‘Then I’ll skip. Waxing is already a chore and I’m enough of a bitch once every twenty-eight days as is – just ask my brother. For real though, you shouldn’t let him wear another shirt, like, ever.’
‘Not that you would ever objectify another human being.’
‘I would rather die,’ she declared. ‘Except in this one very specific instance.’
‘If I see you anywhere near his closet, I will kill you,’ I said, her peals of laughter smothered by the tall palmettos that grew up on either side of us.
We cycled on for a half mile without him, me searching for alligators in the undergrowth and Lydia intermittently releasing her handlebars to hold her hands up in the air, just to see if she still could.
Slowing her pace as the trees began to thin out, giving way to homes with big, manicured lawns, a sports field and some tennis courts, Lydia cycled a little closer.
‘So,’ she said. ‘Y’all decided not to share a room?’
‘Uh-huh,’ I replied. ‘It’s not a big deal.’
‘Sure.’
‘It isn’t.’
‘Didn’t say it was.’
‘Only …’
She pushed her heart-shaped sunglasses onto the top of her head, all eager eyes.
‘He was the one who suggested we take separate rooms. Is that weird?’
‘Before I make a sweeping statement about boy-kind,’ she replied, expertly turning her handlebars to dodge a spilled ice cream cone in the middle of the bike path. ‘I have one question.’
‘Shoot.’
‘Do you want to share a room with Wyn?’
‘I don’t know,’ I replied, somehow riding directly through the slimy mess she had so effortlessly avoided. ‘Part of me really wants to and part of me is still a little anxious.’
‘Then don’t sweat it,’ Lydia said. ‘This ain’t jail, they don’t lock you in after lights out. You have free will, Em, you havethe power to do this crazy thing I like to call changing your mind.’
‘But what if he isn’t being polite? What if I ask him to stay and he doesn’t want to?’
‘Then he will have no choice but to report you to the southern commission for ladylike behaviour and you’ll be rapped across the knuckles for your deeply unladylike behaviour.’
She stopped her bike, scuffed-up Converse scraping along the ground on either side of the frame, and I pulled up alongside her. ‘Em, aren’t you supposed to be busy worrying about the end of the world? Or did I black out and miss the part where you solved that itty-bitty problem?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Wasting your energy on wondering whether or not a man who is so obsessed with you he tolerates me, Ashley, and Savannah’s 900 per cent humidity, will laugh in your face if you ask him to spend the night in your room makes about as much sense as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. Apocalypse or not, he’s still a seventeen-year-old guy, is he not?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ I muttered.
‘That is the correct answer,’ she replied. ‘And if by some kind of miracle heisn’tinterested in taking things further, first we put the flags out, and second we commission a statue in his honour. That boy is already one of a kind; the possibility that he might be thinking with his head and his heart instead of his hormones makes me want to cry. We should be throwing a parade and charging every other man alive a thousand dollars a pop to study his forgotten ways.’
Lydia stomped her left foot on the pedal then popped her sunglasses down over her eyes. ‘Now get your skinny little butt back on that bike. I should be snout deep into an Oreo-cake batter-cookie dough triple cone by now and stupid questions like these aren’t helping none.’
‘Thanks for the advice,’ I said, pushing off from the ground and catching the pedals under my feet. ‘Super helpful as always.’
‘You don’t need my advice, you need your head looking at,’ she replied. ‘What do I know? I’m a queer sixteen-year-old virgin, pining after a fictional shadow daddy and his fated fae mate. If you want sensible advice, go to a sensible source.’
‘And who exactly should a witch go to for sensible advice about dating her Were boyfriend?’
