Page 106 of Prey It By Ear

Speaking of Fitzy, he’s at the far end of the couch. He’s got his laptop open, but instead of a proper table, he’s balancing it on one knee, legs stretched out and feet resting in my lap, which is both annoying and somehow comforting. His fingers fly over the keys and I don’t know if he’s doing work or some crazy revenge plot shit. Either way, I’m amused as hell by his tiny men’s athletic shorts, tied-off sleeveless dress shirt, and knee-high anime socks. Each time I think he’s gotten more outrageous, he does something like wear his hair in dual space buns while dressed like he found clothes in the dark.

It’s making him happy, so I don’t really give a fuck if he’s indulging his inner toddler now.

I stare at the wall for a minute and try to will myself back into work mode. This is what Sunday nights are for, by the way. We create a gentle portrait of domesticity: everyone home and accounted for, every voice at a low volume except the TV’s, and me, the world’s most overachieving prey animal, too tired to move but too wound up to relax.

Of course, that’s because we didn’t do any of our work the past forty-eight hours and the weekend is ending, but that doesn’t matter. Friday night, we played poker, although half the table was incapable of keeping a poker face, and the other half was playing for blood. Chessie made rosemary popcorn with Maldon salt and a little bit of lemon zest, and Fitz produced a dish of those bar nuts dusted in five kinds of chili powder. After the third hand, everyone was too busy licking their fingers to hide tells, and the game devolved into who could say the most outrageous bluff while not losing their tongue to spice-induced paralysis. I still won more than I lost, helped by Aubrey spending the last half hour of the tourney accusing Fitz of counting cards while Fitz loudly accused Aubrey of using dragon breath to heat-mark the deck. Nobody could prove anything, and no one cared because everyone was tipsy.

Our chill-time couldn’t have been more perfect, to be honest.

When I woke up Saturday, I had Pred Games practice at eight a.m. because Coach Z lives to punish us. The field was frosted over, and I left a trail of visible breath through every shuttle drill. Zhenga was in rare form, but a little looser around the shoulders now that her secret relationship with Cori was out. Unfortunately, she could still make me want to puke with the sheer energy of her practice routine. The Khan twins watched from the stands, neither of them needling, nagging, or interrogating the lioness about her family drama. It was a minor miracle, and I spent half the practice waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it didn’t. The only shoes that dropped were my own when it ended, and I limped back home barefoot.

I spent the afternoon gardening with Rennie, which, if you haven’t tried it, is like taking his class while flirting constantly in French. The gargoyle can coax anything into thriving, and he didn’t judge that I forgot to water a seedling for days. Instead, he just moved it quietly to a zone where I’ll see it every morning. My thumbs are not green; they are whatever the opposite of green is, but Rennie acts like every minor effort is a victory. He spent thirty minutes correcting my grip on a root bundle, moving my hand the way a piano teacher would until I could feel the tension in the stem loosen and the whole plant just… settle. It was so patient and so weirdly intimate that I almost started crying.

Then he said, “You are doing well, ma cherie, but you need not squeeze the life out of it,” and I started laughing instead.

After that, I did yoga and acrobatics with Fitz in the courtyard, which means he talked the entire time and I helped him not crash a lot. We made it three minutes into our flow before he cracked a joke about my pigeon pose, which made me laugh so hard I lost my balance and face-planted. He immediately tried to help, but his idea of help was to demonstrate a handstand and then fall on top of me so we were both laughing and clutching our stomachs, completely helpless. The rest of the session devolved into giggling and competitive planking, which I lost by a landslide.

That tiger has insane core muscles, and I will never beat him, I swear to Apollo.

I took a very necessary shower, and then I helped Chessie with dinner. He put me in charge of chopping shallots, which I did badly, and he fixed my grip twice but never said a word about it. Instead, he focused on teaching me the difference between a dice and a mince, and how to avoid weeping the onion. We made a pan sauce together, Chess’s hands guiding mine on the spoon, and the kitchen smelled so good that even Felix wandered in to ask what we were making.

Dusk came quickly, and we all ate on the terrace, under a string of fairy lights, and there was a real-life, honest-to-god moment where I forgot the world was on fire and just existed with my people. There was a movie later—a classic comedy rewatch, all of us snuggled up in a lump of bodies and blankets—and then some extremely satisfying post-movie activities, which left me wrecked and slightly starry-eyed.

