I meet her eyes and she smiles slightly. “You’re welcome,” I reply, turning my hand to touch her palm to mine. She gasps slightly at the touch. “Brat.” My grin is full as hers widens before she huffs out an amused breath.
“You are so annoying,” she says, taking her hand out of mine and using it to push me gently in the shoulder. We leave the car and wander up the stairs to the apartment.
“I’m going to lock myself in here with my Molecular Cell Biology textbook. Don’t even think about bothering me,” she says, grabbing her bag on her way toward her bedroom. I give her a silent salute as I collapse onto the couch.
“I’m serious. Not even in an emergency. Even if there’s a fire.”
I chuckle at her movie reference. “Got it, brat.”
Satisfied, Danika shuts the door behind her and I know she’s in for the night. I flip through the movies on netflix for a few minutes but nothing is pulling my attention so I turn the TV off. Grabbing my phone, I decide to call the mastermind of this whole thing.
Margot picks up on the first ring.
“You haven’t killed each other yet, have you?”
“Hello to you, too,” I laugh, sitting up on the couch.
“I just knew you two living together was a terrible idea, seriously I have no idea what I was thinking. Okay, tell me. What happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you calling me at eleven at night? Something must’ve happened.”
I look at the clock on the oven in the kitchen. “Oh shit, it is late, huh. Sorry, Mars I didn’t realize. I was just calling to check up on you and frat boy.”
Margot pauses briefly, no doubt trying to decide if I was lying or not. When she sighs, it seems like she’s decided not to push the issue either way. “We’re all good here, Ard. Nothing really new to report.”
“How’s the job?”
“It’s hard but amazing. I’m learning so much about being a real-life journalist.” Her voice softens when she talks about her career and I love to hear that joy. “What about you? How are classes?”
“Just started but not too bad. Got that statistics class again.” Margot grunts on the other side of the line. She knows how hard that class was for me last semester.
“You should ask Danika for help. I’m pretty sure she took that class at some point. She might even have her notes still.” I smile to myself.Great idea, sis.
I don’t tell her about our arrangement. I’m not sure if Danika has but I should talk to her about it. I don’t like to keep things from my sister.
“Yeah, I’ll ask her. Thanks.”
Margot’s voice quiets slightly. “You okay though?”
“Yeah, Mars. I’m okay.”
“Okay,” she replies with slight relief in her voice. “Me too.”
“Good.”
We say our goodbyes, with promises to say hi to the other people in our lives and I hang up the phones, feeling slightly lighter than before. Danika is happy with me. Margot sounds like she’s doing really well. I’m not going to fail my statistics class. All things considered, things are looking up.
Chapter Thirteen
Danika
“Justtryagain.”
“Brat, we’ve been at this for an hour.”
“And it’ll finally click in the next five minutes, guaranteed. Just try again. Name the four levels of measurement.”