I’ve done it before—excessively—but that’s when I thought I was never going to get any more than that. That’s when creeping on Snow felt like my life’s consolation prize.
I’m still not sure what’s happening between us. We kissed last night. And this morning. A lot. Does that mean we get to do it today? He’s not even sure that he’s gay. (Which is moronic. But Snow is a moron. So.)
He’s lying on my couch, and I’m sitting at the end, next to his legs. He rolls into the cushions, burying his face. “You don’t get to watch me sleep now,” he says, “just because we’re snogging.”
“Just because we snogged,” I correct him. “And I’m not watching you; I’m trying to figure out how to wake you up without you pulling a sword on me.”
“I’m up,” he says, dragging one of the cushions down over his head.
“Come on. Bunce is on her way.”
He lifts the pillow up. “What? Why?”
“I told her we have new information—she has some, too. We’re having a briefing.”
He sits up. “So she’s just coming here?”
“Yes.”
“To your Gothic mansion?”
“It’s not Gothic; it’s Victorian.”
Snow rubs his hair. “Is this a trap? Are you luring us all here to kill us?” He seems genuinely suspicious.
“How did Ilureyou? You hitchhiked to my door.”
“After you invited me,” he snaps.
“Yes. You caught me. I’m a villain.” I stand. “I’ll see you in the library when you’ve cleaned up.” I try not to look like I’m stomping away from him—I wait till I leave the room, then stomp down the stairs.
I don’t know what I expected. For Snow to open his eyes and see me there, then pull me into one of his expert kisses and say, “Good morning, darling”?
Simon Snow is never going to call me “darling.”
Though he did just say we were snogging…
We don’t have a blackboard in the house, but my stepmother has a giant whiteboard in the kitchen that she uses to keep track of all my siblings’ lessons and sport. I take a photo of it with my mobile, then erase the board and lift it off the wall.
My 7-year-old sister watches me do it. “I’m telling Mum,” she says.
“If you do, I’ll stop up all the chimneys, so Father Christmas can’t get in.”
“There are too many chimneys,” she counters.
“Not for me,” I say. “I’m willing to put the time in.”
“He’ll just come to the door.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Mordelia, Father Christmas never comes to the door. And if he did, I’d tell him he had the wrong house.” I’m carefully manoeuvring the whiteboard through the kitchen door.
“I’m telling Mum!” she shouts after me.
I prop the board up in the library, and I’m making columns—Everything we knowandEverything we still don’t—when Snow walks into the room. I ignore him.
“It’s not that I think you’ll betray us,” he says.
I make a noise that I’m afraid sounds a lot like “harrumph.”
