Cath went back to her laptop.
“I like my job,” he said. “I see the same people every day. I remember their drinks, they like that I remember their drinks, I make them happy, and then they leave. It’s like being a bartender, but you don’t have to deal with drunks. Speaking of … How’s your sister?”
Cath stopped typing and looked at him. “Fine. She’s … fine. Back to normal, I guess. Thanks, you know, for driving me. And everything.” Cath had told Levi thank you Friday night, but she felt like she owed him a few more.
“Forget about it. Did you guys have a big talk?”
“We don’t have to have big talks,” she said, holding two fingers to her temple. “We’re twins. We have telepathy.”
Levi grinned. “Really?”
Cath laughed. “No.”
“Not even a little bit?”
“No.” She went back to typing.
“What are you working on?”
“A biology essay.”
“Not secret, dirty fanfiction?”
Cath stopped again. “My fanfiction is neither a secret, obviously, nor is it dirty.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, making it stick up in the middle in sandy blond plumes. Shameless.
“What do you put in your hair to make it stick up like that?” she asked.
He laughed and did it again. “Nothing.”
“Nothing? Something—”
“I think it does that because I don’t wash it.…”
She grimaced. “Ever?”
“Every month or so, maybe.”
Cath wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “That’s disgusting.”
“No, it isn’t. I still rinse it.”
“Still disgusting.”
“It’s perfectly clean,” he said. He leaned toward her, and his hair touched her arm. This room was too small. “Smell it.”
She sat back. “I’m not smelling your hair.”
“Well, I’ll smell it.” He pulled a piece down his long forehead; it came to the bridge of his nose. “It smells like freshly mown clover.”
“I don’t think you mow clover.”
“Can you imagine how sweet it would smell if you did?” Levi sat back, which was a relief—until he picked up her pillow and started rubbing his head into it.
“Oh, God,” she said, “stop. That’s such a violation.”
Levi laughed, and she tried to grab her pillow from him. He held it to his chest with both hands. “Cather…”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Read me some of your secret, dirty fanfiction.”
“It’s not dirty.”
“Read me some anyway.”
She let go of the pillow; he’d probably already filthed it beyond redemption.
“Why?”
“Because I’m curious,” he said. “And I like stories.”
“You just want to make fun of me.”
“I won’t,” he said. “I promise.”
“That’s what you and Reagan do when I’m not here, right? Make fun of me. Play with my commemorative busts. Do you have a stupid nickname for me?”
His eyes sparkled. “Cather.”
“I don’t exist to amuse you, you know.”
“One, are you sure? Because you do. And, two, we don’t make fun of you. Very much. Anymore. And, three…”
He was counting on his fingers, and his cheeks were twitching, and it was making Cath laugh.
“Three,” he said, “I won’t make fun of you, to anyone but you, from now on, if you’ll just once, right now, read me some of your fanfiction.”
Cath gave him a level stare. A mostly level stare. She was still giggling a little. And blinking hard. And occasionally looking up at the ceiling. “You’re curious,” she said.
He nodded.
She rolled her eyes again and turned to her laptop. Why not. She didn’t have anything to lose. Yes, but that’s not the point, part of her argued. What do you have to gain?
It’s not like Levi was going to be impressed by her fanfiction; entertained wasn’t the same as impressed. He already thought she was a weirdo, and this was just going to make her seem that much weirder. Did the bearded lady get excited when cute guys came to her freak show?
Cath shouldn’t want this kind of attention. And Levi wasn’t even that cute. His forehead was lined even when he wasn’t making a face. Sun damage, probably.
“Okay,” she said.
He grinned and started to say something.
“Shut up.” She held up her left hand. “Don’t make me change my mind. Just … let me find something.…”
She opened the Simon/Baz folder on her desktop and scrolled through it, looking for something suitable. Nothing too romantic. Or dirty.
Maybe … yeah. This one’ll do.
“All right,” she said, “you know how, in the sixth book—”
“Which one is that?”
“Simon Snow and the Six White Hares.”
“Right, I’ve seen that movie.”
“Okay, so Simon stays at school during Christmas break because he’s trying to find the fifth hare.”
“And because his dad has been kidnapped by monsters in creepy costumes—so no happy Christmas dinner at the Snow house.”