Priya gestured toward the empty desk chair. "Sit."
Magnus reluctantly sat. Tony hopped from his shoulder onto the desk, settling into a posture Magnus had come to associate with the raccoon's love for theatrics and fake profundity. He wisely chose not to comment on this and turned his attention to the girls instead.
Priya folded her arms and looked at Katie, who nodded.
"I'll go first."
She explained her situation again — the crush, the months of watching, the fear of losing her vantage point — this time with Magnus and Tony listening.
When she finished, Magnus was quiet for several seconds.
Then he looked at her. "Do all Literature Majors like watching people?"
"Pardon?"
"You reminded me of someone—a past target. She's also a Lit Major, and she also likes to watch people. Even though your personalities couldn't be more different." Images of Brooke Harlan flashed through his mind. "She's the type who stops watching the moment she finds something she likes and just goes get it, aggressively and immediately."
Katie laughed, short and sheepishly. "I kind of wish I could be more like that."
"I don't think you can or should be. She's… kinda intense." He shuddered a little at the memory. "Actually, you kinda reminded me of someone else more—another past target—sorry, I don't mean to keep comparing you to girls I've slept with, it's just that… I don't really have any experience with women or know any outside of my mom, quest targets, and everyone at this beach house."
"It's fine," Katie said quickly. "No offense taken."
He cleared his throat. "Anyway, she was careful too. She watched everything and was really good at understanding people from a distance. Better than almost anyone I've met, actually. And, like you, she liked observing things and figuring things out before she got involved." He paused. "In fact, convincing her to get involved was the hardest part for Alex and me that week, actually, because she'd rather watch us from a distance than actually talk to us."
"So how did you?"
"We told her the truth about the System." At the questions in their eyes, he continued. "We had reasons to believe she was trustworthy, and we were running out of time. She took it surprisingly well—"
He cleared his throat again. "Anyway, point is, when it really mattered to her, she chose to act. Both when she learned the truth about my System and my quest, and when, well—" He blushed, partially regretting volunteering this information even as he was saying it. "—when she thought Alex and I would be good together as a couple, she apparently spent a whole year playing matchmaker without either of us knowing."
"Okay, now you have to tell us all about that!" Priya said.
"No! No, I really don't!" Magnus insisted. "I've already said too much about that."
Katie, mercifully, interrupted. "So you think I should just act?"
"I think you already know enough."
She waited.
Magnus shrugged. "You know you like him. You know you want to know if he likes you. I don't think there's anything else you can observe that's going to make the answer appear."
Katie considered that. "…That's annoyingly reasonable."
"Sorry."
"No, it's good advice. I agree." Priya smiled, turning to Katie. "You're still allowed to observe people. You're good at it. You just have to eventually participate."
"It is?" Magnus asked, still a little stunned by the compliment.
"Prey watch predators to know when to run. Predators watch prey to know when to pounce. She needs to decide whether she's predator or prey," Tony intoned. "Otherwise, she's just wasting time. Time she could be spending on finding food, mating, or digging through trash!"
Magnus frowned at him. "What?"
The raccoon just looked back at him expectantly.
He sighed. "He's agreeing with me, I think."
Tony made a series of indignant, offended noises.
"No! I'm not gonna tell them what you said verbatim! Those wordings sound horrible!"
The raccoon made angry noises again. Magnus chittered back.
The girls stared at them for a while before Priya coughed. "Okay, as fun as watching you two arguing is, could you just relay what he actually said? We promise we won't get offended."
Tony gestured at the girls with both front paws, looking smug. Magnus glared at him before turning back to the girls.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes," they both said in unison.
"Alright. You asked for it." He shrugged and repeated what Tony said, word for word.
Priya burst out laughing while Katie started blushing.
"Okay," Katie said eventually, still blushing a little. "I'll try talking to him next time I see him." Then, she turned to Priya. "Okay, your turn with the raccoon sage."
"Please don't encourage him!" Magnus groaned.
"Too late!" Priya snorted, pointing at Tony puffing up on the desk.
She then explained the situation with her ex.
Magnus listened. He asked a couple of questions, mostly trying to establish exactly what her ex had said and what she had actually responded to.
When she finished, he sat back. "So you don't know if he's trying to get back together with you?"
"No."
"And you don't know if you want to get back together with him?"
"No."
"And you're trying to figure out what he wants before deciding what you want?"
Priya frowned. "When you say it like that…"
Magnus shrugged. "I don't think you have to figure out what he wants."
"That's what I told her, too!" Katie chimed in.
"But what if he's doing all this because he wants me back?"
"Then he can tell you that."
Priya stared at him. "But what if he doesn't?"
