Page 73 of Dating and Dragons
“Have you…said anything to him about it?”
She bolts upright in her seat. “Oh god no!” She looks horrified at the very idea. “He better never know. It’s not like I’m planning on acting on any of it. Can you imagine?”
My stomach roils with nausea. “Right. Totally weird.”
“I know he’s just a friend—I gave up on all that long ago. And it’s not like I’m in love with him or something.” She turns and grins at me. “But I wouldn’t mind a few minutes alone in the dark with him.”
One look at my expression has her cackling. She turns down my street. “Calm down, Quinn, I’m just kidding!”
“I’m surprised, that’s all.” I take a slow breath and try to calm myself enough that my voice doesn’t quake. “I knew you really liked him as a friend, but I had no idea about this.”
“Good, that was the plan. Did I ever tell you that we tried to recruit another girl from my French class to the group before you transferred, and Sloane nixed her? It turned out Mark had had a crush on her for years and Sloane could see the writing on the wall.” She shrugs. “At least a girl can daydream.”
She pulls into my driveway, and I surge out of the car before she can say one more thing about Logan. I fight to keep my expression as normal as possible, but I need to get far away from this conversation ASAP. I thought things werealready a mess with him, but that was nothing compared to Kashvi having feelings for him.
“I’ll text you to figure out a time to get together and work on more pieces, okay?” She leans over the passenger seat and gives me the brightest smile, like she doesn’t have a care in the world. “We’re gonna take over the world!”
She drives away and my vision goes hazy as I watch her car in the distance, feeling like I just got punched in the head. Kashvi likes Logan? Kashvi has secretly liked Logan thiswholetime? How could this situation get any worse? I reconsider all the times we’ve talked about Logan. She’s always been complimentary about him, saying how he’s a good guy or kind or a gentleman, but I never thought anything of it. And she said he was cute the evening after the comic fest, but I was so caught up in myself that I assumed she was only picking up on my emotions. I think I might be sick.
It’s happening all over again, just like it happened with Paige. Kashvi’s going to hate me if she finds out about Logan and me. It will affect not only the game but also our friendship. No more jewelry-making, no more sleepovers. Maybe no more friendship at all. Something has to give. I can’t lose any more friends.
I walk into the house to find it in chaos. Andrew is racing down the stairs, Dad is putting two different shoes on his feet, and Mom is glaring down at her phone.
“Uh, hi?” I say.
Mom glances up and sighs with relief. “Thankgod,I was calling you right now. Your grandma fell again—we’re heading to the hospital.”
The rest of the evening only gets worse, and that’sreallysaying something. It turns out Grandma fell in the bathroom and didn’t have the strength to get back up. Luckily her phone was close enough for her to call Dad in the hopes he’d come over to help. Much to her annoyance, he called the ambulance instead.
Trips to the ER are never fun, but add in a feisty old woman who doesn’t want to be there and things get much rougher. I was scared Dad would need to be admitted by the end, he was so frazzled and exhausted. Luckily, Grandma didn’t break any bones. I thought the drama was finished by the time my parents dropped Andrew and me off at the house that evening, but I guess they had “a talk” with her when they got her home. I woke up Tuesday to the news that she’d officially agreed to move out of her house but wasnothappy about it.
So now we’re all here Tuesday evening to check on her and start packing. Describing the mood asuncomfortabledoesn’t do it justice. I know my parents could use the moral support, but honestly, I can’t keep my thoughts focused solely on family. As soon as I found out Grandma needed to go to the hospital, I texted Logan. It wasn’t even a conscious decision. I got the news, climbed in the back of the car, and texted him like it was the most natural thing in the world. But should it be? I should’ve texted the whole group, but I didn’t want to hear from all of them. I only wanted to hear from him.
Of course it’s easy to rationalize it—Logan is the only onewho has spent time with Grandma, so he deserved to hear it from me. But I know it’s more than that. It’smuchmore, and with the knowledge that Kashvi also has a long-simmering crush on him, my thoughts are spinning like pinwheels as I try to decide how to handle everything.
“This is entirely too much fussing,” Grandma says from her armchair. “You don’t all need to be here checking onme.”
“Barbara, why don’t you just rest?” Mom says in her softest voice. “I’ll make you a cup of tea and we can put some music on.”
Grandma glares at her. “Oh please, you just want me to be quiet.”
Andrew raises his eyebrows at me as if to sayno argument there.I muffle a smile. This evening it’s “all hands on deck,” as Dad likes to call it, so both Andrew and I were required to come to Grandma’s right after school. I figured Andrew would be his usual brooding self, but he hasn’t complained at all. And it’s nice to have another person here to lighten up the bickering.
“Eric, put down that vase,” Grandma snaps. “I got it in Barcelona and it’s one of a kind.”
Dad heaves a sigh and presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “Mom, it’s okay. We’ll be sure to carefully pack everything you want to take with you to your new place.”
She huffs. “I’ve fallen once. I’m sure you’ve fallen too. Everyone slips once in a while!”
“But when we slip, we don’t break a hip,” Andrew says super helpfully.
“You shut it with your rhyming, young man.”
“Andrew’s not wrong, though,” Dad continues. “And youknow this isn’t the first time. You don’t have the balance you once did. Quinn told us how you fell and dropped plates while she was here—”
“Quinn!” Grandma turns to me, her mouth agape. “You didn’t! I thought that was our secret.”
“We didn’t agree to that,” I mumble.