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“Here, hold these.” She handed me the muffins in their perfect little basket and held onto my arm while she reached down to adjust one of the straps on her stiletto heel. The top strap sat three inches above her ankles, drawing attention to her long, shapely legs, but also creating an itchy spot right behind the strap. I’d learned the hard way not to ask her why she wore something that made her itch.
Makayla had two fashion modes: sexy workout and night clubbing. You wouldn’t even suspect baking was on her radar unless you happened to be the recipient of one of her creations. Hot Betty Crocker, that’s who she was. And while that made her every man’s dream, I had a feeling she had a hard time connecting with other women. Especially when she brought them delicious treats and then talked about her five a.m. cross-fit workout.
Done fixing the strap, Makayla straightened and ran a hand through her long honey-brown tresses, fluffing the back a little. “Jenny doesn’t hate you, and she’d never call you a loser.”
“To my face, no. But she’s under Sadie’s little spell now that they’re roommates. So, you should give up on trying to make everyone in the world like you and focus on finding friends who aren’t… Sadie.” I shuddered. It was an involuntary response to invoking the name of the evil robot who lived here.
Makayla shook her head at me. “I like her, and just because you don’t—” She cut off abruptly as the door was opened by the aforementioned robot. “Hi, Sadie!”
“We were just talking about you,” I added, putting on what I hoped was my most relaxed smile. Sadie actually raised my stress-levels just by being in the same room as me, but she wasn’t allowed to know that. She’d weaponize it. And then sell the recipe to other sadists. “These are for you.” I held out the muffins and watched Sadie’s thinly-veiled irritation before she took them out of my hands and turned her attention to my girlfriend.
“Thank you, Makayla. I know Denver’s not the one who made these.” Her tone was friendly, but I didn’t miss her quick perusal of Makayla’s outfit before her eyes came back up. Besides the strappy heels, Makayla was sporting a red mini dress with shoulder cut-outs. And Sadie was silently judging her for it. Was I silently judging Sadie for judging Makayla? Yes. Yes, I was.
Sadie could rock an outfit like that any time she wanted to. She just didn’t want to. Sadie’s look was more… frumpy bad-girl. Take her sandy blonde hair, for instance. She had a shoulder-length blunt cut that would have been pretty killer if she ever styled it. But did she? No. She usually kept it back with one of the many black elastic hair ties she always kept around her wrist. Seriously, Sadie was not in a position to judge anyone else for their fashion choices.
“Denver helped stir.” Makayla gave me a slight elbow nudge, a reminder to be nice.
“I’m sure he did. Jenny’s not home, but she’ll be back any minute. Do you two want to come in?” Sadie held the door open wider with a sudden hopeful expression on her face, as if a visit from us was exactly what she’d been dreaming of. It was weird. Super weird. This had to be a trap. Declining was on the tip of my tongue, but Makayla pulled me in after her, excited not to have to invite herself in for once.
“We can’t stay long. Denver’s taking me to dinner. It’s this place—” Makayla abruptly cut off and turned to look at something. “Aw, he’s so cute. Is it a he?”
“Yes.”
I ducked around Makayla to see who was so cute, and froze. A small green parrot clung upside-down on the side of a gigantic cage. When he saw he had our attention, he used his beak to turn upright and then bobbed up and down on his perch-thing. Not cute. Parrots were the opposite of cute. I didn’t even like the sound of their feathers ruffling. Or their squawking. Especially their squawking, and this looked like a bird who could squawk. A pet preferred by pirates shouldn’t be any normal person’s companion. Just saying.
“When did you get a parrot? Isn’t he gorgeous?” Makayla gushed. “He’s so green, but then he has that little spot of yellow on top of his head. Oh, I just love him.”
I nodded along and avoided eye contact with the thing in question. Which was sort of hard as I couldn’t tell where his beady eyes were looking. Maybe he was focused on the window across from him or maybe he was challenging me to a stare-off. It could be either of those. Or both.
Sadie opened his cage and reached inside to get him, and “whatareyoudoing!” blurted out of my mouth without my permission.
She paused and glanced back at me, looking amused. Amused, but not surprised. Why was that?
Ahh. Because somehow, she knew. It was all coming together now. Her eagerness to get us in here. Her satisfaction at my discomfort. It was all because she somehow knew I didn’t like parrots. Jenny must have told her.
Well, the joke was on her because parrots lived for like fifty years. That was a big commitment for a practical joke that was not even panning out because I was just fine—mostly fine—okay, I was trying not to freak out because the bird was coming closer, thanks to Sadie holding him out to me on her fingers.
“Heavens to Betsy. Get that thing away from me.”
Sadie, of course, ignored this request. “He must like you. He’s never this quiet.” She held still while the parrot balanced on one foot and scratched under his wing.
Makayla giggled. “Did you say Heavens to Betsy? That’s adorable. You just got fifty percent cuter.”
“Or fifty percent dumber.”
I glared at Sadie. “Good comeback.”
“Sorry, did I hurt your feelings?”
“Not possible. I literally don’t care what you think of me.”
“Good, because I have to tell you, you’re using the word literally wrong.”
“I used it wrong on purpose because I know you hate it.”
“WOOHOO!” the parrot suddenly squawked. “HIGH FIVE. TELL HER, BOY. LOVE EM AND LEAVE EM.”
Sadie and I both paused to stare at the bird. It was such a weird insertion into our conversation that it made me feel embarrassed for him, until I reminded myself it was A BIRD. He literally had no idea what he was saying. Okay, maybe I did need to dial it back on the word literally. Dang Sadie. She ruined everything.
