Page 43

He tilts his head and the look in his eyes makes my bones go soft. “Perfect,” he whispers.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “Sloane makes really good hats, huh?”

I return his gaze. Something about the darkness makes it easier to meet his eye. “The best.”

“Ready to go?” Kashvi calls, and comes around the driver’s side.

“Yep,” I say, shaking myself, and take the dice back. “Look what Logan brought.”

Her eyes widen. “Whoa. That’s generous.”

“It’s my contribution to the project.”

“You’re always such a gentleman.” She cuts her eyes to me. “He’s trying to get a cut of our profits.”

“That’s what I said!” I cry.

Logan groans and throws his hands in the air. “I try to do a nice thing, and this is what I get. I’m going home!”

“Sorry, Logan!” Kashvi calls at his back. “We’ll have our people call your people!”

I climb into the car, smiling, but the weight of the dice on my lap isn’t as heavy as the weight of my thoughts. I want more of whatever’s going on between Logan and me, even if I shouldn’t.

Chapter Fifteen

I don’t even knock on Kashvi’s door when I arrive at her house for the game Saturday. I’ve only been coming here for a few weeks now, but it’s starting to feel like a second home. I push the door open—my hands full of jewelry-making supplies for after the game—and say a quick hello to Kashvi’s mom before heading to the basement.

The rest of the group is already there, and they let out a cheer when I arrive.

“Yay, you’re here!” Kashvi exclaims. “We were just talking about costumes—Sanjiv came up with the perfect idea.”

“We came up with it together,” he says.

Ideas for the costume contest at the comic store took over the group chat as soon as we left the diner last night, and it’s been a constant debate since I woke up this morning. We quickly decided we wanted to do a group costume instead of dressing individually, which is great for me sinceI don’t have any ideas. I’m shocked to hear that we might already have a concept, because this group is seriously picky. By tena.m. they’d already dismissed all superhero and video game characters.

“Okay.” Kashvi puts her hands out to me like she’s about to announce huge news. “Have you ever heard of the ’80s D&D cartoon?”

I glance around the room in confusion. I don’t know current cartoons, let alone ones from decades before I was born.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mark tells me. “I hadn’t either since it’s ancient.”

“That’s no excuse. We should all know our history,” Sloane says seriously.

“Here, look at this,” Kashvi says, and holds up her phone to a still shot of an animated series. There’s a party of six people dressed vaguely like wizards, barbarians, and fighters. There’s even a baby unicorn. “Wouldn’t it be great if we each chose one character and dressed up together? It would be so meta to have our group go as the original cartoon party!”

“I’d like to point out that no one is going to understand this costume idea. We’re going to look like six people in miscellaneous fantasy costumes,” Logan says.

“The judges will be old and they’ll get the reference. That’s all that matters,” Sanjiv argues. “It’s perfect—we can dress up as the entire party and no one is left out.”

“I already called the little kid barbarian,” Sloane says. “I have an old unicorn stuffed toy I can bring to complete the look.”

I nod and scan the picture. With that character gone, thereare three male characters and two female characters left…which does work out perfectly for our group. There’s just one problem.

I point to the two female characters. “These are the costumes we’d need to wear? It’s forty degrees out!” One of the characters has on a very short tunic and thigh-high boots, while the other is basically wearing a fur bikini.

Kashvi grimaces. “I know, it’s totally sexist. Of course the women are wearing the most impractical costumes possible. If you want, I can be Diana.” She points to the one in the bikini. “Assuming my parents let me out of the house.”