Page 55 of Maid of Dishonor
My eyes fly to the door as it lurches open and reveals Jeremy, looking basically the same except a little more filled out. His dark hair is still floppy, his skin still translucently pale.
“Sam!” he says, smiling widely. Then, his smile dropping noticeably, he adds, “And…Carter.”
I rub my hand over my mouth so he can’t see my smile.
He and Sam exchange pleasantries, and then he gives Sam what’s probably the longest hug ever. My fingers itch the whole time to pry his arms from around her, but I resist.
Needless to say, I don’t get a hug. I get a half-hearted handshake.
When Jeremy leads us through his house to the family room, all I can think about is how Sam has been here before—there are ghosts of her everywhere, taunting me. She’s had dinner at the dining table, probably playing footsie with Jeremy the whole time. They probably sat right on this very couch and kissed and held hands and—
Stop it, I remind myself forcefully.Stop.I yank my thoughts away from that avenue and make myself pay attention to Jeremy as he speaks.
“So, uh,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. He sits on the coffee table in front of us, facing us. “You said you wanted to send an email. But, like, a fake one?”
“Correct,” Sam says, nodding.
“Yeah. Okay. So I just—I need to know that this isn’t anything super illegal that’s going to blow back on me—”
But he breaks off and looks relieved when Sam starts to laugh.
“Nothing like that,” she reassures him. “Just think of it as an elaborate prank.”
Averyelaborate prank, as it turns out. According to Jeremy, who I can grudgingly admit clearly knows his stuff, the best way to get a fake email to Maya is to pay for a domain name and then send it from there.
“You’re looking at something like eight to fifteen bucks,” he explains quickly when both Sam and I cringe. “It’s not expensive. But you’ll pretty much just be sitting around with a domain for the next year, though you don’t have to do anything with it. You cool with that?”
“Yes,” Sam says while I glare at the spot where Jeremy’s legs intersect with hers. “Can we make the email look like it comes from”—she pauses, digging in her pocket and pulling out a folded piece of paper—“from this site? Is that something we can do?”
Jeremy unfolds the paper to reveal a printout of an email fromyourdailyhoroscope.com. He looks up at Sam and then me, his eyes flicking between us. “And you’re not trying to get money or secure information or anything?”
“No. We’re really not,” Sam says as I shake my head. “We just need to get Carter’s cousin to read a horoscope that will change her mind about the loser she wants to marry.”
“Okay, then, yeah. That’s doable.” He thinks for a second. “What we’ll need to do is get a domain name as close to this one”—he points at the email—“as possible. So you could add punctuation, or you could even use a unicode character that looks like one of these letters. The lowercase Greek letter alpha looks like the lettera, or I think the lowercase omicron looks like the lettero. Use one of those symbols in place of the letter, and it will look the same, but it will register differently.”
Which is how Sam and I end up as year-long owners ofyourdailyhoroscope.comwhere theos have been replaced with small Greek omicrons. Look at us, living on the edge.
It takes us a bit to format Maya’s fake email the same way the real website does theirs, and then it’s time for the actual horoscope. I look over at Sam, my eyebrows raised.
“Do you have one, or do we need to come up with something?”
Sam grins at me. “Oh, I’ve got one. I wrote it last night.” She pulls out her phone, taps around for a second, and then begins to read. “‘Pay close attention to the days ahead, Pisces.’” She pauses. “Maya’s a Pisces, right? You said she’s in March?”
“Yeah, March third or fourth, I don’t remember which,” I say.
Sam nods. “She’s a Pisces. Okay. ‘Pay close attention to the days ahead, Pisces. You’re in danger of rushing some big decisions, which could lead to unhappiness and lack of fulfilment. In this time of difficulty, set aside your pride and lean on those around you to help you see things clearly. The universe wants you to succeed, so make sure you listen to your mindandyour heart as you take your next steps forward.’” Sam looks up when she finishes, her eyes expectant on mine.
“It’s perfect,” I say, grinning at her. “Absolutely perfect. It covers everything.”
Sam’s smile is genuine and blinding. “I just asked myself what might change my mind if I were in her position and I put a lot of stock in astrology.”
I nod. “It’s perfect,” I say again.
Now, we wait.
Fifteen
Sam
