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“It’s not like that. It’s just—I’m dating both of them and they’re okay with it.”

He peered at me for a full twenty seconds, not blinking until his face cleared. “When this gets out, you’re going to be the most hated girl in school.” A wide smile stretched over his face. His chest puffed up. “This is going to be awesome. You’re going to be way more popular than Rebecca. She’s going to be in here all the time.” He grimaced, briefly, as he grabbed for a book that one of the girls decided not to buy. “I mean, she’s going to be pretending to be your friend and plotting how to take you down because I bet she’s going to want to be their girlfriend too, but as long as both of them like you, that won’t happen. Man. I thought it was going to suck working with the school’s new girl. No offense.” He gave me a onceover. “You didn’t seem to care about making friends so I didn’t think you’d ever have any and now look at you. Not just dating the school’s most popular guy, but also Lee Mckenna, who’s top tier of the top tiers. This is great.”

26

Ididn’t want to say anything to Cassian when he picked me up at the end of my shift. Ethan was there, giving Cassian a ‘dude’ fist greeting. It consisted of a chin jerk along with a fist being held out and a, “Dude.” Cassian duded him right back, then Ethan sauntered off as if he were the coolest guy in our school.

Cassian didn’t even notice, giving me a smile. “Ready?”

I didn’t want to rock the boat. That’s what I was telling myself for why I stayed silent when we got to Lee’s house and there was a bunch of people playing video games. Noah showed up at one time, saw me watching him, and rolled his eyes at a bunch of the girls. He didn’t seem inclined to come over to talk and I’d had my fill of ghosts and drama for the day so I went up to Lee’s room, changed into a pair of his sweats and one of his sweatshirts and curled up on his bed to study. Cassian popped his head in, saw what I was doing, and left right away. Ten minutes later everyone was saying their goodbyes.

Lee and Cassian both came in, each carrying food and we hung out in Lee’s room the rest of the night.

No kissing. No making out, but there was laughter and cuddles. I actually needed to study and maybe the guys figured out that I needed a breather from everything intense because they kept the conversation light for the rest of the night. Cassian left around eleven, edging closer to eleven thirty. When we went to bed, Lee murmured, curling his arm around my waist and sliding in behind me, “We need to go shopping for you.”

I tensed immediately, then forced myself to relax. “How do you feel about thrift stores?”

Lee’s palm flattened over my stomach as he kissed my shoulder. “I love them.”

I let out a silent sigh of relief, then tensed again because I’d forgotten that Lee had been able to feel that.

Wednesday passed much the same without the girl drama. The Living girl drama. Shelton and Sabine were still avoiding me. Beatrice arrived at my locker in a tizzy. Benji showed up, promised he’d help all over again. Those two headed for the library. Noah decided he wanted to stalk me again. Except that he didn’t. He spent the day with Benji and Beatrice.

I actually ate lunch in the cafeteria. Shocker.

And Cassian was there so he sat with me. After hesitating for a moment, his friends picked up their trays and sat with us. The girls remained at a different table so small favors.

Since it was still Halloween week, Ethan and I were both scheduled for the afternoon shift at Books-n-Brew where my boss began calling me Cole. No more Coco. Another small favor. I was starting to think I needed to thank the universe.

I was going to wait to see how I got through Halloween this year before committing to that. And the trend kept going because after work, no one else was at Lee’s house. He picked me up since Cassian had family commitments, but I enjoyed the quiet. I grew up yearning for connections to real life people so I was surprised when I was happy Lee’s friends weren’t there, not that Nimrod didn’t have some jokes that were funny or how there was a guy from Lee’s school who insisted on talking with a Norwegian accent. He was from Mexico so his combined natural accent mixed with the forced one was hilarious. And most of the people were nice to me. Claudia was still banned from Lee’s house.

The universe just kept racking up the favors for me.

We spent the evening in the basement. Lee played video games while I studied. When I was done, he put in a movie of my choice, then curled up on the couch with me. We kissed. Groping happened. Caresses. Heated whispers. We got hot and somewhat heavy, and it was wonderful, but there was a level where we held back. I felt it from both of us. Maybe because it was just the two of us? We were waiting for Cassian to be present before really doing more?

After we went to bed, I rolled over and checked my phone.

It was after midnight. In less than twenty-four hours, I’d be eighteen. An adult.

A week ago I was so scared of tomorrow. Now, in Lee’s home, in his bed, in his arms, I couldn’t imagine myself now worrying about being homeless.

Immediately my heart seized up.

Panic blasted me.

Why had I jinxed myself?

If good things came to me, they didn’t stay. It was the golden Universal rule, hence why I was waiting until I made it through Halloween.

“You okay?” Lee asked, actually sounding tired for once.

That was something I’d learned about Lee. He was like me in so many ways. Always tired. Rarely slept. Even less likely to be relaxed, though he was able to tune out when he played video games and Cassian, Nimrod and the not-Norwegian dude made him laugh.

“I’m good. Just, the ghosts at school are mixing me up.”

“Wanna talk about it?” He rose so he was looking down at me as I was on my back. His eyes were concerned, but I couldn’t stop myself from trying to smooth out some of the bags from under them too.

“Shelton and Sabine are avoiding me. I don’t know why. Something’s going on with them, but neither will say anything. Shelton started to say something, but I think Sabine shut him up. And Beatrice has been really extra.”