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 Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2025 6:32 pm
Cassidy propped his chin into his hand and looked up at the girls with something that could have passed for smugness. Shame was an impossible thing on his face; Cynthus’ laughter only seemed to make him more bold.
He didn’t know who was more interesting about it, Cynthus trying so hard to be loud and Rose trying so hard to be quiet.
“Don’t tease! You’ll hurt my self esteem,” Cassidy huffed, but the smirk didn’t leave his face. A few strands of hair fell over his shoulder; he found a lock and twirled it around his fingers.
“I can’t imagine why he’d play hard to get. I’m practically throwing myself at him. Why, do you have any tips I should try?”
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2025 11:38 am
“Grab his a**,” Cynthus said without missing a beat. Mostly because she liked the idea of Riker freaking the ******** out. “Or… I don’t know. What even is flirting? Maybe he doesn’t like the way you’re throwing yourself at him. You know? Like, maybe he’d respond better to some other way.” There were different ways to throw oneself at someone, right? “Is that what you’re doing with him? The smirking and the hair twirling? Maybe he’s not into it.”
He was probably totally into it. He probably stared really hard at the hair being twirled and tried to convince himself he didn’t care that it was blond.
Riker was such a loser.“Or,” Rose cut in. “Maybe having an honest conversation would help. Have you told him you like him? Er… either of them. Reims or… this Riker guy.”
Pretending she had no idea they were one and the same really wasn’t as easy as she’d thought it would be. Keeping them separate in her head when she knew the truth was almost impossible.“Honesty is overrated,” Cynthus insisted.
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Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2025 9:31 pm
Cassidy snorted indignantly, though it was unclear if it was at Rose or Cynthus. Probably a bit of both. “Honeslty is overrated,” he agreed. “Nobody actually wants to hear what you have to say, they just want you to say what they want to hear. Especially boys my age. Who are impossible enough on a good day, but what was I going to do, fall for an older guy?”
Rolling his eyes wasn’t dramatic enough so he rolled his whole head. “Definitely not a younger one. No, I’ve got a very specific type.”
He sighed like he was swooning, like he was stuck in a perpetual act of mooning over people who weren’t even here.
“He’s dense, Riker. Reims, too. But especially Riker. You can tell him something straight forward, blunt, no flourishes, and he still looks at you like you’re speaking another language. Or like you’re playing a trick on him. And Reims is so mysterious, so untouchable.”
He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, making sure to give both girls equal attention. “I’ve tried, though! I’ll have you know, I do much more than just smirk and hair twirl. I’ve been cooking, too. Quite well, in fact. And flirting. And I’ve been very honest about my feelings, anyway. But it’s on deaf ears.” He shrugged. “I’m pretty sure I’ll get clocked if I start grabbing asses.”
He sighed, dramatically. “I thought girls were supposed to be romantic. Is that how you want to be swept off your feet? a** grabbing and honest confessions?”
Just in case Reims didn’t come back and it was just the three of them stuck here for the rest of forever, he might as well know.
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2025 7:29 am
Rose shrugged. “I like honesty.”
She frowned a little, like maybe the topic made her a little uncomfortable, or like she didn’t know how to feel about it at all. It wasn’t a mean or disappointed look. If anything the lowering of her smile and the furrowing of her eyebrows made her seem concerned, maybe even a little sad. Not necessarily for herself. The other two might not know it, but Rose thought she understood Riker a little better than they did. (Through no fault of their own, of course. She’d simply been around longer. She’d seen more.)
“I don’t know about your Riker,” she said—a little slow, a little careful, reminding herself as she spoke that she had to lie about who she knew and who she didn’t. “But I know Reims needs honesty. Even if it doesn’t seem as if he believes it at first. If you follow up what you’ve said with an action to prove it, it’ll start to get through his head after a while. If he’s afraid, he’ll put walls up. Just be patient, and consistent, and don’t take it personally if he gets a little cranky. That usually means he’s nervous or he doesn’t know what else to say, so he defaults to what he’s used to getting from other people.”Cynthus huffed and rolled her eyes. Then she made a sound like she was gagging. Her nose wrinkled like she was disgusted by something. Maybe Rose’s inclination toward fairness. Maybe her defensiveness toward Reims. Maybe what Cassidy said about romance.
