“But I like this conversation more,” I retort. “There’s less stinky boy in it.”
“If he’s so stinky, why are you trying to sibling-ize him?”
An excellent question. Obviously. All of Almond’s questions are excellent.
Which means I should probably search to find a proper answer beyond “because it made sense at the time.”
“I think,” I start, having no clue what I think but hoping it’ll come to me as I spew it out, “that I wasn’t lying. I really would like to be fully enmeshed in the family that I’ve found here, and Fox is a huge block to that. He’s never fully been comfortable with me being here, and he’s made that super clear. He doesn’t like me, no matter what nonsense he was telling me last night. Until yesterday with the tip jar, he’s never done a single friendly thing for me. And that’s been fine, of course, because I don’t exactly like him either, but that doesn’t mean I can’t feel the divide it creates between me and the family I crave. I feel it acutely, and I hate it, and I hate even more that I’ve been letting some idiot boy’s insecurities create it.” I take a deep breath. “I like messing with him in the After Fox world we’re in, but I liked having my Before Fox family even more. Before he came back home, it was just us and your parents and your brother and your niece, and there weren’t underlying hostilities when Iwould show up to family dinner.” My sigh comes wistful. “I miss it. I want it back. And if that means I have to convince Fox that he likes me? Then that’s what I’ll do.”
Agitated, I sit up and throw the rapidly cooling blanket off me. “Starting now,” I pronounce. “Right this minute.”
“I think we should talk some more about this,” Almond worries. “I think you have a lot more to unpack than I even thought.”
“No time for unpacking,” I reply, crossing the room to rummage for an outfit in Fox’s guest room dresser. “I gotta go win your brother over.”
“Poem, seriously. You know we all–”
“I love you!” I interrupt, finding an only-sort-of worn-out Stray Kids T-shirt and a slitted black maxi skirt. The pink and yellow flowers on the skirt match the pink pig-rabbit character I accidentally cut the legs off of when I was cropping the T-shirt. Poor Dwaekki. It’s a good thing he’s still cute without his legs.
Almond says she loves me, and I give her a “MWAH!” before hanging up. We can have her desired therapy session later. Right now, I have a mission to complete and Dwaekki by my side to help me do it. Or, he’s by my side once I manage to get my clothes on, only falling once in my haste to take my plan anddo itnow that my motivations have revealed themselves to me.
“Nothing like a little self-reflection to get a girl going in the early afternoon,” I tell Dwaekki. “You should try it sometime.” Because Dwaekki is an iron-on pig-rabbit hybrid with no thoughts behind his adorable little eyes, he does not confirm my genius. I don’t take it personally.
Eventually, after rushing through a harrowing bathroom routine during which I nearly took my own eye out with my mascara wand, I make it to the living room to find that Fox is… nowhere to be found. At noon? On aTuesday? Where could he possibly have to go? The bar isn’t open on Tuesdays, and hisfamily doesn’t have anything planned for today. Almond would have mentioned it.
And yet, the workaholic loser isn’t home.
“This sucks,” I tell Dwaekki. “I was all geared up to make him love me.”
Sighing, I trudge to the kitchen for my just-woke-up dose of caffeine. Despite all his drama about energy drinks in the morning, I managed to negotiate shelf space for an entire pack of my Alanis. I grab one, snickering. He’s such a sucker.
A sucker who’s going toaccept me. Today. “As soon as I find him,” I mumble, padding to the door. I open it, take two big barefoot steps, and press the doorbell for Wolfe’s apartment.
Sipping at peachy goodness, I wait. And wait. And wait. Andwait.
Finally, the door opens to an out-of-breath Wolfe, hair tousled and cardigan hanging off of one of his muscled shoulders, which now relies solely on his Blackwood Barbs T-shirt to cover its scandalous breadth. “Haiku,” he pants. “Hey. What’s up?”
One of my eyebrows creeps up, and I rock back on my heels. “He didn’t want you to answer the door, huh?”
“Not even a little,” the white-haired man replies, a rueful smile cutting through the redness of exertion covering his skin. “Do you need him for something?”
“Yes.” I peek behind Wolfe, scanning the clutter of kid’s toys and baskets full of rocks. “I’m trying to make him love me.”
Wolfe chokes. “You’rewhat?”
I push in, poking the gobsmacked man out of the way so that I can invade his home more easily. “I’m trying to make him love me,” I repeat. “Your apartment a mirror layout of Fox’s?” I ask to confirm.
He nods.
“You’re in love with Fox?” he asks.
That halts me, and I almost lose my mostly-full Alani when I whirl around to stare at him inabsolutely not. “And just why are you accusing me of such a terror?”
He gestures helplessly in my direction. “Maybe because you just burst into my house to track him down and ‘make him love you’?”
Oh. Right. That. “I suppose I can see where you might’ve gotten the wrong idea,” I acknowledge. “I can assure you, though, that I am only seeking for your brother’splatoniclove, like what you and I have. I’m trying to get my found family fully found.”
Shocked speechless by my incredible intelligence and darling plan, Wolfe blinks at me for several long moments before sighing, kicking his door shut, and asking if I’d like a snack while we wait for Fox to find his bravery and leave his hiding spot.
