“Turns out you're not terrible with kids, only teachers,” Marie remarked as they left the elementary school building. Most of the kids had been picked up by their parents, and the teacher seemed anxious to get them out of her hair.

  Luc dropped her magical girl form as they stepped into the parking lot and grimaced as the sticky feeling remained. She’d gotten more hugs in the span of a few minutes from the kids than she probably ever had in her lifetime, and all of them were somehow sticky.

  “The kids love you,” Marie said, continuing to talk as Luc walked. She still had a bit of time before work, considering Penny let her come in later on week days, but not much. Certainly not enough to take another job. “It seems like a lot of them know you already.”

  Luc shrugged. “There are lots of magical pests to deal with, and nobody else seems to want to deal with them. That’s all. I’m nothing special, apparently.”

  “That’s absolutely not true,” Marie said with a snort. “I don’t know who told you that, but you’re wrong. Do you know how many magical girls who would love to have the relationship with their community that you do? Me included.”

  “You could try taking more jobs,” Luc suggested as they reached her car. “You’ve been a magical girl for all of, what, a week? And all you’ve really done is pester me.”

  Luc smirked at Marie, who shook her head. “God forbid I try to have a good relationship with my rival.”

  “Your priorities are in the wrong place, princess,” Luc said, giving her head a shake. While she was thankful for the rivalry now, knowing how much money it made her, Marie would be so much more tolerable if she actually went out and did the work like everybody else. Luc had been working as a magical girl for over a year; all her experience had been earned as much as learned, not just handed to her. She wasn’t trying to jump through hoops like Marie, who leapt straight to getting a rival like she was a big shot mage, not a newly minted local magical girl.

  “Princess?” Marie tilted her head to the side, giving her an odd look.

  Luc rolled her eyes, if only to have an excuse to break eye contact. “Don’t read into it,” she said. “It was an insult.”

  “I’m sure it was. And you’re probably right, I do need to take more jobs. You’re just so magnetic.”

  “Magnetic?” Luc rolled the word around in her mouth, feeling it out. It certainly didn’t feel like an insult, and the way Marie was looking at her wasn’t insulting either. Quite the opposite, really.

  She’s just playing a part, Luc reminded herself, looking away.

  “Fun to be around. Always keeping me on my toes.”

  “I thought your ballet shoes did that.”

  “Ooh, good one,” Marie said, sounding more excited. “But they’re called pointe shoes.”

  “Right, I’ll remember that next time,” Luc said with a light tap against her temple. She opened up her car’s front door but didn’t slide into the driver’s seat yet. She couldn’t go anywhere with Marie blocking her path, and really, as much as Luc hated to admit it, she wasn’t all bad.

  “Want to go take another job?”

  “Isn’t the point that you go and do work by yourself?” Luc asked. “Besides, you’re the one with the fancy app to accept jobs.”

  “I’ll text you the link to the app by the end of the day,” Marie assured her. “I just have to get it from my father. And is it so bad that I want to spend time with you?”

  “I’m terrible company,” Luc said, looking away.

  “I don’t think that, and neither do your friends,” Marie said, inching closer. She was just as relentless as Maisey, and really, Luc wouldn’t have been opposed to another job if she had the time.

  “Maybe tomorrow,” Luc said. “I have to go to work soon.”

  “Work?” Marie’s nose wrinkled at the word.

  “Yeah, the thing regular people have?”

  “I know what work is,” Marie said. “I’m just wondering why you have a job on top of magical girl work.”

  Because I don’t have a choice, Luc thought, but she couldn’t say that. Especially not to Marie. What went on with her mother was nobody’s business but her own.

  Instead, she shrugged.

  “You have to go to work now?” Marie asked.

  “In about half an hour, yeah.”

  “So what I’m hearing is you have time.”

  “I was planning on getting some snacks.” The moment the words left her mouth, she knew they were a mistake, because Marie pounced on them. She really needed to watch herself. She was getting far too comfortable around this girl.

  “I’d offer to pay,” Marie said, calming herself, “but I don’t think you’d like that.”

  “Oh no, I won’t let you bribe your way into my heart,” Luc said, lacing the words with sarcasm.

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  “Your heart?” Marie raised an eyebrow. “That’s a bit extreme, but if you insist.”

  Luc looked away, unable to meet her gaze any longer. This was getting too… much for her liking.

  “Why don’t I buy this time?” she suggested. “Make us even.”

  Marie considered it for a moment before clapping her hands together. “It’s a date!”

  “It’s absolutely not a date.”

  She had no idea if the girl heard her as she rushed around the side of the car, uncaring of the mess as she threw herself into the passenger seat.

  “I’m not driving you back here,” Luc said as she turned the car on, giving the girl one last chance to leave. Having Marie sitting in her car was strange, not at all what she’d intended. But she couldn’t exactly tell the girl to leave.

  “That’s what wings are for.”

  Against maybe her better judgment, Luc drove across town with Marie, choosing at the last minute to pull into the gas station parking lot rather than the cafe’s. They parked out front and Luc hopped out, walking into the gas station and giving Bobby a wave.

