AllFreeNovel
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“I…don’t know. I feel wrong. Morally wrong. What…what do you do if you think you’re developing a crush on someone who is absolutely taken?” And who may not want anything to do with me at all.
“How are they taken? Is the other person good for them?”
“I really don’t know.”
“If the other person isn’t good for them, it is your duty to open their eyes. Play Taylor Swift’s ‘You Belong With Me’ at every available opportunity.”
Sometimes, I want to tell Alana that the world isn’t like an otome game, or an anime, or whatever other fantasy stuff she’s obsessing over at the moment, but then I remember that her fantastical attitude is regularly the only thing keeping me from falling apart. So I smile instead. “Thank you, per usual, for your sound advice.”
“Hey. It’s what big sisters are for.”
After we hang up, Oxford pops his little paws up on my thigh and looks into my eyes. “I’m fine,” I whisper. “This is just like when you have a cute waiter and start picturing them as the groom in your wedding. Brains are weird. At least these thoughts aren’t drive your car into a lake, right?”
He sets his chin in his paws, positively pitiful.
“You’re not allowed to look this sad in your party clothes,” I chide, adjusting his tiny bow tie.
His party clothes are a tux. I dressed him up for this occasion, blindly hopeful it might give Doliver and me a harmless topic of discussion.
You know.
Before I inevitably blurt why haven’t you texted me back? do you hate me? in front of everyone.
Oxford whimpers. Then he plants his paws back on the ground and starts trotting back toward home until his leash pulls taunt.
“Sorry, baby, we’re going to meet new friends tonight. You’ll get to see your first kitty and everything.” Scooping him up beside the bag of chips, I rise, ignoring his wriggles and meager bark of protest. “That is all code for I require my emotional-support puppy. Thank you.”
He snuffs.
“You have an attitude lately.”
He looks elsewhere.
“Oops. I forgot. Having an attitude is just a normal day for Sir Oxford the Pupper Dupper. My mistake.” For such a tiny dog, he has the biggest character. I love him so much.
Ignoring what I’m certain is an eye roll, I march onward toward Willow and Zylus’s.
¤
“Doliver couldn’t make it,” Willow says the moment she opens the door for me.
My heart sinks. “O-oh…”
“We didn’t tell him you were coming,” Zylus says from where he’s sprawled out on one couch, taking up every inch and hugging a pillow. “So don’t think it has anything to do with you.”
I suppose that does make me feel a tiny bit better, personally, but now I’m worried about him. “Did he give a reason? Is he okay?”
Zylus smiles, eyes catching on Oxford and me. “He’s a little…tied up at the moment.”
In response to that, Willow turns on her heel, grabs Zylus’s pillow, and smothers him with it. “No. He did not give a reason. Feel free to let your tiny gentleman roam free.”
Stepping inside, I provide the living room a cursory glance for Zylus the cat, just in case there’s a threat of confrontation. Once I don’t find the streak of black fur, I take Oxford’s leash off. “Be a good boy,” I murmur as I set him down.
He peers up at me as though he is never not a good boy, and he’s very offended by this entire situation, truly.
After rising, I force a smile and lift the bag of Lays. “I brought chips.”
Zylus wrestles himself free of death by pillow and sits up, holding it out of reach before his wife can try to murder him again. “I enjoy chips.”
