleporting into a cement wall.”
“Oh,” Emma says.
“We’ll talk more at Lia’s,” January says.
Juliana beeps the horn. She’s definitely not what you’d call fond of waiting.
“Guess that’s our signal,” I say.
Jim gives Emma a quick kiss goodbye. January turns to Pete and they share a quick hug and closed mouth kiss. Then us girls get in the car. I’m tempted to sit in the front so Emma can be squeezed in with January and Shar, figuring she’d like to be pressed against January, but I just can’t do it. I have to sit next to my girl. This means I have to sit in the middle, which I hate, because Shar takes the seat to the right and I want to be beside her. At least we all put our backpacks in the trunk so we don’t quite feel like we’re squeezed in like sardines. Speaking of which, I find myself pondering whether or not I should stick an open can of that smelly shit in Tanya’s locker for giving Shar attitude. Me and my girls would laugh about that for weeks, but I’m afraid it would stink up the whole locker room. If only because guys would walk by and say girls really do smell like fish, which half of the idiots/virgins already believe anyway. No need to encourage them.
CHAPTER FORTY SIX
JANUARY
One thing about fairies who are psychic is that we’re usually more powerful than psychics who are merely human. Usually. There are obviously people, like those bitches this morning, who manage to thwart us. In any case, I’m sure my psychic abilities are partially why I can see the places I’m going to teleport in my mind first. You know, as long as they’re within a reasonable distance. Another way that comes into play is that we pick up on telepathic conversations without even trying. We can tune them out, but that requires a certain amount of concentration and when the conversation is about you it’s pretty hard to stop following it. So, I spend much of the ride to Lia’s listening to her and Shar debate whether or not to tell me and Emma we like each other. This is good because it shows that Emma likes me. That the attraction is mutual. Although, I’m not positive if Emma has told them she’s into me or if they’re still assuming that from seeing how she is around me. I guess it doesn’t matter because those three are as close as friends can be – like triplets – and I’m sure Lia and Shar can tell if Emma likes someone. So, she must like me. But more than Jim? That’s the million dollar question.
Still, I’m not sure if I want them blurting out that we like each other. For one thing, they promised they wouldn’t say anything unless she specifically asked about me. So, I’d feel betrayed if they said it right now. Also, once it’s out in the open then it becomes real and we have to do something about it. Or agree not to do anything. Either way, it becomes this “issue” that has to be dealt with. And I don’t want it to be that. I’d rather we find out the attraction is mutual when we’re looking into each other’s eyes and lean forward finally kiss. A perfect kiss. Of course, that kiss would open Pandora’s Box on our asses. It’s like, if we really want to be together, we’ll have to break up with Pete and Jim. I don’t know if Emma would choose me over him. I’m not even sure if I’d choose Emma over Pete. Right now, I feel a stronger attraction to her, but that could be partially because I’ve never done it with a girl and new experiences excite me.
What if the attraction between us is just sexual? I do have romantic feelings for her, but the sexual ones tend to drown them out. If we have sex a bunch of times and it’s no longer new, would I still have enough feelings to sustain a good relationship with her? Oh, who am I kidding? I’m probably in love with her. Or very, very infatuated. I just try to focus on the sexual feelings because if I dwell on the romantic then I stand to have my heart broken. Making it about sex, all I stand to lose is... I don’t even know what the word for it is. A conquest? No, that sounds like something a dumb guy would say. What I’d stand to lose is a partner. Easier to lose a potential sex partner than a romantic one.
Every time I start thinking about this stuff I feel like I’m cheating on Pete and the guilt seeps in. I really don’t want to hurt him. We were each other’s firsts and we’ll always be special to each other. Besides, I still adore him. I think he’s the cutest little nerd on the planet and I’m in awe of how smart he is. And I love the way he looks at me, like I’m his princess. And I do enjoy sex with him, too.
