Aelin woke us up at five.
Ether had gotten a nap earlier, so she hadn’t wanted to go right to sleep. After she was finally tired enough to fall asleep, I was able to get to sleep as well.
“We’ve got a big day! Let’s go!” Aelin banged on the screen. "We’ve got a lot to do!”
I felt the RV move. It was a strange feeling, I’d never been laying down in the bunk while the RV was moving.
Ether woke up and I rolled her to my right. She might be awake, but it was going to take her a minute to get up. I could go get a glass of cold water, which did the trick, but I valued my life and didn’t have the ‘I was just following orders’ to hide behind. Not that it'd helped any that day.
I opened the screen and got out. Rix was already up and in the passenger seat. Justia was driving and Aelin was setting out food.
“You’re finally up!” The blonde looked at me. "Rix and Justia have already eaten.” She buzzed over to the bunk with the closed screen and pounded on it. “Fray! Wake up! We’re hitting level two today!”
She blew a stray blonde hair out of her face. "How’d it go last night?”
“Okay..?” I was confused. "What do you mean? With Trent?”
“Eww, no. With…” She nodded towards the closed screen. “You know.”
I grabbed Aelin’s arms and looked around. There was only one place with a little bit of privacy. I pulled her into the bathroom and shut the door.
“I know I’m pretty and all.” The blonde batted her eyes at me. "But I think you’re working on the wrong girl.”
“Aelin.” I glared at her. "You know I’m not coming on to you, so please stop trying to make me uncomfortable and have a serious conversation.”
“You’re no fun.” She crossed her arms in front of her.
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything.” She was fidgeting too much for that to be true.
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“What. Did. You. Do?”
“Okay." The blonde tried to look like she was pouting. I think it was pouting anyway. I may have been trying to hide a smile. "I may have told Fray that there might be a chance that you might try to sleep with her last night.”
“How many of those ‘mays’ and ‘mights’ are really in that story?”
“Okay!” She began pacing. "There aren’t any mays or mights, but I did it for you!”
“Aelin! We’ve known her for less than twenty-four hours.” I pointed at the door. "We don’t know if she’s trustworthy or even if Trent is going to keep her.” I shook my head. "Why do you think I’d do something like that?”
“How long did you know Ether before you hooked up with her?” Aelin squinted. "And you’ve known me less than two weeks!”
“And I’ve never hit on you.”
“Only because you have some weird brother-sister thing going on with Justia that I can’t figure out.” Aelin shook her head. "I was trying to establish how long it takes to know you can trust someone, but…” She grinned. "You do tend to hook up with most women you come across.”
I pointed at the door and motioned to the whole RV. "There is only one woman on this whole RV that I’ve come on to!”
“Rix?” It felt like half a question and half a statement.
“No, never happened.”
“Huh.” The blonde shrugged. "Maybe I dreamed about it.” She looked at me and must have seen how upset I was. "I’m sorry, I just thought you’d want to get a head start on the…”
“Why?” I realized I’d been holding my breath and let it out. "Why are you so fixated on me having a harem?”
“Living vicariously through you?”
I glared at her. "Why do you need to live vicariously through me?” I pointed out the door. "You could walk up to Justia right now and kiss her and I know she’d kiss you back.”
“No she wouldn’t.” Aelin started mumbling.
“Have you tried?”
“Yes, okay?!” Aelin looked like she might start crying. "We talked and she said that she couldn’t do anything like that as long as we’re here. So I thought that if we had our last person and blew through the dungeons, then we could go back home and maybe…” She looked shocked. "I mean the Cathedral. Go back to the Cathedral and something could happen. But since I’m not getting any, I need to live vicariously through someone. It's not Rix and for this conversation you and Ether are basically the same person, which means if I push you I get two for the price of one.”
I sighed. "I get it, but tone it down, please. I didn’t know anything about what you told her last night and she’s got rejection issues. How do you think she feels right now?”
“I-I…I’ll fix it.” Aelin reached for the handle.
“Aelin…” I grabbed her arm.
The blonde batted her eyelashes. “Yes?”
“Please don’t make this worse.”
“When have I ever?” She sang as she opened the door and pulled out of my grasp.
I shook my head. This was going to be a trainwreck.