Page 34 of Never Not Friends

Vinny:

What are you doing right now?

A huge smile bursts across my mouth.

Emma:

I’m studying for the geography test.

Vinny:

I’ll quiz you. Where’s Congo?

And don’t even think about cheating.

I fall back into my pillow with a sigh of relief.

Emma:

You can’t quiz me on geography locations. I need to be able to see it on a map.

Vinny:

Lame excuse. You don’t know where it is, do you?

And just like that, Vinny and I are back to how things used to be.

Kind of.

Friends for now.

Until we can be more.

EMMA

Natalie’s instructions for her chinchilla were very clear. “Take Chili out of his cage every once in a while. He likes attention.” Which sounded simple, almost fun.

And for the first three seconds, it is.

Because, yes, Chili is soft. The kind of soft that makes me understand why someone would choose a pet chinchilla in the first place.

That’s until the creature launches itself up my arm, tiny little nails scratching my bare skin as it climbs. Note to self: a tank top and pajama shorts are the wrong thing to be wearing when you’re trying to wrangle a chinchilla.

“Oh!” I grab him as he scrabbles to get away.

This is the part Natalie failed to mention. Because nothing else about Chili is soft.

Not his personality.

Not his energy.

Not his complete and total disregard for personal boundaries.

He is a tiny, fluffy chaos demon that thinks my body is his human jungle gym.

“Chili,” I hiss, trying to grab him without grabbing him too hard because, apparently, he’s also fragile, which feels like a design flaw.

He twists, and just like that, he falls to the floor, landing on his feet in a very acrobatic way.