"Either way, you still have to decide whether you want him back, though, don't you?" Magnus continued before he could overthink it. "Look, I'm not good at reading emotions or subtext. I can't tell what people want most of the time, so you don't have to listen to me." He paused briefly, as if to recall something before continuing. "But my mom once told me that what other people think or do is out of my control, so I should focus on what I can control: figuring out what I want and what I should do. Because only when you know what you want, can you really decide how to respond to what someone else wants from you."
Priya looked down at her phone.
Magnus leaned forward slightly. "You ended the relationship for a reason, right?"
"Yes."
"Do you still believe those reasons?"
Priya hesitated. "Yes."
"Then…" Magnus shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe that's the answer."
Priya looked at him. "That's it?"
"I mean, I don't know your whole relationship." He rubbed the back of his neck. "But if you still think ending it was the right thing, then maybe missing him doesn't automatically mean you made the wrong choice."
Priya went quiet.
Magnus seemed to realize only then that he'd said something more serious than he intended. "I mean, you can miss someone and still not want to be with them."
Priya looked at him for a long moment. "Yeah. I guess you're right."
Tony chose this moment to chime in. "You humans like to overcomplicate simple matters. If mating partner is no longer desirable, move on. Coming back to undesirable mating partners is like coming back to empty trashcan because you used to find good food there. If something is useful, you keep it. If it isn't, you leave it alone. Otherwise, it's just a waste of time, and food." He sniffed the air. "Also, I smell salted fries somewhere. We should go investigate later."
Magnus stared at him, then turned back to Priya. "Do you still want the uncensored version?"
"Yeah, sure. Hit me."
After he relayed the information, Priya leaned back on her hands. "That sounds incredibly cold."
Tony shrugged and made another series of sounds. Priya looked at Magnus.
He rubbed a hand down his face. "He says you should stop marking territory you already abandoned, because it just confuses everyone, including yourself."
Katie snorted. "He got you there, Pri."
Priya looked at her phone on the nightstand, and then at Tony, and then back at her phone.
"Can I say something and you tell me if it's stupid?" Magnus blurted out.
"Sure."
"I don't actually know what I want these days, like, constantly. Basically every week, actually. I just have stuff happening and I have to move anyway because there's no time to sit around and figure out my feelings first. You know, with the whole death quest timer thing." He gestured vaguely. "And weirdly, moving is usually how I find out what I actually wanted. Not before. During. Sometimes after." He frowned slightly, hearing himself. "That sounded smarter in my head."
"No," Priya said slowly. "No, that actually… makes a weird amount of sense."
"You could try changing your behavior and habit first, instead of just waiting for an answer or a change from his side."
Priya stared at him.
"That's… actually a really good point," she said, sounding almost betrayed by how good she'd found it. "I should stop trying to figure out what his texts mean and focus on what I actually want instead."
Tony hopped back onto Magnus's shoulder.
"Back to training, young wanderer!" he announced, looking extremely satisfied. "Our job here is done."
Magnus glanced at him. "We barely did anything!"
"We've done a great amount. My wisdom was indispensable. Your insights were lacking, but still surprisingly useful nonetheless."
Magnus stood up, pointing at Tony. "He says we should get back to training."
The girls nodded.
He walked toward the door, opened it, then glanced back at them before he left.
"Good luck!" he said, a little awkwardly. "Both of you. With everything."
Then he was gone, leaving the girls staring at each other for a long moment.
"Okay," Katie broke the silence. "I can see why he and Alex have that argument about Tony. That raccoon is oddly smart and, at the same time, still completely a raccoon."
"Yeah. You can say that again."
***
After dinner that night, Magnus and Alex were in their room again, trading stories about their days, before the conversation somehow veered into his mother's sudden change in her stance about him coming home for Spring Break.
"I didn't remember it last night because there was so much going on," Alex was saying, "but when I was in town today, I kinda remembered it. Didn't she threaten to lock you out of the house if you come back?"
Magnus looked at her with an expression that said: Really?! It's obvious, isn't it?
"Yeah, that was before she found out I had a girlfriend." He gestured at her. "So now, her stance has shifted from 'stay out of the house, you mama's boy!' to 'you'd better get back here and spill everything before I come after your ass, boy!'"
She snorted. "So, you want me to come with you, then?"
"No!" He held up both hands, making a stop signal. "Bad idea! Horrible idea! Do not feed the animal!"
She burst out laughing. "That bad?"
"You are not to come anywhere near my mother until I've judged that she's stable enough not to make my life extremely awkward!" he said nervously. "In fact, if it wasn't for the possibility that she would come down to our college sniffing you out if I don't come home and give her something to sate her curiosity right this weekend, I would not be in such a hurry to go back there and spill the beans."
"You kinda made me really curious now, actually." She laughed easily. "I can't wait to meet her."
Magnus shuddered at her words, clearly imagining the day when that would finally happen.
Meanwhile, elsewhere inside the beach house, Priya's phone buzzed again. She picked it up, looked at the new text from her ex, then put it back down without replying immediately for a change.