FOR MONEY, I'LL MARRY YOU.......

04

👉👈

Someone was hitting Jade over the head with a banana again and again, and it was making a weirdly wooden noise. Was her head made of wood? Or maybe it was hollow.

Everything went silent.

Jade yawned.

Nope, there it was again. Something started making the banana noise again, but there was no banana, and this time, she was blinking up at her bedroom ceiling. The noise stopped again.

Jade rolled over, pulling her pillow over her head. The sheets had wrapped around her legs. As she kicked them out of their prison and dropped them back to the mattress, they bumped into a warm heavy shape. One that gave a grumbling growl.

"Sorry, Migui."

Her voice was hoarse, layered in sleep.

He shuffled away from her. That sound happened again. Was that someone knocking at her front door? It was. Insistently too.

"Why?"

Jade was whining to herself, and she didn't even care. It was Sunday morning. She had three glorious days off in front of her, including today. She pulled the pillow tighter over her head. The knocking came again, and she flopped onto her back, huffing at the ceiling.

"I'm coming!"

She was going to punch whoever that was in the face. Okay. Maybe not. She was ridiculously nonviolent. But she was going to think about it. She rolled out of bed and used the foot of one leg to push down her leggings on the other after they had apparently ridden up during the night. She gave up after a second of weird wiggling. Why was it so bright?

She squinted around the room. Nothing. She grabbed her glasses that she only wore if she was at home off her bedside table; otherwise it was contacts all the way. At least she could see properly now, even if the world was still far too bright.

As she stumbled out of the room, she tripped while trying to get her legging down again. Her little toe ran right into the closet, and a curse word flew out. Her eyes watered as she finally yanked open the front door, her toe throbbing.

"Sally. What the hell?"

Sally peered around her, and Jade turned her head to look back into her apartment to see what was so interesting. Everything looked normal. She turned back around to scowl.

"Is she in there?" Sally asked.

"Is who in where?"

Sally narrowed their eyes. They had eyeliner on today, the dark brown of their eyes richer in color.

"Don't play coy."

Against the doorframe, Jade spoke though a yawn.

"I don't know what you're talking about. If you don't start making the sense, I'm leaving you here and going back to bed."

"Guevara! Is she in there?"

Oh.

Right.

And ew.

"No."

Sally looked weirdly disappointed.

"Oh. Were you still asleep?"

Jade looked pointedly down at herself, her leggings and rumpled sleep shirt speaking for her. No doubt her hair was a flyaway mess on top of her head, spilling out of its bun like a fountain.

"No. I was having breakfast with the Queen of England."

"Smart-ass."

"Of course I was asleep. Why are you here so early?"