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Arlene was doing that face again, but I bet if I texted Ben, he’d be shocked, too. No sane person expected tea in their muffins. I would not be convinced otherwise.

“I do an extra strong mint tea, with about 30 bags, reduce it, and I add it to the batter of the muffins,” Arlene explained. At least she wasn’t teasing about it. She tried to every now and then, and it just didn’t work. We had a system here. I teased, and she blushed. The system worked. “I actually discovered it because I’d run out of mint extract one day, but there was plenty of mint tea in one of the cabinets for some reason? I think Dylan was trying to do some kind of cleansing diet or something. He went through a phase. Anyway, I experimented, and it turns out that they taste much better this way.”

I could not compare, but these muffins tasted amazing, so I accepted it as truth and kept enjoying the treat.

Arlene’s roommate came back down from his room as I was wiping the breadcrumbs into one of the napkins she’d procured earlier. It reminded me I needed napkins for my place. Maybe I could get some reusable ones. I’d have to look into it.

“Hey, Dylan.” I nodded in greeting. “I’m not sharing.”

“Yes, you are.” Arlene shook her head.

I winked.

I wasn’t sure I’d won him over completely after just hanging out with him a couple of times on his way out of the place they shared. He smiled at me and stopped to give me what I guessed he thought of as a playful shove, though. It was progress.

Rome wasn’t built in one day, and all that.

“Whatever.”

Dylan rolled his eyes, but he sat down to eat one of the muffins. I guessed he wasn’t in a hurry to leave this time.

He moaned around the first bite he took, too. It reminded me of Ben. Gosh, both of them could be so over the top—Dylan when he was in the right mood; Ben, all of the fucking time.

“Did you see the new Zelda game that’s coming out tomorrow?” Dylan asked.

For a second, I thought he was asking Arlene, which piqued my interest—we’d talked hobbies, and she’d said nothing about gaming.

Oh, but I had. I guessed Arlene had told him.

“Yeah, I preordered it ages ago.” I nodded. I’d been watching every early review I could find, too. The ones that weren’t made by incels, at least. So many incels in gaming spaces. “Are you getting it, too?”

“Duh. I’ve been playing the last one non-stop this week to prepare.”

So that launched us into a talk I wasn’t really expecting to have with the most ambivalent person toward me I’d ever encountered.

I wasn’t complaining, but it was something I noticed. How could I not?

Arlene seemed way too pleased with herself from the counter. She was pretending to clean up the area of the kitchen where she’d dropped a bunch of flour—and unfairly blamed me for it—but I saw through her. She’d orchestrated this.

I mean, I couldn’t be upset by it. We didn’t talk much about him, but it was getting annoying—knowing that there was someone close to Arlene who had decided I was not good enough, or whatever it was. I didn’t think delving into figuring out why it was exactly that they’d decided to make me the enemy would help.

It was much better for everyone to just go with the flow and accept this Zelda-shaped olive branch—Master Sword?

I never had anyone to talk about it, anyway, so it would be cool if I befriended Dylan.

Arlene had mentioned something about a shitty boyfriend, too. I had a few things to say about it, and I couldn’t until we were close enough to not make it weird.

I breathed out when Dylan eventually left, though. I really had nothing against him—not even when he was fully stuck into the “we don’t like Claude” club—but I’d come here on a mission.

Arlene had wanted to meet yesterday and spend the entire weekend together, but I’d had plans. By plans, I meant I spent all afternoon drinking way too many lemonades with Gay while she helped me through… stuff. I’d postponed it long enough, but I’d needed someone who actually knew what it was like to set my head on straight.

She was more than happy to do it. Probably way happier than she should’ve been, too.

It was a good thing that it wasn’t our first time talking, or I wasn’t sure I would’ve been too thrilled for a repeat.

The point was, she’d helped me come up with a plan of action, but that plan of action involved Arlene and I having the place for ourselves.

“Hey, let me go to the bathroom real quick, and I’ll meet you in your room.”