I am so far out of my depth. I could call Stella, I guess, but she’s too in love to be objective.
No—I need my sisters.
I return to Aurora’s room a few moments later, my teeth brushed, my pajamas on. They’re not fancy silk like Juliet’s; I don’t feel the need to be fashionable while sleeping. Mine are much more in line with Aurora’s—a comfy t-shirt and basketball shorts.
“Okay, sorry,” I say as I climb on the bed. “I’m sorry!” I repeat when I see their faces; Aurora looks unimpressed, while Juliet looks like she’s about to jump out of her skin with impatience.
“Comeon!” she says, pulling her hair on top of her head and securing it with a pink scrunchie. “Talk. Now.”
Aurora nods. “You came in claiming you had amomentwith Cyrus’s best friend; you can’t expect us to sit patiently.”
“That’s the thing—I don’t know if it was a moment. Thus this emergency meeting,” I say. “Because it’s Felix. You know him—he flirts with anything that moves.”
“True,” Aurora says matter-of-factly, and Juliet nods, her bun wobbling on top of her head. “Jules, I think you’re going to need to take this one.”
Aurora’s dating record looks a lot like mine. I’m sure men are interested in her—she’s gorgeous—but she’s so intimidating that nothing ever happens. Even her room is sort of intimidating—it’s bright with neutrals and whites, mostly, but it’s spartan in appearance, too clean, no clutter, and very minimalist.
“Okay,” Juliet says, pulling my attention with the serious look on her face. “Start from the beginning. Context, please.”
“Yeah. Okay. So”—I grab a pillow that’s squashed between Juliet and Aurora and yank it out, hugging it on my lap—“so we went to the Pretty Page earlier. He’s doing this article for the Gazette, right? About all the fun, romantic spots in Lucky.”
“Mm-hmm,” Aurora says slowly, but Juliet just waves me on.
“And so I said that the bookstore can be a very romantic spot, especially the Pretty Page.”
“Agreed,” Juliet says, but Aurora looks skeptical.
“Okay…” she says. “And then?”
“And thenmy friend who works there started talking about how I like brother’s best friend romances, and it got kind of awkward. Because he’s standing right there and I definitely used to like him, right? Anyway, one thing led to another, and I was totally joking”—I hold my hands up now to emphasize my point—“I was totally joking. But I asked him if he ever checked out his best friend’s sister.”
Juliet’s jaw drops. “You said that?”
“I—yes,” I all but wail, bringing my pillow up to my face. “I think—I can’t believe I’m saying this. But I think…we were kind of flirting?”
“What did he say?” Aurora says.
Slowly, I lower the pillow—just enough that I can see my sisters, my other souls. “He said…only sometimes.”
Juliet’s squeal reaches a previously undiscovered frequency, but she claps her hand over her mouth to muffle it, beckoning me to keep going, and Aurora nods.
“And he had this kind of weird look on his face. I can’t really describe it. Sort of like he had been hit over the head? And his voice was kind of…I don’t know. Rough or something, like he had a sore throat. And after that we juststaredat each other. For…several seconds,” I say.
“Like how many seconds?” Juliet says, and she’s totally serious, too; her attention is rapt on me, her eyes wide.
“I don’t know,” I say, fidgeting with the hem of the pillow in my lap. “Maybe three?”
“Three,” she echoes softly. She shoots a significant glance at Aurora and then looks back at me. “That’s totally amoment,Indy. Did itfeellike a moment?”
“I—kind of,” I admit. “But it was completely strange! I don’tlikehim anymore.” I grab my pillow more tightly and squeeze. “It was weird. Like you remember that guy we saw at the hot springs that one time?”
“Ew,” Jules and Aurora say in unison, their faces twisting into twin expressions of disgust.
“Yeah, exactly,” I say with a nod. “He was super attractive from behind, we all thought so, which is already weird because we don’t like the same kinds of guy—and then when we saw him from the front, he turned out to be super old. And then it felt really gross that we had thought he was hot, because he was like sixty,” I finish. “That’s how it felt with Felix.”
“Gross?” Jules says, her eyebrows lifting.
“No,” I say, and it costs me something to admit this. “Not gross at all. Just…strange, because I definitely felt something, but it’sFelix.I’m supposed to be immune. He’s supposed to be a middle-aged man from the front.”