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“Spoken like someone who doesn’t hold two jobs.”
He shook his head. “Constance would disown you.”
“Glad I’m not her kid, then. Better no mom than one who bendsyou to the only shape she can love you in.” I stood, gesturing to the plate I’d discarded, wondering if my words cut him as deep as I’d intended. A lot of layers of dead skin covered that heart of his. “Sorry, this is inedible.”
No way could I get full off six tiny slivers of fish. I craved something decadent and bad for me. Something I had no business eating.
Like Zachary Sun.
No, Fae, the logical side of my brain chided.Like jajangmyeon or pupusas.
The sooner I got that, the better off I’d be.
“It is perfectly nutritious.” He continued chewing with his mouth shut. Thirty-two times each bite. Without fail. “The ideal fuel for your body.”
“Maybe if I were a machine.” Which I seriously suspected he was. “I know my body. And it wants something that will block its arteries to the point where I’ll need acetone to clear them.”
Andras would kill me.
Andras also isn’t here.
He opened his mouth—about to scold me, no doubt—before clapping it shut, then opening it again. “Like what?”
Good question.
Anything beat what I usually stole from the fridge—Vera, Reggie, and Tabby’s gross gluten-free, sodium-free, carb-free, taste-free diet food.
Since I doubted I could handle the consequences of requestinghimon a platter, pupusas needed a solid fifteen minutes to reheat in the air fryer, and my favorite jajangmyeon was all the way in Rockville, I settled for the greasiest thing I could think of.
“Pizza.” I felt my eyes crinkling as I smiled at the memory of wolfing slices down before entering a Broadway show with Dad. “I want a New York-style pizza. Huge, thin-crusted, with enough cheese to sculpt out a life-sized five-year-old.” My mouth watered at the thought. “Actually, make it an eleven-year-old.”
He looked horrified.
As if I’d told him I wanted to eat anactualchild.
So, I figured—why not push the envelope a little more? Zach was so deeply offended by the pleasures of life, I wanted to make him try them.
See what all the fuss was about.
I folded my arms, leaning back. “When was the last time you ate pizza?”
His brows crashed together as he sifted through the neatly organized files of his memory. “Third… no, fourth grade, I suppose. Trevor McKee’s birthday party. Flown in from Sicily, yet quite subpar.”
I tried flicking through his empty desk calendar with a chopstick, shaking my head. “Oh, Zach.”
“I know. Why not fly in chefs and ingredients from Italy?”
“We’re ordering pizza right now. And it better be so oily, we need four towels beneath the box to soak up the stains. And…” I tossed my hands in the air, lighting up like the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. “…and beers. Shitty, watery college beer.”
“Belgian beers,” he countered.
I shook my head. “Sorry, you’re gonna slum it up with me today.”
“Lovely.” He pressed his mouth into a thin line. “What’s next in my bingo card? A trip to Aldi and a fentanyl overdose?”
“Aldi is the shit.”
“The‘the’is silent, I suppose?”