  Marie stepped through the door behind her, a confused look on her face. “What are we doing here?”

  “I told you,” Luc said. “We’re getting snacks.”

  “Oh, who is this, Luc?” Bobby asked, leaning curiously over the front counter to get a better look at them. “Is this a friend?”

  “Friend, enemy, something like that,” Luc said, and ducked behind one of the shelves before he could say anything else.

  Marie leaned in close as Luc stopped in front of a rack of candy. “I could be your friend?”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of something like that,” Luc muttered before she could stop herself. Maybe it was a bit mean, and she was trying to stop doing that, but it just slipped out.

  “Guess I’ll have to keep wearing you down,” Marie said with a shrug.

  “You’ve been talking to Maisey, haven’t you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “That dirty traitor,” she muttered. Did Maisey think it was funny to involve herself in Luc’s personal life? Luc had let her in because it took too much energy to fight her, and now she was out here encouraging everyone else to do the same thing. Ridiculous. Marie was going to start thinking they were friends.

  “What do you want?” she asked the girl as she snagged her own packet of gummy worms.

  “I’ll have whatever you’re having,” Marie said, and Luc rolled her eyes. That was just the lamest answer ever.

  “Fine.” She grabbed another bag of gummy worms and then grabbed her drink, and one for Marie as well. She doubted anyone with as much energy as Marie needed more energy, but the girl had brought this on herself.

  Bobby watched like a hawk as she approached the cash register with Marie.

  “It’s good to see Luc with a friend,” he said, looking at Marie as Luc set down their items.

  “She’s actually just stalking me,” Luc fired off. “I’m hoping this distracts her enough to let me get away.”

  “I am not stalking her,” Marie said with a nervous laugh.

  “Don’t worry,” Bobby said, giving the girl a reassuring smile. “I didn’t think you were. If she didn’t want you around, she wouldn’t let you hang around.”

  “She’s not as easy to get rid of as you might think,” Luc said.

  “Don’t mind her,” Bobby said, still ignoring Luc in favor of Marie. “She’s just never had friends before.”

  “Yeah, she doesn’t really know how to talk to people, does she?”

  “She doesn’t like people talking to her like she’s not here,” Luc said. “And I’m fine at talking to people. You’re the problem.”

  Bobby and Marie exchanged a look before he scanned the items and accepted payment. The moment the receipt began to print, she grabbed her things, shoving one of each at Marie and nodding her toward the door.

  Bobby winked at her conspiratorially as she slipped outside.

  “He’s nice,” Marie commented as she walked back to the car. “Is he a family friend or something?”

  “Or something,” Luc answered.

  “You really like that category,” Marie said with a shake of her head. She leaned against the trunk of the car, running a thumb across the top of her drink but not opening it. “I’m going to take it as a compliment.”

  Luc leaned against the gas station wall across from her, their feet nearly touching. “You shouldn’t.”

  “And here we were making so much progress.”

  Silence stretched between them as Luc opened up her own drink, taking a sip of the electric energy drink. It probably had more sugar than the gummy worms in her hand, but she’d been getting by on them just fine so far, so she wasn’t about to change now.

  “I do want to apologize,” Marie blurted into the silence.

  Luc looked up at her. “For what?”

  “For how I acted when we first met,” Marie said. She stared down at her hands, mouth working as she looked for words. “It was my first time out as a magical girl and I really wanted to be helpful, but I think I just came off as a jackass.”

  “You definitely did.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m not a stranger to acting like that, though, so…” Luc shrugged and trailed off, wincing internally at her reaction. Marie was trying to apologize for the very thing she’d been so upset about since they first met, and here she was, being an asshole about it.

  “Maybe we should just start over,” Marie said. Before Luc had a chance to respond, Marie held out a hand, stretching it out into the space between them. “Hi, I’m Marie. I’m a magical girl, and I’d like to be your friend.”

  “What are we, in kindergarten?” Luc demanded. “People don’t just go around asking to be your friend.”

  “Well, maybe they should, and the world would be a better place,” Marie said. “I’m trying to be the bigger person here, do you really have to be difficult about it?”

  Luc considered it for a moment before sighing. “I don’t think we need to start over,” she said finally. “Why don’t we just keep going from here?”

  “As friends?”

  “As—

  “If you say something, I will kick your ass,” Marie said. “And you know I can.”

  “Then as friends, I guess.” Luc rolled her eyes.

  A smile lit up across Marie’s face, a dimple forming on either cheek. “Excellent. I should get going now.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it,” Marie said, still smiling. “I’ll text you tonight, okay?”

  Marie transformed and took off, wings spreading out on either side of her and launching her into the sky. Luc watched her go, disappearing beyond the apartments across the street before heading to the cafe to clock in.

  Malachi stood at the door, waiting for her with a curious look on his face.

  Heat spread up the back of her neck as she shoved past him. How much of that had he watched?

  “Who was that?” he asked as he turned after her.

  “A…” Luc debated the word for a moment before deciding. “A friend.”

  “A friend?” Malachi demanded. “Since when do you have friends?”