Page 69 of With a Little Luck

“Nothing.” I look between them, suddenly annoyed. “We played mini-golf. We had dinner at Encanto. It was great. And no, I’m not hiding anything.” I shoot a scowl at Ari, but she just turns and looks at Pru, and they share some sort of silent, psychic communication that is clearly about me hiding something.

“Never mind,” I mutter. “I’m going to bed.”

I grab my notebook and brush past them, but the second I’m standing on the landing, looking down into the shadows of my basement bedroom, I’m overcome with a feeling I can’t quite place.

Solitude, maybe? The knowledge that another sleepless night awaits178me, full of thoughts of Maya and luck and comics and campaigns and songs with lyrics that send shivers down my spine.

I heave a sigh and turn back around. “Actually, Ari said you guys were watching the other entries for the competition?”

Pru folds her arms, awhat of it?expression on her face.

“Mind if I join you?”

179

Chapter Twenty-Four

The sound of pen scratching across paper wakes me up. Isquint an eye open. I’m not in my bed. I have a crick in my neck. My right hand is throbbing with the painful jabs of pins and needles.

I sit up. I’m lying on a comforter on the floor of my bedroom. My bleary eyes land on Ari sitting cross-legged not far away, her back to the bed. She has a sketchbook in her lap and is bent over it, her dark hair falling like a curtain in front of her face, her pen flying across the paper.

“Ari?”

She looks up. “Sorry,” she whispers. “Did I wake you?”

“No.” I pause. “Well, maybe. But it’s okay.” I try to shake some feeling back into my hand. I glance over at the bed, where Pru is sleeping, curled up on her side against the wall. Disheveled blankets suggest that Ari must have slept beside her. I don’t remember falling asleep on the floor, but we were up really late watching dozens, maybe hundreds of videos that had been submitted with the competition’s hashtag—some really good, others laughably bad. “Is that my sketchbook?”

“I hope you don’t mind. I woke up with these lyrics in my head and needed to write them down. This was the first paper I saw.”

I rub my palm into my eye and yawn. “No biggie.”

“Okay. Then stop talking until I’m done with this.”

I smile sleepily and nod as Ari turns her attention back to the notebook. For a second she stares at the paper, her pen poised above it. Then she hums a short melody to herself, falls quiet, and starts to write. After180a few seconds she pauses, her head bobbing to some song only she can hear before she starts to write again.

Once I can feel my fingers, I get up and stumble toward my dresser. I’m still wearing the clothes I wore on my date with Maya, so I pull out some sweats and one of my favorite T-shirts and head to the bathroom.

After I change and brush my teeth, I find myself staring at my reflection, wondering if I should brush my hair, too. It’s pretty rough, sort of matted on one side and all tangled on the other. I run a hand over my chin, where there’s the slightest hint of stubble. Should I shave? Would it look better, or does the stubble make me look more mature?

I’m reaching for the shaving cream when I pause.

What does it matter? It isn’t like I have someone to impress.

My hand hovers over the can. Five seconds. Ten.

I end up shaving anyway.

It’s just basic hygiene.

When I get back to the basement, Ari has set the pen down on the carpet beside her and is flipping through the sketchbook pages.

“Get your song written?” I ask.

“It’s a start.” She turns another page. “I’ll keep working on it, but I think it has potential.” She holds up the sketchbook, showing me the page she’s looking at. “Is this me?”

I go still, seeing the most recent comic book pages. I rack my brain, trying to remember what was in it. Ari coming to the tavern and meeting the adventurers and sending them off on their quest.

Nothing worrisome.

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