Page 34 of How (Not) to Conjure a Boyfriend
He doesn’t ask questions. He immediately steps up to the sink and starts in on the dishes. I shrug, honestly surprised, and get to work on the dining room table. There isn’t a ton to do, but that means I’ll have more time tonight to FaceTime Kaitlynn, maybe play someSims, or work on my tarot game. I really need to improve. I keep forgetting what the cards mean. Using the reference guide has to stop. What type of witch can’t competently read tarot cards?
Five minutes later I’ve moved most of the boxes from the table to the floor and managed to sort the Amazon and Ulta packages. I might open a few of them and see what I can find a home for later.
“You always this quiet when you clean?” Zachary breaks the silence.
“I don’t usually have help.” I want to take it back the moment I say it. That makes it sound like Mom does nothing around the house, and that’s not true, at least not always. I guess I do a lot of the cleaning, but she does too. Still, it was too quick an answer.
“Really?” He stops drying the plate in his hand.
“Yeah.” I shrug.
His nose crinkles. It’s sort of cute, but there’s a question behind it. He doesn’t say it, but I know what it is. I look behind me toward the hallway. The sound of the television is just loud enough to hear from the other room. He wants to know why I do the cleaning and not Mom. I bet his mom even cleans his room for him.
“She’s busy with work a lot.” I stretch the truth a bit. It isn’t work that keeps her busy. It’s all the junk in her head, but he doesn’t need to know that. She’s just not always…here. “So I help out. I don’t mind. I like cleaning.”
“Ah.” He shrugs, wide-eyed.
“I take it you don’t?” I ask.
“Not if I don’t have to.” Zachary laughs. “Do you usually clean in silence though? No music?”
“Oh! You want music?” I ask. I can play some music, I just didn’t know what he’d like and honestly, I didn’t want to ask.
“Please!” he begs. “The silence is killing me.”
I roll my eyes and laugh at him before connecting my phone to the Bluetooth speaker by the sink and starting my usual playlist. He can deal with whatever comes on. I dare him to question it.
Zachary’s eyes glow a little after the first few notes of TXT’s “Deja Vu” graces the kitchen air. He grins. “You like K-pop?”
“Yeah.” I lean against one of the tall wooden dining table chairs, propping it on two legs. My eyes slim into slits and I eye him down. “You?”
He doesn’t hit me as the type, more country boy. Not full-on country boy, but definitely country. He and Hayden both carry that twang most of us do up here, and there’s the blue jeans and plaid, just like the red and white shirt he’s wearing now. I used to get bullied for liking K-pop. It was a whole thing. One more that I had to build up a wall to and decide I was living for me and not them anyway.
“I love K-pop!” He jumps. “And no joke, you just turned on one of my favorites. Tomorrow X Together is amazing! Who’s your bias? Mine’s Taehyun—”
“Uh, Soobin, duh.” I look at him like it’s a stupid question before a massive grin covers my face. “I can’t believe you like K-pop! I can’t even get Kaity to listen to it. Who else do you listen to?”
“So many! RIIZE, BoyNextDoor, Jungkook, ATEEZ…” His eyes peer up toward the ceiling in thought. “AMPERS&ONE—”
“Really? I love them.” I start to jump excitedly, but I stop myself with a firm grip on one of the dining room chairs. “All of them! And of course Seventeen and XG, and you can’t forget the idol of idols.”
“Taemin!” We yell at the same time.
“Whoa! Maybe you’re notsobad,” I say with literally no thought.
“Uh,” he grunts, his shoulders deflating, and licks nervously at his lips. I should say I’m sorry. That was mean. Too mean, but I just can’t. If I do, I might spill everything, and I’m not ready for that. Instead, I pick up another box, but before I can figure out where to put it, Zachary speaks up. “Sorry.”
“Huh?” I freeze. Box in tow, I turn to face him.
“Sorry,” he says again.
“You already said that,” I tell him. This just feels awkward now.
“I know, but—”
“I mean earlier. You don’t have—” I want him to stop. I don’t want to feel bad for him.
“That was…” He grunts, sort of like a laugh but quieter, and shakes his head with a tiny reserved smile. “But that was on the phone. I need to apologize in person. I feel really bad about how I acted, I didn’t mean to be an ass—”
