Oh my God. I swallow the laughter bubbling in my throat. I want to meet their parents now.
“I love your names. They’re so original,” I offer, hoping to make one crack a smile.
“Thanks,” one of them says. “I’m Kricket.”
“That must make you Krow?” I ask, holding my focus on the other identical sister.
“You’re correct,” she answers.
Well, this is just going to be the most fun ever. “I am so excited to be roommates with you two. I have so many decorating ideas. Do you guys like to decorate? I feel like that’s the part that makes a place feel like home.”
“We’re not quite the decorating type, but have at it,” Kricket says.
“Cool.” Awesome, yeah. I’m trying here.
They both take a sip from their coffees, in unison. I’ve been known to make friends with a wall. It’s a true story. Freshman year, I had a little too much to drink and, well … the wall was the only support system I had that night. I named him Fred.
Anyway, this is going to be rough, but I need to remember I’m not paying rent, and I don’t have a gun to my head with a threat to get a job.
“Ready to head over to the house, ladies?” Bradley asks as a general question.
“Sure!” I answer, enthusiastically, making myself sound child-like in the presence of these demur-like creatures. Katarina slips her fingers into Bradley’s hand, waiting for him to make the first move.
It’s like her gesture was the permission he needed to start walking.
Queue the Twilight Zone music as we make our way over to the dumpster in the dark alley where I will probably be rolled into a moth-like cocoon and hung by a string in the basement—if there is a basement. Maybe I should hope there isn’t a basement.
Chapter 3
Well,this is fun. I’m in the backseat, not meant for a human body of normal proportions, squished between The Addams Family twins. “Could we crack a window and turn up the music a little?” I asked. Bradley was always the guy with his car windows down in fifty degrees.That’s what the heat is for,he would tell me. Now, we’re stuck like stuffed sausages in this vehicle with shared air. It doesn’t smell awful, but there are too many different scents. Between Bradley’s cologne, whatever perfume Katarina is wearing, and what the other two have on, it smells like someone poured a bunch of oils into a diffuser and none of them are complementary to each other.
“I can turn the air up,” Katarina suggests. “We don’t like the window open.”
Of course, you don’t. Why would you want the windows open in sunny Georgia?
“Are we near Tybee Island yet?”
“We’re only about ten minutes away now,” Bradley answers.
“Can we turn the music up?” Why am I starting to feel like a bored child in the backseat?
“Please don’t. I have a headache,” Kricket or Krow says, lifting her focus momentarily from her phone.
I lost track of who was who when we all got into the car. Maybe if they weren’t both dressed from head to toe in black, I could decipher them easier.
I tap my fingers on my legs, having nowhere else to move and nothing else to do. I can’t even reach for my phone because my purse is under Bradley’s chair. We ran out of space. Clearly.
“Did you get that?” One of the twins says to the other.
A huff of laughter emits from the other twin. “Sure did.”
They’re talking about me, and we’re all sitting less than an inch apart.
Ten minutes slowly tick by as I’m watching the numbers change on the dashboard. “Here we are,” Bradley announces.
I glance out of the side window—or try to glance out the window, but twin A is leaning forward, and the window isn’t large enough.
I turn to the other side, and twin B is also leaning forward. What is this?