You’d think being bi would be great! That you’d have twice as many opportunities to find a date on any given night. That you’d have two flavors to choose from. That you’d be open to the possibility of anyone being your soulmate, not just people of the opposite sex. But for me, right now, being bi is like a curse. Like I’ll have to pick one sex but I’ll also be craving the other, too. I think I need to find a polyamourous couple to be a throuple with. One guy, one girl and me. That would cover all the bases. It’s too bad Emma, Jim, Pete and me can’t be a four person relationship where we’
d all get to have romantic and sexual feelings for each other. Now, that would be ideal. Maybe I should ask Emma what she thinks about that once we’ve acknowledged our feelings for each other? At the very least, we would be giving Jim and Pete the opportunity to still be with us and love us. They’d each be able to have sex with another girl so maybe they’d go for it. It’s not like we’d be asking them to have sex with each other. This is the kind of thing most guys would die for. Having sex with Jim would be weird for me, I’ll admit. I’ve never really thought about that because he’s always been with Emma. At least he’s not unattractive, I’ll say that much. But I don’t like how Emma says she’s usually dizzy after. That’s weird, right? Anyway, tonight is not the time to be considering four way relationships. It’s the time to remember Kat.
It’s trippy how Lia was blaming herself for Kat’s death. I blame myself, too. But Lia isn’t responsible for what happened to her. Unlike me. I’m the one who failed to heal her. I realize the venom was probably cursed, but, still, maybe if I’d gotten more sleep the night before or hadn’t used so much of my proverbial fairy juice before she was bit then I might’ve been able to save her. But I’ll never know, which means I’ll always wonder. Which means I’ll always carry the guilt.
Emma turns in the front so she can see me in the back. “So, what’s the story with you torching your murderers? You just randomly found them and decided to roast them?”
“Oh, yeah! When I was leaving Happy Accidents I went behind the building so nobody would see me disappear when I teleported and they were back there. Drunk as hell.”
“And you just set them ablaze?”
“I went and dropped off the goodie’s with Juliana then I went back and set them ablaze.”
She doesn’t say anything for a second and I wonder if she’s frowning on it when she finally smiles and says, “Good for you.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks! Oh, after I did that I had a visit with Hannashurie and she had a message from your Great Grandmother Ruth.”
Her face lights up. “Really? What?”
“She said she’s been trying to reach you, and has been having trouble, but she’ll keep trying. She also said to tell you to be mindful of yourself.”
Her forehead wrinkles. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I shrug. “Beats me.”
“I wonder why she can’t reach me.” She exhales louder than normal.
I regret that I don’t have an explanation for her. “I don’t know. Hannashurie didn’t say.”
Emma bites her lip before as she turns back around in her seat. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything? She doesn’t need to be stressing out about that at the memorial. I only told her now because it sounded important.
CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN
SHAR
We’re at Happy Accidents. At my request, we stopped to grab drinks to go on the way to chez Li and Juliana. At first January didn’t want to stop – something about needing to go pay her grandfather a visit when we get to Li’s. Apparently, he lives around the block.
We’re all in line to order with Em first and she acts really strange. Vincent, the owner, asks her how she is, as they usually have a fun chat when she’s here, but she just says, “Fine.” That’s it. He asks if she’s OK, looking genuinely concerned, and she just nods. We all give Vincent apologetic looks and I shrug. None of us know what to tell him. I guess she’s just chewing on the message January gave her from Ruth. And she didn’t look happy when January said she was going to visit her grandfather. Em kind of went on a tirade about not knowing she had one. Like she was offended that January hadn’t told her. Definitely reinforced my impression that she has feelings for her.
Anyway, I don’t know why she didn’t just tell Vincent that she’s on her way to get ready for a memorial. Then Vincent would understand. Not that he’s going to sulk because Em was a fuddy duddy, but, still, it was kind of rude. And it doesn’t stop there. When he asks what she’d like, she goes, “We’ll have five large, iced caramel lattes, please.” Without asking what any of us want. She just goes ahead and orders for all of us. Who does that? That’s something she’s never done before and she knows we usually get different drinks. I’m surprised she even said please to him with the way she’s acting.
I’m just standing here with my jaw halfway to the floor when Li speaks up. “Actually, I’ll have a large iced mocha, please.”
Em’s face turns red and she shoots Li a weird look. It’s the evil eye, but she doesn’t look the way she usually does when you irritate her. She almost looks like a different person for a second. For one thing, Em usually raises both eyebrows and gives you a pair of evil eyes, but it was just the left eyebrow went up.
“Shar?” Vincent asks.
I’m in the mood for mocha, too. “Can I please have the same as Li, Vincent?”
Vincent gives me a warm smile. “Sure thing.”
I smile back. “Thank you.”
