Gracie Abrams is eking out a solitary existence, fighting day-in, day-out against the drain of working customer service and nursing two newborn kittens in her off time. Out on her own ever since her sister moved in with her boyfriend, the burden of...
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"I'm not sure this is going to work," I said, staring up at the makeshift wall.
It looked just as flimsy as the wall for Woodstock '99, all barnyard metal and wooden reinforcements, though hopefully, this wall would be taken down more peacefully than that one.
"I'll go first," Kirishima said, much calmer, as we stared up at the darkened lip.
I felt like I was auditioning for a zombie movie. I just had to hope my role wasn't "timid girl who bites the dust first."
"No." Kakashi's voice appeared out of nowhere, nearly startling my skin off my bones.
I jumped again as a flash of silver appeared. He crouched, one leg in front of the other, holding himself in an angle that looked a lot easier than it actually was, really selling the whole ninja thing.
"Did you know he followed us?" I turned to Kirishima once I realized I had been the only jumper.
"'Course," was all he said, eyes not leaving the assortment of cars and furniture stacked together to build a ramp up to the ridiculous surface. "You think he'd let us run off together by ourselves?"
I groaned, then got over it. I supposed that was on par with Kakashi's instincts.
"This still doesn't solve how I'm supposed to get down on the other side." I kicked my boot into the air. "Not with this thing."
"That's where he comes in," Kirishima said, like it had been his plan all along. Maybe it had.
I knew when I'd asked the teenager to come meet my parents, it may have sounded like an odd request. Why would I ask Kirishima, instead of my somewhat-maybe-kinda boyfriend to come home with me and get this horrible talk over with?
Well, in all fairness, I didn't have a good reason.
Kakashi still had not asked me to go with him. In fact, during the past three weeks since I'd flipped the script on him and left him to walk halfway across the city by himself while I drove back to Bella's, things had...not changed. Or, they...had?
If by change, we were including the amount of kissing, then...
Nope. Still nothing.
Nothing had changed. Stupid asshole. And after I'd gone and made a fool of myself for him.
Then again, I'd been doing that since the beginning, so maybe I needed to rethink my strategy. Maybe if I acted like I had my shit together, that'd stop him in his tracks. Make him think twice. You think you can live without this socially-stable wizard? Yeah, right.
"You go up first, Gracie," Kirishima summoned me from the inner depths of my brain.
My lifesaver guided me to a navy blue SUV. I didn't know cars, but this thing was new about twenty years ago, and now brings to mind car chases and low-tier drug dealers.
