Page 53 of With a Little Luck

“Do I?” I say. “Because earlier you made some very convincing arguments that suggested I do not have this.”

“Yeah,” she says, cringing. “I have some concerns. But I love you, so … I hope this goes well.”

“I appreciate that.”

I take the stairs two at a time, Pru following after me. I hear the front door open and Penny’s overly excited voice—“Hi! You’re Maya, I’m Penny, Jude is so—”

“Maya!” I say, a little breathless. I skid to a stop in the foyer. “You made it. Awesome. This is Penny. She’s one of my sisters. Come in.”

Maya is smiling, a little nervously, as she steps through the door. She’s holding a bag of tortilla chips and a jar of salsa. “Hi, Penny. You were with Jude when he came to my rescue after my car broke down, weren’t you?”

“Yes! That was me!”

I chuckle uncomfortably. “And you know Pru.” I gesture behind me.

Pru waves. “Hi, Maya.”

“Hey,” says Maya. “Are you going to play with us tonight?”

Pru makes a face. “Um, no. I’m meeting up with Quint in a while. But you’ll have fun.”

The way she says it is almost convincing.

A gasp echoes down from the upstairs. “Is that her?” says Ellie, peeking through the banister rails. “She is so pretty!”

I cringe. “And that’s Ellie.” I glance up and see Lucy also leaning over the railing. “And Lucy. These are … wow. They’re all here. These are all my sisters. Everyone, Maya. Maya—my sisters.”133

Maya laughs. “Hi, everyone. It’s nice to meet you.” She turns to me and holds up the chips and salsa. “I brought snacks. I figured that’s probably the quickest way to get your friends to like me.”

And there it is again—that adorable hint of uncertainty. Something akin to shyness.

I’ve never in my life thought of Maya as shy. She’s always been friendly and popular and gorgeous and out of my league, yes. But shy?

“You really don’t have to worry about that,” I say, even though in saying it, I realize that I don’t know if it’s true. Girls and crushes and real-life stuff don’t really come up with the D&D group. We’re not those kinds of friends, I guess, and since the concert I’ve had way more anxiety wondering what Maya would think ofthem, not the other way around.

“Okay, so you can follow me,” I say, and head downstairs. I hear a few teasing, singsong goodbyes from my sisters as we descend into the basement. I hold my breath, trying not to overthink every little thing as Maya surveys my bedroom, but it’s impossible not to wonder what she’s thinking. Is she judging the Batman poster? The old sketches of monsters I long ago tacked up on the wall? Is she inspecting the books on the shelf, a shocking number of which depict medieval swords and dragon wings on the spines?

Is she regretting this yet?

“So … Pru and Quint,” says Maya, setting the chips and salsa on the table. “I will admit, I did not see that coming.”

I laugh, but it’s a little strained. “You and everyone else who has ever met them.” I rock back on my heels. “Last summer Pru volunteered at the animal rescue center that’s run by Quint’s mom, and next thing you know, they’re dating. Honestly, I think Pru might have been more surprised about it than anyone. But I think they’re happy.”

“They seem like a good fit,” says Maya. “In an opposites-attract sort of way.”

The ensuing silence is short but stifling. My thoughts are racing, because on one hand I do not want to be talking about my sister and her134boyfriend, but on the other hand, I can’t help trying to read between the lines. Is Maya suggesting that she and I, too, could be a good fit? In an opposites-attract sort of way?

Maya glances at the table. “You said I should get here early? To create a character?”

“Right! Yeah. Have a seat.”

I take my usual place at the end of the table, but set down the privacy board so it isn’t like I’m hiding from her, and hand her the character template I printed out earlier. “Did you give it any thought yet?”

“Yes,” says Maya, her eyes lighting up as she scoots in her chair. “I want to be a tiefling fighter.”

I gape at her. The way she says it. The way she is literallyspeaking my languagemakes me want to jump across this card table and … do things.

But my speechlessness is also a result of the fact that … this is not at all what I expected her to say. A tiefling fighter? I struggle to picture it. Tieflings are humanoid creatures whose blood has been infused with magic from the infernal realms, giving them an almost demonic appearance—tails, fangs, and badass horns that project from their skulls. And fighters are, as you might expect, masters of weaponry, trained in all forms of combat. They’re fearless in the face of danger, and can mete out death in a ruthless, almost clinical way.

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