"She used a champagne emoji," Caleb said flatly. "That's never a good sign." "Excitement," Rory echoed, shaking his head. "She means trouble." "Hey," Xander said, nudging my knee with his foot, "what's the worst that could happen?" I gave him a look. "You really want me to answer that?" Before he could respond, the lights flickered briefly, plunging the room into an eerie semi-darkness. We all froze. "Okay, that wasn't me," Rory said quickly, raising his hands as if in defense. The lights flickered again before stabilizing. Caleb laughed nervously. "Just the house settling, right?" "Or maybe it's Béatrice," I deadpanned, earning a round of uneasy chuckles. "Well, if she's bringing a ghost with her, I'm out," Xander quipped, though he looked entirely unbothered as he flopped back into the beanbag. The mood lightened again as the conversation shifted, and soon the sound of video game banter filled the room. But as I watched my friends, laughing and bickering like nothing could touch us, I couldn't shake the feeling that Béatrice's arrival wasn't the only thing looming on the horizon. Tomorrow would bring its own kind of storm, but for now, I let myself drift in the warmth of this moment, determined to hold onto it for as long as I could.
The next morning, the house stirred slowly. I woke up to the sun streaming through the octagonal window, the warmth softening the cool morning air. The boys were scattered across my room in various states of disarray—Caleb snoring softly under a pile of blankets on the floor, Rory sprawled on the couch with one leg dangling off the edge, and Xander, predictably, still in the beanbag, clutching a pillow like it owed him money. For a moment, everything felt blissfully calm. I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake anyone, and tiptoed downstairs to make coffee. The faint aroma of cinnamon and freshly brewed coffee filled the air, grounding me. But as I stirred a spoonful of sugar into my mug, my phone buzzed again. Béatrice: Leaving soon! I hope you've got something fun planned for my grand arrival. 😘 I groaned quietly and set the phone down, my peaceful morning shattered. She would be here in less than two hours, and I had no idea what "something fun" even meant to her. By the time I returned to my room, the boys were waking up. Caleb was yawning dramatically, while Rory blinked groggily at the sunlight. Xander, of course, was already halfway through scrolling his phone, looking annoyingly alert for someone who'd been half-buried in a beanbag all night. "Morning," I said, leaning against the doorway with my mug in hand. "Morning," Caleb mumbled, his voice muffled by the blanket.