“All boys are so stupid,” she said. “Who cares about romance? Money’s what makes the world go ‘round. You should fall for an older guy. Get them while their health is failing. Make them love you so they leave everything to you.”
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Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2025 5:51 am
Cassidy’s eyes slid back to Rose, studying her. His smile persisted, a half-smirk that leaned towards smug while still radiating a lazy sort of friendliness.
“I bet he’s happy to have a friend like you. I bet you make a good girlfriend.” No wonder Reims had trusted her to play the role when she seemed so quick to defend him. He wasn’t even here. Rose probably didn’t even expect that Cynthus or Cassidy would be quick to report how sweet and valiant she was, defending his good name.
Cassidy liked her.
And Cynthus–what a troll! But Cassidy liked her, too. “I’ve already got old men throwing themselves at me and waving checkbooks in my face.” His arm throbbed in the cold, so he forced the tension out of his back and rolled his shoulder to ease the ache. He didn’t bother trying to sit up; it wouldn’t have helped anyway.
“Boring! I want to be swept off my feet. By a prince. Or,” his shrug was more pronounced, and worth the throb down his arm for the sake of dramatics, “A knight in shining armor. Put in a good word for me when Reims comes back, won’t you?”
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Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2025 1:38 pm
Cynthus made another face—brows puckered, nose scrunched, tongue out in a feigned gag. Not attractive at all, but she didn’t really care about that at the moment. She didn’t have anyone to impress.
“Put in a good word for yourself. He won’t listen to me,” she said.
Maybe Reims wouldn’t listen to Cassidy either if Cassidy was being upfront but Reims was still playing hard to get. Reims was a loser, though, so Cynthus couldn’t pretend as if she was surprised. He’d get his head out of his a** one day, maybe. If he didn’t… Oh well. Cassidy would probably find someone better. He wasn’t bad looking, so he probably did have a bunch of guys throwing themselves at him already. (The checkbooks she’d have to see to believe.) Riker would miss out and then he’d go around moping about another blond and the cycle would repeat itself with the next one, and the one after that, and the one after that.
Cynthus was already exhausted by it.
“Anyway, enough about Reims,” she continued, hands on her hips in a decisive fashion. “Let’s snoop. I know there’s a back room somewhere with a skeleton. Unless he got rid of that. Too bad there’s not actually any ghosts.”Rose accepted the praise with a small twitch of the lips, like she might’ve smiled again if she weren’t so pensive. Whether or not she made a good girlfriend wasn’t as important to her as making sure she was a good friend. If she was defensive or protective, she thought it was with good reason.
Not that Cassidy seemed put off by it. Maybe he understood in his own way. He was a friendly guy, and not always serious, but maybe Riker liked that. Maybe he needed that, even if it took him a while to realize it.
She just hoped he wasn’t getting himself in over his head.
“Try behind the altar,” she suggested, too wrapped up in her own thoughts to be intrigued by whatever they’d find. Without Reims to accompany them, it felt a bit like an invasion.
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2025 5:54 am
“Oh, thank God,” Cassidy said, rolling off the pew and brushing himself off. “I was trying so hard to behave myself, I’ve been waiting to poke around this place since we got here.”
Which wasn’t untrue. How many opportunities was he going to have to look around this place without Reims right next to him?
None, probably. Because as soon as Reims and all the others were done saving the world, they were going to come back, and they were all going to go home, and everything was going to be fine.
Everything was going to be fine.
And, Reims would be back soon and could yell at them for snooping, so they’d might as well get into as much trouble as possible so he only had to get mad once.
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