This morning, Felix had me up at dawn again, which should be illegal, and dragged me out for a run before I was awake enough to object. My knees hated it, but it made him happy, and when we got back, he pressed his cold nose to my cheek and told me I was the toughest bunny ever. Afterwards, I crashed in the archives with Aubrey for two hours, helping him re-sleeve old books and relabel spines while he muttered about students with no respect for history. I liked the smell of the stacks and the way the light came in through the big windows at mid-morning.

Now it’s Sunday night, the dinner dishes are done, and I have a stack of homework that isn’t even artsy—dry Diplomacy reading, emails, a note to myself to deal with Creative writing, and the one task I’ve been putting off all weekend. I have to email the Heathers about Friday’s class project, or they’ll complain to the professor and then weaponize the delay against me.

Just thinking about it makes my stomach hurt.

I close my eyes and listen to the room to bring myself back to calm. On TV, a detective is monologuing to the vicar’s widow about the properties of foxglove. Chessie is frowning at his board. Felix is chewing the end of his pen. Aubrey sets his stack of forms aside and checks the clock on his phone. Rennie is humming under his breath, the tune half-familiar. Fitz waggles his toes in my lap, then types at light speed, probably hacking a missile silo or something. I breathe in through my nose, let the scent of lemon oil, paper, and old books wash through me, and exhale the dread. It almost works, but I’ve been dreading this so much that I’ve built it up too much in my mind.

Opening another notebook, I stare at the first line, then at the highlighter, then at the TV, and then at the marker in Chess’s hand. I look at my feet in consternation, and then, finally, I flip to a clean page, click my pen, and write at the top in red ink.

Dear Pink and Gold: I hope this email finds you both well and free of facial paralysis from your latest round of injections.

I’d love to start with truth like that, but it will only makes things worse, so I clear my throat and say, “Okay, I’m going to have to email the Heathers before it’s too late, or they’ll drag me to the dean for noncompliance with group scheduling or whatever.”

The effect of my words is instantaneous. My crazy tiger closes his laptop with a satisfying snap and swings his feet off my lap, sitting up so fast the couch vibrates under me. His twin puts his red pen down and turns his whole chair, arms folded, attention fixed. Chessie freezes, underlining something in his ‘Comms and Coordination’ column while Rennie looks up, one eyebrow arched. Aubrey even lowers the top paper on his stack and directs an arctic blue stare straight at me.

Now that I have their attention without flashing them…

I glance at each of them, then at the notepad in my lap, and then reach for my tablet, propping my chin in my hand. “Why do I feel like I’m about to be cross-examined by a starving wolf pack?”

“Because we are invested in your survival,” Fitz says, his voice dead serious. “If you fuck this up, they will never let you live it down. You cannot let Team Bitchy Blondes win.”

“They will not kill me with a bad email, Fitz,” I say, opening the mail app and typing “Barrington,’ into the ‘To’ field. “Worst case, they'll roll their eyes and send a mean reply.”

Chess shakes his head. “They weaponize every interaction. If you give them an inch, they will use it to justify running your reputation through the mud again. Your email will be screenshotted within ten seconds and forwarded to half the Council offspring on campus, if you show even a millimeter of weakness.”

“You must select a location for your meeting that is public, high-traffic, and with at least two cameras within direct line of sight. Also, make certain you phrase nothing as a question; questions invite counter-offers. Do not negotiate with them. State the plan and move on,” Felix says as he points the pen at me.

I blink at the chorus of advice and start typing, narrating under my breath as I go. “Dear Miss Barrington and Miss Erickson: Per the assignment outlined by Professor Asani, I am reaching out to confirm availability for our group meeting⁠—”

Fitz immediately interjects: “No, no, no, you cannot open with a ‘per your assignment’. That’s legalese. They’ll say you were being cold and snooty. I’d rather you say something more fun, obviously, but I get why you can’t. So maybe just… a little less stilted, I guess?”

“Legalese is good; you want them on the defensive. Make them wonder if you ran it past your lawyer, snack size,” Aubrey advises. “That should give them pause.”

I sigh and keep typing, watching the words assemble on the screen in a horrifying patchwork of what-ifs and strategies. Once I get three sentences, I read them aloud and immediately delete the whole thing. “I can’t do this with all of you staring at me. It’s like being the only antelope at a lion brunch.”