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Once on, a feeling of relief rolled through my shoulders. Ali was right; I had taken them all off and put them in the cup holder for safekeeping while I lotioned my hands. I must have gotten caught up in more messages and forgot them when leaving his car.
At least I had my bracelets and scrunchies still on my wrists. I didn’t forget everything.
My phone buzzed multiple times in a row as soon as I closed the car door. Another text, another favor, another upset customer. All day, every day.
Max M.:Thank you! Alana is speaking to me again now that you showed her that I wasn’t behind the Fairy Godmother posts! I don’t want to know who was, just grateful my best friend is back.
Ana S:Any update on my wicked sister? She stole my dress idea for prom!
Jacqueline:Thank you so much for connecting me with Gus! This will work out perfectly.
My fingers flew over my phone as I walked back to the firepit. By the time I got there, Malia had appeared out of nowhere, taking my chair, drinking my root beer.
“Move, witch,” I seethed. She looked up at me, her dark eyeliner smudged around her eyes from a long day. Either that or she purposefully did it. I wasn’t sure.
We stared at each other, neither one of us moving. Ultimately, I grabbed another chair and tossed it closer to Ali, settling down in it and not looking at her again.
“Did you see it?” she asked as soon as my butt hit the chair.
I didn’t answer. I had too many people to respond to and too little attention span. The sheer number of new clients I had to take on to afford the repairs on my car was astronomical. It took up any free time I had to spare, including having to do work while hanging with my friends.
“She didn’t see it,” Ali answered for me. If it was important, I would have seen it and dealt with it. Therefore, it had to be something dumb.
“You left these in the car,” I replied, ignoring whatever it was I didn’t see as I tossed him a bag of Skittles. His eyes brightened as he caught them, ripping the bag open as soon as he could and dumping a handful in his mouth.
“Here’s breaking news even we’re shocked by. We have dirt on the commander of the Tellers, Una Nielsen. If you are a varsity soccer player, you heard the news in person as Una leaked it herself. But it looks like we have a nepo baby on our hands, Fairy Tale High. Una is the daughter of Coach Andersen, the assistant varsity soccer coach. Who knew? Certainly not us or anyone we’ve spoken to…” Malia read off her phone.
The second she said my name, I snapped my head up and away from my phone, glowering as she continued through the whole post.
“Commander of the Tellers? Where does she come up with junk like that?” I mumbled.
Ali chuckled and sat back in his chair. “Man, I love the Fairy Godmother. Such a way with words,” he said at the same time as me.
I wanted to chuck my soda can at him, but instead, I took a deep breath and opened the social media app to read the post for myself. I didn’t bother with the comments; I already knew what they would say.
“Whatever,” I said, putting the phone down and grabbing another root beer out of the cooler. With the cooler and a box full of random snacks that Ali always restocked, there was no reason to go inside the house to hang out. If we needed to be indoors, we went to Ali’s. Outdoor weather, we chilled here.
Malia’s house was off limits, for her own personal reasons.
“How did it take them this long to realize that he was your dad?” Ali asked, crunching on a chip now.
That got all three of us to laugh. Most people from Teller already knew. They just didn’t care. The Fairview kids, though? They thought it meant something.
“Did the Fairy Godmother really call you a nepo baby? Like that’s supposed to, what? Change things? Like you’re out there using your dad’s job to your advantage?” Malia twisted the pop tab on her can around and around until it was just broken enough where she could flick it off with her finger.
I shrugged. “As if being an assistant soccer coach is a job worthy of me exploiting.”
Ali pointed to the house behind us. “Hey, at least it was enough to get you this place.”
I didn’t follow his line of sight. I knew what was back there. A house needing some repairs, but otherwise livable. Even if it barely had any furniture inside of it. It wasn’t much, but it was our home. New to us, but in the neighborhood I’d lived in and out of my whole life.
“Divorce settlements help. Especially when it’s from a Fairview queen,” I whispered, kicking some burnt ash back toward the fire pit.
Malia giggled. “Now, is that any way to talk about your ex-stepmother?”
“She was wicked.”
Malia shook her head. “Girl, you got it all wrong. She was royalty.We’rethe wicked ones.”
