Chapter 6: Worst Boyfriend Of The Year

"You may not dump Anthony Vale," the system said in the voice of a man reading the fine print of a terms and condition out loud. "Doing so lowers target affection."

I was in Anthony's kitchen with a mug marked World's Okayest Boyfriend and nearly dropped it in the toilet. "Excuse me?"

"Lucas Hale values Anthony vale. Hurting him will raise hostility towards you by approximately forty percent."He already hates me!"There is a ceiling on hatred, you are not yet at the ceiling."

I stared into my coffee with a growing sense of unease, behind me Anthony was humming as he flipped pancakes in a dress shirt with a hole in the shoulder, his hair a wreck from last night and his hickey proudly displayed on his neck like a badge. Lucas's presence had barely come up before, he had said "Weird right?" and I had said "So weird" before moving onto syrup.

I couldn't dump him. I couldn't date him. I couldn't even sit here and eat his pancakes with a clear conscience. That left only one option, and I vowed to pursue it with all my being.

I would be the worst boyfriend in the history of boyfriends until Anthony ended it himself, kindly, with a hug, and kept Lucas out of it.

"Hey," I said sliding into a chair, "I should tell you something about me."

"Okay." He set a plate in front of me, slightly lopsided pancake on top. "Shoot."

"I never wash my sheets." It was a lie, I had washed them twice that week out of nerves. "I think laundry is a social construct."

Anthony paused with the spatula halfway to the pan and regarded me for a moment with such seriousness I thought it was over.

"That is actually pretty freaking hilarious," he said, laughing until he had to set the spatula down. "You are so dramatic in the mornings, I love it."

I chewed my pancake in stunned silence, it was delicious which felt like a betrayal.

---

The next three days were a masterclass.

I told him I always chewed with my mouth open and he started recording me for his sister, I showed up to his study session in socks and sandals and he took a picture and had it on his lock screen. When I announced over lunch that I didn't believe in anniversaries and was going to forget his birthday every year, he put down his sandwich and took my hand across the table and said "I'll remind you, every year, forever."

"That's a threat, not an answer," I said.

"It's a promise." He grinned. "You can't scare me off, you know. I've seen you cry at a dog food commercial."

"That was onions."

"There were no onions."

I had expected the hard part of this job to be Lucas, but I hadn't known that Anthony would respond to my bad behavior with increasing affection like a golden retriever who had decided you were the weather.

By Wednesday there was a second toothbrush waiting in his bathroom with a blue handle and a drawer cleared out for my belongings and a key on a ribbon hanging from the hook beside his door. I stood there, stunned by the sight of it all, as if I'd walked into a cult and been given a nametag.

"Progress report," the system chimed. "Target affection, eleven percent."Eleven? It was four!"

"Lucas Hale has been sighted observing your apartment building for twenty minutes."

I nearly walked into a lamppost. "He has been what?"

"Correct."

I didn't look up at the third story window across the street. I didn't think about it at all, which is why I knew I was in trouble.

On Thursday, Lucas stopped glaring at me and started doing something far scarier. Being polite. In the cafeteria, over a plate of overcooked pasta, he sat down across from me without being invited and said in a voice that was so pleasant I had never heard it before, "How are you finding the pasta?"

"Fine," I said suspiciously.

"Good." He took up his fork. "I always think this place is at its best on Thursdays."

"Why?"

"Because I'm here." He smiled. It was a small, happy, lovely smile and it terrified me more than every glare combined. "Anthony tells me you don't wash your sheets."

I choked on my pasta. Across the table, Anthony burst out laughing and patted my back.

"He's kidding," Anthony told Lucas. "He does wash them. He's just being a menace."

"Is he," Lucas said, and looked straight at me. "How interesting. I'd have said he was a lot of things, but never a menace."

"Stop being weird," Anthony said, laughing, and nudged Lucas's shoulder. It was an easy thing to do, like two people who had known each other for years. For a moment I saw the three of us how an outsider might see us. Two best friends and a newcomer, and the newcomer was the one in too close.

My stomach twisted, I liked Anthony too much to be the one to break that.

Under the table, something nudged my ankle.

I went rigid. It was a boot. A big boot. Lucas was looking at Anthony and nodding along to something about midterms, and his boot pressed against my ankle slowly and deliberately, the pressure enough that I could feel the warmth through two layers of cloth. He didn't stop. I didn't breathe.

"Affection," the system said. "Fourteen percent."

When Anthony stood to get rid of his tray, Lucas leaned in across the table. He smelled like rain and pine soap and something sharper beneath, and his voice was so low I felt it more than heard it.

"You're a terrible liar," he said. "Always were."

I opened my mouth to ask what he meant, he had already stood up and walked away.

---

At six forty that evening, my phone buzzed with a message from a number I didn't recognize.

Library roof. Seven o'clock. Come alone, parasite.

I read it four times, put the phone in a drawer, and sat on the edge of my bed with my heart doing something unreasonable.

"It could be a trap," I told the room.

"It could be an opportunity," said the system.

"It could be a murder."

"It is a very good opportunity for a murder," the system said almost cheerfully. "Wear something nice."