Inheritance by Katharine McGee

Author:Katharine McGee [McGee, Katharine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2022-05-03T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

“Spend a night alone in this alley, or a year alone abroad?” Liam posited.

“Easy. A night alone,” Sam replied. “A year abroad sounds great, but not without someone to share it with.”

“A night alone in this alley,” he repeated, disbelieving, and she laughed.

“This alley seems pretty harmless so far.”

They’d been sitting out here for a while now, on the fire escape that overlooked the alley behind Enclave, letting time slip through their fingers like sand. Sam had wanted to stay for the Vandals’ show, but Liam insisted that they’d pushed their luck too much already. They’d compromised by staying here, both silently agreeing to hide from reality a little longer.

Liam had unearthed a bag of potato chips backstage—which was almost certainly stolen from one of his bandmates—but Sam didn’t complain as they passed the chips back and forth, asking each other silly this-or-that questions. They had started easily enough, with softballs like crunchy or smooth peanut butter? Skydive or scuba dive? By now they’d escalated to increasingly ridiculous questions. Time machine or magic carpet? Retake the SATs or relive your most awkward moment?

It was a game played in fits and starts, because they kept pausing to tell jokes or recount anecdotes. Already Sam had recounted the day she’d met Nina (she liked to claim, now, that she’d taken one look and known that Nina was her future best friend, but the truth was Sam had just been lonely) and about the time she’d shaved all the hair off Beatrice’s dolls. (“Hairless dolls! Now that is the kind of commemorative gear that you should sell at the palace gift shop,” Liam had remarked.)

Normally, Sam felt that nights followed a distinct arc. They climbed steadily toward a peak—a moment when the music and energy were perfect, a moment that, if you were lucky, you might recognize as the highlight of the evening. Then the roller coaster would swoop down, careening toward the end of the party and the brutal hangover that awaited you in the morning.

That wasn’t happening tonight. Instead of accelerating back toward reality, she was…meandering toward it. Enjoying the view. She wouldn’t even be hungover tomorrow, because she hadn’t had anything to drink since those long-ago sips of champagne with Nina and Jeff. She’d been too caught up in the contagious energy of the mosh pit to even care about getting a beer.

With the part of her brain that was still focused on reality, Sam registered how bizarre this was. She was sitting in an alley behind a crowded dark club, and it smelled like cigarettes and spilled beer, and she didn’t care at all because she was enjoying the unexpected spark that had struck between her and this stranger.

“Okay, my turn,” she declared. “Ninjas or pirates?”

Liam frowned, considering the question with utter seriousness. “What kind of pirates? Historic Blackbeard-style pirates, or pirates with magic like in Peter Pan?”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re taking this too seriously.”

“This-or-that is a very serious matter because it forces you into self-examination.

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