Alyson and Viri had been friends for as long as Viri could remember. They’d practically grown around each other all these years like some twisted rose bush and were now roomies in a two-bedroom apartment in the capital city.

Alyson was also 22 years old, but she was six months older than Viri and she never let her forget it. Gwinera saw Alyson as a second daughter and Alyson’s parents treated Viri the same. Viri couldn’t imagine life without Alyson at this point.

Whatever she faced growing up, Alyson had always made it better. From the jokes about her never knowing her father, to the insults about her being a measly human – Alyson’s friendship helped smooth it all away.

Viri never cared much about not knowing her father, but she did wish her mother had someone to share her love with aside from her. She’d said it to her mother once and Gwinera instantly shut down the idea of love and marriage, so Viri never brought it up again.

She tried not to imagine that her mother was lonely. She also tried not to care about being solely human. In this world full of magical beings, Viri was utterly nonmagical. Even Alyson was a Karkadann shifter. Even though that was a glorified unicorn, she still had magic, which Viri longed for.

Even if she felt like there was something more brewing under her skin, she ultimately knew that being human was as good as it would get for her. So, she brushed off the daily taunting and lived her life as freely and courageously as she could.

It also didn’t hurt that she was gorgeous enough to make even fae stop and stare at her. A huge part of that beauty was owed to her large amber and golden specked irises, which were so uncommon that no one had ever seen eyes like them, and the bundle of curls that was now flying in the breeze as she opened her sunroof to enjoy the drive back to her apartment.

She loved the Sunday drives from her mother’s house to her apartment filled with winding roads in the suburbs that turned into picturesque highways with city skyline views. It always seemed to ground her at the start of the week.

The thirty-minute drive seemed too short as she pulled into her parking deck. She walked through the garage entrance to her building and took the elevator to her floor. Luckily, the doorman wasn’t around, because she was sure she looked almost as rough as she smelled.

She heard faint music inside as she unlocked the door, which meant Alyson had to be blasting it. They’d gotten so many noise complaints that they’d opted to soundproof their apartment themselves, so if she heard the music outside, she knew to brace herself before opening the door.

Her ears needed a second to adjust to the concert-level volume as she walked in and saw Alyson dancing in her t-shirt and underwear in the living room. Her hair was now in two remarkably high pigtails that looked like little purple and blue horns, and she was using the remote as a microphone.

She saw Viri setting her keys and purse down and grinned like a fox. “You look like hell.”

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Viri rolled her neck. “I feel like hell. You’d think all that motherly love would kick in enough for her to not pummel me every Sunday.” Alyson snorted and pointed to a take-out box from Viri’s favorite burger restaurant. Viri squealed and ran over and kissed Alyson on the cheek.

Alyson swatted her away. “You smell like hell, too.”

Viri laughed as she walked to her bedroom. She ignored Alyson yelling at her to “be done with her shit” before the tv show came on and rolled her eyes as she turned on the shower. She undressed, catching vague whiffs of how awful she smelled with each article of clothing she removed. Once she finished, she turned and stared at herself in her bathroom mirror.

She braced herself to go in and find the hair tie that still existed somewhere in her hair. After five minutes of stealthy maneuvering and some aggressive tugging, she got the hair tie out and managed to only lose a few strands of hair.

She wished she’d lost more after the twenty-minute mark of detangling her hair when her shoulders began to ache, and she had to give herself her weekly pep talk to finish. She slathered half a bottle’s worth of conditioner in her hair and stuffed it into her shower cap before drying off.

She decided to be like Alyson and donned an oversized shirt from a concert she went to years ago and a pair of bright red hip-hugger undies. She made her way to the living room, grabbed her food from off the counter along the way, and plopped down on the sofa beside Alyson.

Viri checked the time on her phone and realized the show had been on for 15 minutes already. She shrugged. She didn’t care much about the fae bachelor and his love options anyway. Alyson was always intrigued by the fae. Borderline in love.

Viri, on the other hand, practically hated the fae. She felt like they were pompous, egotistical nut jobs who felt like they were higher up on the food chain than most of the others in the city. Were they right? Yes. But they didn’t have to indulge in that fact.

She only sat and pretended to watch most weeks to appease Alyson. So, she snuggled up under her blanket for round seven of pretending to care about Tristyn’s love life and opened her to-go box she’d spent most of the time in the shower thinking about.

“No fries?! Who does this to someone??” Alyson shushed her. “Seriously, no fries? I know you could afford them. You got paid two days ago. Did you just not care?”

Alyson slowly looked over at her with her best death stare. “I didn’t get you fries because they would’ve been cold and stale by the time you got here, and I didn’t feel like hearing you complain while I was trying to watch my favorite tv show.”

“Fine. Sorry.” Viri begrudgingly bit into her burger as Alyson rolled her eyes and went back to watching tv. She survived the hour of fae females pining for Tristyn, only for him to decide he didn’t want any of them, which meant a season two that she’d also have to suffer through.

She leaned in and gave Alyson a peck on the cheek, ignored her rant about how the season ended and got up to go to bed. She heard Alyson yell goodnight to her as she closed her bedroom door behind her.

She grabbed the novel she was reading off her nightstand and crawled into her bed. She loved books. She loved the mystery and adventure in them. The only thing she hated was sappy, drawn-out romances.

She rolled her eyes to herself as she read the pages detailing the heroine’s reluctance to tell her lover how she felt. That was always the case. The main character would spend several chapters tiptoeing around the love interest before something tragic happens to force them to come to terms with their true feelings.

Years of reading the same romance tropes made her promise herself she’d never be some lovestruck girl who couldn’t confess her feelings. Not that she had to worry about that. None of the guys she bothered to date were even worth falling in love with.

They were just something to help pass the time. She sighed and fanned through the pages to see how much longer she’d be subjected to reading about this particular moment of sappiness.

Three more pages. She could handle that. She scooted down further under the covers and read for what felt like hours.