Back in a Spell (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #3)(90)

I lurched back against the door, horrified. “No! Ivy, no, you have to be up at four tomorrow. You don’t have to do that, you really—”

“Again, and I say this with love,” she said, and I could hear the warm fondness in her voice, “but do shut up, bitch. Of course I’m coming over, this is no longer remotely a discussion. There’s no way I’m letting you be alone right now, not when this is the prevailing mood. And have you had dinner, or did you forget to eat while you were up on Hallows?”

“It’s . . . possible that I forgot,” I admitted, chastened. “I had some trail mix, maybe? I was really focused on—”

“Harvesting the viridian, of course you were. Pearl Dragon should still be open; I’m going to stop by and pick something up. I had a light dinner, anyway, I could use a dim sum snack. Want bubble tea, too?”

She’d probably had a healthy, substantial, home-cooked dinner of the kind she prepared for herself almost every night, but of course this was what she’d say. I closed my eyes and tipped my head back against the door, awash in equal parts guilt and gratitude, and suddenly aware of the seismic rumble in my stomach that I’d apparently been ignoring for hours, possibly half a day. The friendship that had grown out of my former relationship with Ivy was one of the greater miracles of my life, one that I had no idea how I’d managed to pull off given how clumsy I often was with people.

Why she still chose to love me so hard was one of life’s enduring mysteries.

“Thank you,” I whispered into the phone. “Really, Ivy. I . . . I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Not much, because you’d have starved to death. Don’t worry, though, fam—the dim sum’s gonna be on you, to balance out the scales.”