Page 32 of Glitched Fates & Stolen Mates

But I couldn’t do it.

It felt like cheating on him.

Ridiculous, especially since he was with Wren now.

So I’d had two long, celibate years with just me and my hand for company. Two years of cold showers and punishing morning runs.

The oven timer shrieked, making me jump. I pulled out the quiche—perfectly golden, fragrant with herbs and melted cheese—and set it on the counter to cool.

I hit the intercom button. “It’s ready!” I said cheerfully, as naturally as possible.

All too soon, Felix was shuffling into the kitchen with his tiny, shy smile. “Thank you,” he said, nodding to the steaming food.

I headed to the knife rack, selecting my favourite blade. “Can you grab two plates?” I asked him.

Felix opened the plate cupboard. Then froze. A tiny inhalation, barely audible.

He opened the dishwasher next, where the mugs from earlier were waiting for more friends.

Felix laughed, a nervous, choked sound. “Um… where are all the plates?”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s only one in the cupboard. And there’s normally like… thirty or something, right? Still left over from the hotel?”

I inspected the cupboard myself. There, in the dead centre of the middle shelf—usually brimming with ceramic—was one single plate.

I ripped open the other cupboards. No saucers. No bowls. There weren’t even any baking trays or casserole dishes.

Priya. That witch was going to get a piece of my mind later. I imagined her carrying load after load of crockery to some random room in the hotel yesterday evening, chuckling to herself.

“How strange,” I said. “Priya must have decided everything needed a deep clean, I suppose.”

Felix stared at me. “Priya hates cleaning.”

“Flynn, then? Or maybe Rory needed them for some reason. Maybe he smashed all of Theo’s, and had to steal ours to replace them,” I tried to joke.

“Maybe,” Felix agreed, but he looked puzzled.

“Anyway, you eat some first, then I’ll have the plate.”

“Oh!” Felix shuffled on the spot, teeth worrying his lip. “No, no, you go first.”

“I insist.”

“But you heated it up—”

“I can wait. I’m not that hungry.”

“I couldn’t possibly—”

Our stomachs rumbled at exactly the same time, loud enough to echo off the kitchen tiles. We both burst out laughing, the sound bouncing between us like a shared secret.

And then, because Felix was smiling, madness struck me.

“Hey, why don’t we just sit at the counter and share the plate?”

Felix’s eyes widened behind those devastating glasses. “Oh… sure!” He said too brightly, and guilt ate at my starving insides. There was no way he wanted to sit with me, but he was far too polite to refuse.