“People are dumb,” Lydia responded. I mean, she wasn’t wrong even though she was.
“You have a point,” Zach nodded. “Yet you’re still wrong.”
We were picking the superpowers the world needed to bestow on us anytime now. It was fun and also involved a lot of judgement when other people chose wrong. Hell, maybe this was what we should always be doing.
Case in point, Lydia leveling Zach with a skeptical look and telling him, “Your ideal power can also be accomplished withhairspray.I mean, really? Perfectly styled hair,” Lydia laughed. “That’s not even a real power.”
“No, self-styling hair,” Zach corrected like it was a very important distinction. “And it automatically changes based on your outfit.” Basically, he always wanted his hair to look good.
“So gay,” Joey muttered and I nodded along.
Zach pointed a finger at me. “Offensive.”
“Yes, normally I’m all for being so gay,” I replied, raising my hands in defense. “But come on, man! The better powers are right there for the taking. Super strength, fireballs, telekinesis.”
“Magneto, Wolverine, Superman,” Joey listed, stating heroes rather than powers, but still, close enough.
I sat next to Luke, duh. Zach was across from us with the ladies, and Joey was on the other side of Luke. Some of us were talking. Which meant all of us but Luke.
Luke kept staring at where the baseball team sat, frown on his face. I’d knock my leg into his and he’d pull his gaze away and glance at me, send me a smile, eat his food for a minute, and then go back to staring at the baseball team.
“Still going with invisibility,” Lydia said after a moment.
“The only benefit to being invisible would be watching stuff other people do,” Alicia reasoned. “And as you hate other people, why would you be interested in spending more time around them?” She could get away with questioning her girlfriend because she had this fond smile on her face, like she was trying to figure out another piece of the Lydia puzzle.
“I don’t want to turn invisible,” Lydia clarified. “I want to turnother peopleinvisible.” She nodded decisively, then decided that wasn’t enough. “Mute them too,” she added.
We all considered that for a moment.
“That makes more sense,” Alicia said, nudging her girlfriend with an arm.
Yeah, no need to worry about Lydia suddenly coming down with a fever or a soul. And that would be a really useful power. We could just turn the rest of the baseball team invisible and then Luke would… still probably stare at the spot where they should be sitting.
I put my head on his shoulder for a moment and my hand on his thigh. His hand found mine and his face nuzzled against mine and it felt like he was back at the table. For about two seconds.
“Overrated,” Zach told Joey when I tuned back into the conversation. “An accurate gaydar as a superpower sounds useful, but there’s already going up to a person and flirting with them and then seeing if they’re into it.”
There were so many things wrong with that, but everyone else was busy telling Zach that, so I didn’t have to.
I looked at Luke. His brow was furrowed in that special way of his where there was a problem he just couldn’t work out, so he kept thinking about it and thinking about it and getting more and more furrow-y. It was adorasad. Adorable because aww, sad because I didn’t want him to worry.
“What about you Ryan?” asked my bestie Alicia.
“Luke,” I said promptly.
Lydia held up a hand, stopping anyone else from speaking. “Don’t ask for clarification, let’s just accept Luke as his superpower.”
“No, I meant, Luke, hi, hello, we’re having a fascinating conversation over here,” I informed him, elbowing him gently, then feeling bad because he winced and apparently that wasn’t gentle at all. “My superpower would be talking animals into things,” I told everyone.
Luke turned to me. “Talking to animals?” he asked.
“I guess.” That would be involved but… “I mean more like controlling them.”
Don’t judge me! I wanted what I wanted. In this case, animal minions.
“Terrifying,” Lydia said, sounding almost proud. “Wow, you out terrified me.”
I raised a finger and poked Luke in the face. He looked at me for a moment, gave me a distracted smile, and went back to staring.
