Page 64 of Dating and Dragons
It’s taken my family six weeks to unpack and organize our new house, but it’s finally in a state where I’m not embarrassed to have people over. I asked Kashvi and Sloane to come before our game Saturday because I knew we’d have the house to ourselves. Mom and Dad are spending the morning with Grandma, and Andrew is with his soccer team all day, which is perfect so I don’t have to worry about him hitting on Kashvi the entire time.
Sloane is curled on the couch with their feet tucked up under them, crocheting away. They’re wearing their usual dark jeans and T-shirt, but they’ve started on a new hat design—hats that look like fruit. The lemon hat is adorable, and I’ve already claimed a strawberry one.
Kashvi and I are on the floor on either side of the coffee table, beads and dice spread out all around us. I’m wearing my embroidered jeans again because it’s easier to sit on theground in pants, and it’s finally warm enough for one of my favorite shirts—a black shirt with mushrooms and the phases of the moon screen-printed in gold.
“Is Sanjiv sad not to be here?” I ask as I string a few orange beads for a bracelet.
“Not in the least. He’s too busy sleeping,” Kashvi replies with a smirk. “And we already have plenty of dice pre-drilled, so there’s nothing for him to do.”
“How much more do you still need to make?” Sloaneasks.
“You’ll need to ask Quinn,” Kashvi replies. “It depends entirely on how many more pieces she decides to keep for herself.” She raises an eyebrow at me.
I duck my head in shame. “I’m sorry! But that necklace with the rose quartz and iridescent dice? It was too beautiful to sell!”
“And the d20 earrings? And those three matching bracelets?” Kashvi points to my wrist.
“I know, I know. I’ll stop! I promise I’ll stop—just quit making such cute stuff.”
“As if that’s possible. Oh!” Kashvi puts down the crimping tool she’s holding and claps her hands. “I can’t believe I almost forgot. Look what I found!” She rummages around her supplies and pulls a tiny plastic bag out with a flourish. It’s so small that I have to lean closer to get a good look.
“They’re halfling dice.”
I squeal and pick them up, holding them so Sloane can see as well. They are the tiniest, cutest set of miniature dice I’ve ever seen. These are plum with gold numbering, each no bigger than one of my fingernails.
“Aww! Kashvi, these are perfect!”
“I know, right? Not that I don’t love what we’ve been making, but this would open up so many possibilities we couldn’t do with the standard dice.”
I do a little dance, which basically means I scoot my butt around on the hardwood floors.
Sloane chuckles. “I love dice, don’t get me wrong, but this level of excitement might be over-the-top even for me.”
“But”—Kashvi points at me—“you can’t claim every piece with the miniature dice. I know we’ve had pretty good luck selling at the thrift store downtown, but we’ll never recoup our expenses if we keep everything we make.”
“Fine.” I glance down at my wrists, where I’m wearing a good amount of our merchandise. “They really are gorgeous.”
“Two different people stopped me at the comic fest the other weekend to compliment me,” Kashvi says, and starts working again. “I’m thinking we should drive back to that store to see if they’d be willing to sell our stuff on consignment. That would bring us up to three stores.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea.” I can’t quite muster the enthusiasm I should have, though. I know the likelihood of running into Paige or Caden there a second time is extremely unlikely, but the probability isn’t zero.
“How are you feeling now about everything that happened?” Kashvi asks.
“What happened?” Sloane asks, and puts down their yarn and crochet hook. “I heard something about a run-in with someone from your old school, but I never got the full story.”
I sigh. I should have written a press release afterward and sent it to the whole friend group instead of regurgitating these horrible memories.
“I ran into my ex–best friend there. She had some pretty snide comments to make about my costume, and…” I don’t want to repeat the rest of what she said. That I was responsible for breaking up the last group and that I’d break up this one too. “She said she doubted I’d be able to make new friends here.”
“She’s lucky I wasn’t there,” Kashvi says, her expression vicious. “She would’ve been cowering by the time I was done with her.”
“I had so much I wanted to say, too, but as soon as I saw her, it all disappeared from my brain.”
“It always happens like that,” Sloane says. “I hope she didn’t ruin the trip for you. You did seem a little off.”
Sloane is definitely the quietest one in the group, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t picking up on way more than we realize. I still remember the way they watched Logan when he first saw me in my costume. I wonder what else Sloane has noticed.
I shake my head. “No, I had a great time. It was fun.”