Page 8 of Friends to WHAT?!

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Me personally, I don’t think the influences are bad at all.

Wolfe

“You have the letter?” Almond whispers, leaning flat against the brick walls lining the alleyway between Hunter’s Moon and Gingerbread bakery. Her pink hair contrasts starkly against the all black outfit she’s donned for the occasion, complete with thick, dark stripes painted across her cheeks.

“I have the letter,” I reply, fisting Leora’s last letter to me in my hand, a reminder of why I’m doing this—beyond the fact that Sterne and Almond wouldn’t let it go last night and threatened to kidnapmeif I didn’t meet them in this alleyway at 11:30 sharp today. Sterne and Almond are the answer to the question “Whywould you actually perform an abduction?”, and this letter is the answer to “Why would you kidnapLeora Mouton?”

My best friend and my sister are insane, and Leora is a letter with the power to control the beats of my heart.

I run my empty hand down my jeans to wipe off the gathering sweat, then tug at my standard-issue Blackwood Barbs T-shirt.

Sterne, also in jeans and a T-shirt, shakes his head at my sister. “This isn’t a secret kidnapping,” he reminds her. Again. “This is a by-the-books, out-in-the-open, totally legal kidnapping. It’s not too late to wash the paint off your face and put on something a little less secret agent super spy.”

Almond’s nose wrinkles. “You guys take all the fun out of everything. Where’s your sense of whimsy?”

“Yeah, your brother who does art for a living and is about to IRL meet his snail mail pen pal after several years of avoiding each other to keep the pen pal magic alive lacks a sense of whimsy. That makes loads of sense.”

She huffs. “Well, then,youare boring and lack whimsy.”

“Is that Emerson Wright?” he asks, pointing to the street behind her.

Almond squeaks, jumps, turns, runs into the brick wall, squeaks again, then lowers into a puddle on the ground.

Sterne snorts. “Who’d you say was boring?”

I sigh. “Can we limit the torture to one Blackwood sibling today?” I ask. “If Almond’s a mess, then I can’t be a mess. It’s one at a time, and I’m calling dibs on all mess today. I can’t believe I let you all talk me into this horrible, terrible, consent-ignoring plan. She saidno. With her words. Clearly.Sorry, but no, she said. You remember I told you that? She might as well have written it in giant neon lights and posted it up on the water tower on the hill.” The letter crinkles in my hand as my breaths quicken. “This is awful. This is the worst idea any of us have ever had. We need to leave. We need to leave and never come back.”

My torturers make eye contact and grimace. Sterne helps Almond off the ground, then they turn to me.

“We went over this,” Sterne says slowly—steadily. “That ‘no’ was not in any way clear. You asked on Discord; the ‘no’ was in a letter. You can’t remember if you asked her any questions in your last letter to her; the ‘no’ could have been an answer to some forgotten query. You didn’t get a reply on Discord at all, and she hasn’t emoji reacted to any Amia photos since, implying there is a chance she’s been off Discord for several days and hasn’t seen your message at all yet. Too many variables. We must go to the source.”

“Something I could have—and should have—done via letter instead of selfishly invading her personal space and making her feel uncomfortable.”

“Right,” Sterne agrees. “Except that actuallyI’mthe one being selfish by forcing you into this because the last thing I want to do is spend the next five-to-seven days comforting and reassuring you as you wait for a reply to come in the post when the person you want an answer from works two blocks away from where you live. I’ve got things to do, and babysitting you isn’t one of them, no matter how much I love you. I’m a problem solver, Wolfy, and I’m solving a problem, Leora’s questionable consent is the least of my worries.”

Almond nods her head vigorously. “Yeah, Wolfe. Sterne’s being a big selfish red flag. Your conscience is clear! And since it’s nice and clear and all, you’ve got a clean slate to get to work on. Perhaps you would consider channeling some of his big selfish red flag energy? Villain romance for my sweet friend Leora?”

“Never say the words ‘villain’ and ‘romance’ strung together like that to me again.”

“If Wolfe channels my big selfish red flag energy, then I won’t be able to bully him into doing things he doesn’t want to do anymore,” Sterne notes with a frown. “You keep that kind of negative energy away from us.”

Almond throws her hands up. “Fine,” she grumps. “But you better have amegaentertaining villain romance, Sterne Donavon, to make up for Wolfe’s lack.”

Sterne’s usually mildly-amused-at-best face darkens as a broad grin stretches his features taut. “I’d accept nothing less.”

“Stop being scary,” I grouse. “I’m having a crisis here.”

His evil mellows to a point where the sun feels free to shine in the alley again, and his menacing aura slithers out in the bright rays. “You’re not having a crisis,” he declares. “You’re havingcold feet. An easy thing to mistake, and an equally easy thing to fix.”

“Yes,” I agree. “By not committing a crime in broad daylight.”

“No,” he retorts. “By getting the crime over with so we can move on to the more fun parts of the story. You can’t spend four chapters will-he-won’t-he-ing the kidnapping plot, Wolfe. Just do the thing.”

“I can spend four chapters doing whatever I want,” I huff. “If it’s my book, then it’s my prerogative.”

“Maybe,” Almond says. “But the hottest male leads get stuff done. They don’t dither about it for six thousand words. Don’t you want to be hot?”