“Are you saying that because it’s true, or because you’re trying to get out of telling me?”
“When have I ever done that?”
Barry, the pile of orange fur, comes up to Wyatt and meows at him, so he picks her up. “I think she’s jealous when other cats get attention,” he explains as the enormous cat headbutts his face. Her fur and his hair are nearly the exact same shade. “You finally gonna tell me what’s up, or do I have to keep making up stories that you’re secretly a Soviet spy who’s also got an illicit lover in the mafia?”
“I—what?There haven’t been Soviets for, like, thirty years.”
“That’s what made it so exciting,” Wyatt agrees nonsensically. Then, to Barry: “Iknow. What a life, right? If only he’d tell me what’s really going on so I could help. Or at least lend a sympathetic ear.”
I’m tempted to tell Zorro something likeAll this from the man who claims to not be in love with his best female friend, but I refrain because I’m a good person.
“My whole family found out that I’m dating Madeline because I literally got caught in bed with her,” I say instead, and Wyatt whistles.
He does not, however, look surprised.
“Yeah, that’ll do it.” He’s taking thisverywell. “You have dinner yet?”
Wyatt,who seems like a magician sometimes, makes us grilled cheese sandwiches that consist of very thin apple slices and at least three types of cheese on fancy bread. I help by not stealing all the cheese before he can use it, and give him the story in the meantime.
“Three years ago?” he’s saying as I hand him plates. “That’s before you moved here.”
“Almost three years,” I correct, which seems important somehow.
“Huh.” We take the sandwiches into his living room to eat on the couch. I almost feel bad that Wyatt didn’t know about the first time I met Madeline, but it’s not like I give my friends a list of people I’ve had sex with. He’d probably know if it had happened after I came to Sprucevale, though. “So, to clarify, you’d been hooking upbeforeyou got caught in bed with your stepsister this morning.”
“Yes, and you don’t have to make it sound like a bad porno.”
“Then don’t make life choices that lead to things that sound like bad pornos,” he says and then drapes a string of cheese into his mouth. “Also, Silas owes me twenty bucks.”
I stop, sandwich halfway to my mouth, and narrow my eyes. “You were betting on me?”
“He thought you just had a big crush on her. I thought you two had already hooked up.”
“You werewagering moneyon my happiness and emotional well-being?”
“Yes. And now I’ve made twenty American dollars from it.”
“And you didn’t just ask me?”
He chews slowly, then swallows, giving me a funny look. “I asked you at least a dozen times, my dude,” Wyatt finally says. “You had all the opportunity in the world.”
“You neveraskedasked.”
“Can you imagine how weird a question that would’ve been if I were wrong?” He takes a bite, then frowns and goes on with his mouth full. “Not that it’s weird for you two to get together, but like—Hey, are you banging your stepsisteris kind of intense, you know?”
“It’s a little weird,” I admit.
“Gideon used dark magic to turn a snow sculpture into a girlfriend,” he says, shrugging. “Madeline’s notactuallyrelated to you, and wasn’t created via sorcery, so I think you’re good.”
“We should stop saying that about Andi before she hears us,” I tell him. “Or at least before Gideon hears us. Andi seems like she’d get a kick out of it.”
Over Christmas, our friend Gideon went to a remote cabin for a two-week solo trip to be alone and look at birds, because he’s the kind of person who does that. He returned with a girlfriend, who he apparently found in the woods. They claim he saved her from a snowstorm. Wyatt and I have drawn our own conclusions.
“I could have pushed harder, I guess,” he’s saying now, while also fending off a too-interested Barry. “But you’re kind of stubborn, and I didn’t think you’d tell me if you’d decided you were really serious about keeping a secret.”
“Probably,” I admit, and we both eat grilled cheese in silence for a moment. Barry continues to pester Wyatt, because he lets her get away with too much. Zorro sits at my feet instead and makes sustained, intense eye contact with my sandwich, because he was raised right.
“You don’t think it’s fucked up to date my stepsister?” I finally ask, because I want the reassurance. “‘Sister’ isright therein the title.”
