“You’re not leaving,” Lo tells her.
I nod in agreement. “We all want you here.”
“I saw ice cream in the fridge,” Ryke says as he stands. “I can make you a bowl.”
“I have a photo shoot—”
“Run with me tomorrow morning.”
Okaaayy…that sounded more like a proposition for a date, but everything about Ryke is kind of sexual. The way he stands, the way he moves. I bet he thinks about sex just as often as me too.
“Sounds like a date,” Daisy says exactly what I was thinking. I can’t tell if she’s hoping it is. She’s sixteen. He’s twenty-three. She can have a crush on him, but it can’t progress further than that.
I rest my palms on Lo’s chest, his muscles hard as a rock, too rigid right now.
Ryke tenses. “It’s not, Calloway. I run with Lo all the time, and we’re just brothers.”
“So I’m like your sister then?” she asks.
Good question, I think, shoveling more popcorn in my mouth.
His face darkens. “No.”
“Then what am I?”
“My fucking friend.” His eyebrows rise. “Any more questions?”
She smiles weakly. “That’s it.”
“I’m going to get you a bowl of ice cream,” he says. “Okay?”
“Yeah.” She bites her lip and he rounds the corner. When he disappears, both Lo and I glance back at Daisy who has moved on to twisting the button in the pillow.
“Thanks,” Lo whispers to her, “for not ratting us out.”
“Even though you ratted me out,” she finishes. She’s too smart for us.
His eyes narrow. “That’s different.”
“I hope it is,” she whispers back.
“It is,” he says adamantly. “You’re doing the right thing.”
She nods, and then Ryke returns with a bowl of double fudge ice cream. He places it in her hands and then brushes the popcorn off the cushion before sitting next to her.
Lo kisses my cheek, tearing my gaze off them and onto him. I like this view better.
I smile. “Do you think Rose is swiping her V-card tonight?”
“Most definitely.”
We all stay quiet as we watch a few bands perform in Times Square. I rest my head on Lo’s shoulder, and thirty minutes must past before noises escalate…from outside.
“He was not flirting with me. Your definition is wrong.”
That is one-hundred percent Rose’s fierce voice.
“What the hell?” Lo says. He finds the remote on my lap and mutes the television.
On cue, the door breezes open.
Dressed in an expensive tux, Connor holds open the door while Rose stomps ahead in five-inch winter booties, a black cocktail dress, and white fur coat. “To flirt,” Connor recites, “to behave in a way that shows sexual attraction. You can take my definition or we can consult Merriam-Webster, though mine is more accurate.”
I whisper under my breath to Lo, “I think Rose is still a virgin.”
“Good call.”
“I’m so good at picking up signs,” Rose retorts, still in a verbal battle with Connor. “I know when someone is flirting with me, Richard.”
He shuts the door, hardly upset by whatever happened. He wears only amusement in his deep blue eyes the longer Rose huffs and puffs like a wolf ready to blow down a pig’s house. And then he speaks in fluent French, so effortlessly that the words sound like golden honey off his tongue.
She replies back in angry French.
It sounds violent.
They face each other like they’re dueling. “All they need are some wands,” I whisper to Lo.
“I’ll never understand Ravenclaws,” he tells me. Connor and Rose would belong to the smartest house in the wizarding world. No question. Before the sorting hat even touched their heads, it’d scream Ravenclaw!
“Luna Lovegood is pretty cool, and she’s from Ravenclaw,” I say as Rose arches her back and steps nearer.
Connor laughs at something she said in French, his million-dollar grin too bright to contain.
Lo says, “Only because Luna Lovegood likes the other houses just as much as her own.”
I look between Rose and Connor. Even though they’re so smart, they spend so much time in our realm of being.
They’re my favorite Ravenclaws that ever were.
“Connor doesn’t believe in magic,” Lo reminds me.
“I think Rose could convince him.”
“Maybe.” Lo raises his voice so they can hear him. “Shouldn’t you both be at a hotel right now?” He doesn’t add having sex but the idea is silently stated. At least…to me it is.