Now red-faced Emma is giving me the evil eye. Instead of asking her what her problem is, I just look away. I mean, I get that she’s also feeling guilty about what happened to Kat, but it’s no reason to be a bitch to her sisters.
Vincent looks at January and Juliana. “And for you ladies?”
“I’ll have a medium almond mocha latte. Hot, please,” Juliana says.
January looks at Em before she orders and Em’s eyes give her an ultimatum. So, her response is hardly surprising. “An iced caramel latte sounds good to me.”
Lia and I frown at January. “What?” she asks. “I love caramel lattes.”
Em smiles at January, who smiles back. Now the blood starts to drain from Em’s face. She goes from basically being an aggro bitch to love struck in two seconds. Aren’t they such a cute couple? They’d like to think so. I thought the possibility of them getting together was cute before, and I did tell January I think Em likes her, but I’m starting to feel otherwise. Largely because I like Jim and Pete and don’t want them getting hurt. Cheating sucks anyway. If Em would be OK with cheating on Jim with January does that mean Em would be OK with Li cheating on me? Maybe that’s a little different because the three of us are thick as thieves, but not much. Suffice to say, I wish Li had never told January she thought Em would kiss her back if she made the first move. But we wouldn’t have reached that point in the conversation if I hadn’t said that I think Em likes her, so I guess I’d be sharing the blame if they ever do kiss.
CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT
EMMA
As we’re getting out of the car outside Lia’s apartment building, January says, “So, I’m going to pay a quick visit to my grandfather, like I said. But I’ll be back in a flash.”
“I could go with you,” I say and smile.
“No, I’m supposed to go alone,” January says sternly then bites her lip. Hard. Like she’s regretting that she let that slip.
“Oh, sorry I asked,” I say.
“No, don’t be. I appreciate it. But he’s got dementia and he freaks out if there are too many people around him. Especially if they’re unfamiliar faces.”
“Alrighty, then,” Lia says.
“I’m just gonna teleport over,” January says. “I’ll appear in his backyard then I’ll go around the house and ring the bell. Hopefully, he doesn’t think I’m a tax collector like last time.”
“How long will you be?” Shar asks.
January looks like a woodchuck trying to outrun a lawnmower. “That depends. He always has things he needs me to fix, or needs me to do his laundry or pop out his meds for the week. Sometimes I even have to give him a bath. But I don’t think I’ll be more than an hour. I’ll text you if it’s going to be longer.”
“OK, we’ll see you when you get back,” I say. Then she gets back in the car for cover and teleports off to grandpa’s.
“I think she’s in trouble,” I say to everyone. “I overheard her last thought before she went.”
“You mean you deliberately read her mind?” Shar snaps at me.
/> “Just for a few seconds. I mean, weren’t you guys finding the whole thing to be a little weird?”
“So, what was her thought, then?” Juliana asks.
“It was, ‘Why did Hannashurie have to lay this on me today of all days?’”
Juliana tugs at her hair the way Lia often does. “That does sound sketchy.”
A though makes Lia’s eyes light up. “You think Hannashurie might’ve gave her another mission?”
“It kinda sounds like it,” Shar says.
That’s my fear exactly. “ Yeah, but why would Hannashurie give her another mission on today of all days?”
“Hannashurie is a Goddess. We’re not always meant to understand the things they do,” Juliana says.
This is driving me crazy. I know she’s not my girlfriend but I care about her a lot and don’t want her to get hurt. “I just don’t get why January didn’t ask her for help if it’s another mission?”
“You don’t think...” Shar doesn’t finish her sentence.
“Think what?” I need to know. [I fucking need to know.]
“Well, we have to consider that Hannashurie sent her on another mission to test her.”
I kick a rock so hard I can’t even see where it stops. “Test her for what?”
“I don’t know,” Lia says. “Maybe now that we’ve defeated the evil witch like we were meant to Hannashurie is thinking about sending her to help some other needy witches or something.”
My thoughts are starting to spiral. “Well, hopefully it’ll go well and Hannashurie will realize that January can still be our friend and help others out, too.”
“I hope you’re right,” Shar says.
“Do you think it’s better for us if she accomplishes her mission or fails?” Lia asks.
Now I’m getting agitated. “Are you trying to give me more shit to think about?”
“It’s a valid point,” Juliana says. “But we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Hopefully, January will tell us about it when she gets back.”
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