KY$ ✓

Seventeen | Constrict

SOTC: I am not a woman, I'm a god by Halsey

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"Oh, babe, please!" Ada moaned in pleasure.

Achilles clasped a hand over her lips. "You'll only get it in your mouth again if you say the words, babe."

"But I can't take it!"

"Come on, Ada, reheated carbonara isn't that good," Basil repeated.

"Tsk tsk, Basil!" Ada shushed him, putting the plate down.

When Xerxes and I returned to the Christakos House, I once again hung out with Achilles, Ada, Basil, and Calix, who I now sat at our board game hideout with. I tried my best to participate with maximum attention to the conversation of Achilles's new carbonara recipe (not what you were thinking, feral goose) But the hurricane of thought hadn't stopped, not for a millisecond of time.

Xerxes was in the Greek-American War.

Was it why he had the teardrop tattoo? Did he kill people? Why the hell was he in the war anyway when he could've probably not because he was next in line to be the leader? Did his parents tell him to? Wait, no, they're dead. Had Polly?

Had it been the thing he couldn't come back from?

"Anyway, you assholes—" Basil started to chuckle.

Knock! Knock!

Who's there?

"I'll get it," Calix said while he opened it.

Let's play Which Bitch. Which bitch is six feet tall, speaks Putin-style hieroglyphics, and in her country, she has no right to bear arms, but rights to whole bear?

"Greetings, my family!" Maria sang behind it.

The way Achilles's eyes nearly popped out the sockets, Basil visibly pressured his teeth, Calix blinked, carbonara wormed out of Ada's mouth, and the air molecules in the room committed suicide.

It was terrifying.

"Maria!" Achilles finally said after relocating his eyeballs in regular position.

"Oh hi, Maria!" Ada squeaked out, spitting the rest of the carbonara back on her plate.

"What can we do for you?" Achilles said way too quick afterward.

Maria extended out her arms. "Xerxes is currently in a meeting so he can't give me love, so I come over to visit my family-in-law!" Each pitch of her voice stank of saturated jolliness like a middle-aged woman in an anti-bullying commercial.

Basil unclenched his jaw to start, "Sorry sweetheart, we're—" He was elbowed in the naughty straw by Achilles before he could finish.

Suddenly, the parasite gasped. "IS THAT CARBONARA?" Maria exclaimed, her eyes crazily wide. "I LOVE CARBONARA!"

"Then Clara and I will go get you some!"

Calix's voice radiated the happiness of a golden retriever as it left his throat.

"Let's go, Clara!" he added, grabbing my hand and zooming me out the door with him past Maria before I could utter a word.

"I've been wounded by second-hand embarrassment," I word vomited.

Calix slyly grinned as he said, "That's why we're going to take so long to get it," in his normal calm, collected tone.

We took off running down the hall, chuckling like kids until we were far enough away to not be seen.