"So you did kiss her!" says Savannah, poking her head out from where she'd been eavesdropping from.

"I have no idea what you're talking about!" he replies.

The next day of school, Bella arrives humming and sits right next to Darren when she appears at English.

He smiles at her affectionately. "Hey, you."

"Hi! How are you? Was Savannah insufferable?"

"Wonderful! And of course she was, she kept asking questions and prying and eventually I just hid in our room with the door barricaded until she promised to stop teasing me about it."

"The etiquette around locking your sister out of your shared room must be complicated."

"Not really, I got there first and she just wanted to bother me, so I can lock her out just fine. She's done the same to me, it happens. I can just poke her for anything I need in there and she'll hand it over before going back to whatever made her lock herself in our room."

"And then when it's bedtime?"

"We call a truce."

"Sounds like an elegant system."

"Yup," snickers Darren. "We're rather proud that we can manage it when we're annoyed with each other."

"And you should be. Do you want to come over to mine this afternoon for the lessons, though?"

"I'd love to!"

"Is Savannah still glued to you, is that part of inviting you over still?"

"I can not so subtly tell her to un-glue herself."

"Good. I mean, I suppose her decreased gluiness is implied by the fact that she let us go to dinner without insisting on being a third wheel? But given how enthusiastic she is about how cute we are I wasn't sure if that meant she'd also allow the magic lessons."

"I think so, if I ask very nicely."

"Yay."

"Besides, I think she's getting annoyed with magic lessons anyway, so she'll jump on the chance to not have to sit through them, bored out of her mind."

"You'd think she could just bring a book or whatever she does to occupy herself. What does she do to occupy herself when it's not shadowing us in case we need her to do something unspecified in case of danger?"

"Watching TV, playing some weird manner of sport or something, I don't keep track of the ones she's playing at any given time, hanging out with friends. Karate, too."

"So none of it terribly portable, I suppose. Incidentally, my dad's rule is that we cannot be alone in my room together with the door closed."