Yet, here he was. He was even hotter than his avatar. His jawline was laughably chiseled for a teenager, and he looked like he played sports. Beyond that, Alex felt like she knew him. He was the only person she had ever felt close to in VR.
Staying in bed would be so much easier than running into either of them, especially since she knew she wasn’t going to talk to them. Yep, that was the best course of action.
Jollies poked Alex’s nose. “Hey! Aren’t you even going to ask me about it?”
Alex laughed as she tried to look Jollies in the eye. “No, I’m not since I don’t care which boy was asking about me.”
Jollies grasped her heart and mimed dying and falling out of the air. She lay crumpled on Alex’s lap. “How could you not care?” she squeaked. “Two boys are madly in love with you, and you don’t care who they are?”
“Nope. Not even a little bit.”
“You’re no fun,” the pixie said as she walked down the length of Alex’s leg. “Also, I noticed you haven’t put your blindfold back on. And Manny’s nowhere around. You’re getting better at using your eyes, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, a lot better. I’m not getting headaches anymore. Sometimes there’s still too much detail, and my brain gets kinda wonky, and everything goes fuzzy. And I still don’t know how to do any of the crazy stuff that dragons do with their eyes. But it’s loads better.”
Alex’s HUD pinged, indicating she had received a message. Her heart skipped a beat as she realized it was probably her parents responding to her. “Hold on, Jollies, I think my parents just messaged me.”
But it wasn’t them.
Alex opened the message, and her heart sank—not because she was disappointed that it wasn’t from her parents, but because it was from Jim.
The message read, What are you up to today?
Alex wasn’t certain how to reply. On the one hand, she wanted to see Jim more than she had let on since Myrddin had suddenly introduced him from out of nowhere. On the other, Alex was terrified of sitting down and talking with him.
After taking much longer than she thought reasonable to respond, she texted, Nothing much. How about u?
Jim texted back. Just going for a walk in the field after breakfast. Want to come with?
Now Alex had to think.
A walk sounded nice.
It also sounded awful.
So much could go wrong. What if she said something stupid or blurted something that made Jim uncomfortable? Why was all this so hard?
Yeah, a walk sounds good.
Jim sent a smiley face and responded, Cool. I’ll see you at the field at a quarter past twelve.
Alex’s heart skipped a beat. Not only was he hot, smart, and capable, but he was also considerate about time, one of Alex’s biggest pet peeves. This was definitely not a good idea.
Jollies looked at Alex, a grin on her face. “Why do you look so worried all of a sudden?”
Alex cast a disapproving look at Jollies. “What did you tell Jim?”
“Just that you would be spending all day in bed. And that you were dying for some company.”
Alex instantly regretted having spoken to her roommate about how weird it was to see Jim again. She hadn’t considered that the pixie was empathetic, and she’d completely forgotten what Jollies had said about pixies and their feelings.
Alex picked up her pillow and swatted at Jollies as the pixie shrieked with laughter and flew away. “I also told him you were madly in love with him.” She cackled as she flew around Alex’s head.
“Are you serious? Why would you do that?” Alex buried her head in her pillow and shook it. “That is not a cool thing to tell humans,” she whined. “He probably thinks I’m out of my mind and wants to hang out to tell me not to be such a creep.”
“Or maybe he’s going to declare his undying love for you!”
Alex got off the bed and chased Jollies, who shrieked again. Her skin glowed bright pink as she zoomed around the room. “I’m going to kill you, Jollies,” Alex shouted.
Jollies easily evaded Alex. She was just too fast. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” Jollies said after she stopped zipping around. “I might be a pixie, but I’m not tone-deaf. I wasn’t trying to make things more complicated for you. Just a little complicated.”
“Well, you succeeded.”
“When are you guys supposed to hang out?”
Alex looked at her dragon anchor to see the time. “In a few hours,” she said. “And you and I are not on speaking terms right now.”
Jollies flew to Alex’s face and kissed her on the nose. “Hardly,” she said. “We’re on even better speaking terms. I want all the juice on this kid, and when you get back, you’re telling me everything.”
Alex sighed as she collapsed onto her bed. “All right, fine. But you have to promise not to be weird.”
“Promise on my first set of wings,” Jollies agreed as she held her hand behind her back, her fingers crossed.
Alex walked out onto the field. It was a beautiful day. The sky hardly had any clouds in it, and the sun was beaming down. It wasn’t too cool or too warm. This was the kind of day to be outdoors. She wondered if she could take Chine out, or if there was some kind of paperwork that needed to be filled out first.
The time Chine and Alex had spent together so far had been training-related, except the battle they had narrowly won. It couldn’t be weird for Chine and Alex to hang out, though. They were bound together, after all.
Jim was sitting under a tree in the part of the field where it met the forest. Alex wondered if the forest was also part of the Nest. She hadn’t seen it before except from dragonback.
Alex waved at him as she approached, and
