"No, I've known rogues like this Everton. He merely wants Leslie because he cannot have her. Once she succumbs to his charms, he'll tire of her."
I pointed my spoon at the screen, where Everton and Leslie were currently locked in a pretty passionate embrace. "Think she's already succumbed."
"Bah," Torin said with a wave of his hand. "Mark my words, he'll discard her before this disk is completed."
I just shrugged, more interested in watching Everton and Leslie kiss than listening to Torin. I wondered if I'd ever have the chance to kiss someone. Didn't seem likely with all the monster hunting and family angst, but still. Kissing looked...nice.
"We could try that, next time I visit your dreams," Torin suddenly said, and my SpaghettiOs sloshed over the side of the bowl.
"What?"
Torin nodded toward the television. "Kissing. You've never done it, I'm quite good at it...seems like we should at least make an attempt."
Glaring at him, I scrubbed at the spot on my T-shirt. "I don't want to kiss you."
Raising his eyebrows, Torin leaned forward. "Do you not? Why?"
I sat my bowl on the desk, no longer interested in eating. "First of all, you're an evil warlock trapped in a mirror, and secondly, it would be...weird."
He shrugged. "Not unless you wanted it to be."
I had no idea what that even meant, so I just turned back to the TV. "I've known you my whole life," I told him, keeping my eyes on Everton and Leslie. "You basically used to babysit me when Mom and Finn were out on missions. So kissage is out of the question."
I expected him to tease me about that, but instead he waved it away. "Very well. Just thought I'd offer."
"Thanks but no thanks," I muttered, my face flaming. Now Everton and Leslie were arguing, but I'd missed what they were fighting about, and truth be told, I couldn't pay much attention anyway. I'd meant what I'd said about kissing Torin being weird. But then wouldn't it be weird with any boy I kissed?
I snuck a look at Torin out of the corner of my eye. Practice kissing in a dream wouldn't be like real kissing, after all. And-
No. No, no, no. That was a stupendously dumb idea. Torin was four hundred years older than me, and dangerous and trapped in a freaking mirror. My life had always been odd, but I wasn't about to let it get that odd.
I reached up and hit stop on the DVD player. "Okay, that's enough Ivy Springs for today."
Torin made a sound of protest. "But Leslie was just accusing him of fancying that other girl, Lila! And I was so sure Everton was moments away from throwing her over at last!"
"We'll watch more tomorrow," I promised him. "Now, you-"
I was interrupted by an insistent buzzing coming from somewhere in my backpack.
"What on earth is that?" Torin asked, and suddenly I remembered: my cell phone.
I scrambled to get it out of my bag. "Mom?"
There was a pause and then, "Um, no? Is this...is this Izzy?"
It was a boy. What boy would be-and then I remembered my second day of school, giving Adam this number. "Adam! Uh. Hi."
"Hi."
"Hi."
"Oh, this is scintillating," Torin muttered, and I threw him a look over my shoulder.
"So," Adam said, "I was calling because there's a basketball game tonight, and I thought you might want to, uh, come with me."
When I didn't say anything immediately, he rushed on. "I know it's really last minute, but it starts in like an hour, and we can just meet there if you want, or I can pick you up, or...whatever."
I glanced down at my SpaghettiO-stained T-shirt, my mind racing. A boy, coming to my house. To pick me up and take me somewhere. That was totally a date.
And I wasn't sure I was ready for that yet.
"I'll meet you there," I told him. Hopefully Mom would be home soon, and if not, well, I could walk. After I changed into something not smeared with tomato sauce, obviously.
"Great!" he said, a little too loud.
"Yeah!" I exclaimed back, trying to match his enthusiasm. In the mirror, Torin didn't roll his eyes so much as his whole body.
"So an hour, at the school. I'll meet you there."
"Right," I agreed, hoping we could be done with this soon. My hands were starting to sweat. How come no one on Ivy Springs ever had these awkward phone moments? Leslie had probably never had sweaty palms in her life, not even when Everton called to tell her he was breaking up with her so that she could go to art school in Italy.
Finally Adam said, "See you then," and I breathed a silent sigh of relief. "Okay. Um...bye."
"Bye."
That done, I tossed my phone on the bed and turned my attention to my closet.
"Whatever shall you wear?" Torin observed, propping his chin in his hand. "Let's see, there's the black T-shirt with black jeans. Or perhaps, if you're going for elegance over function, you could wear the black T-shirt with black jeans. Ooh!" He sat up, widening his eyes. "Do you know what would be particularly fetching? The black-"
"T-shirt with black jeans," I finished for him. "Hilarious."
But looking at my closet, he did have a point. Other than that pink hoodie, my closet was a sea of sameness. A sea of black. And I didn't have the faintest idea what girls wore to basketball games.
Gripping the closet door with one hand, I leaned in and fished out a T-shirt. "You are being stupid," I muttered under my breath. "You have a ghost to hunt, and you are panicking over clothes."
Even though I hadn't been talking to Torin-and he knew it-he acted as though I had been. "But these things are all related, yes? The ghost and fitting in with these pathetic children. You are not fretting about clothing. You're merely trying to best maintain your cover."
Torin could be hugely annoying and a major pain in the butt, but every once and a while he said things I really needed to hear. So I threw him a very small smile before tossing a towel over my mirror.
"You know I wouldn't look," he said. "I am quite offended right now!"
Once I was in a clean shirt, I reached up to touch my hair. It was still back in the tight braid I wore every day, and for a second I thought about leaving it like that. But no, I needed to look a little different than I did at school, right?