Evy & Stella #207 (Pippi Willowbee)

Kitty was being rather open with us this brunch, talking about how it feels to go from famous to significantly less famous in only a few months. It seemed cruel that she could lose her fame and status so quickly like that. It made me wonder if she was forced out of her famous life for some reason, like a group of conspirators across her industries that wanted her out, but that sounded farfetched in my head. Still, it was interesting to learn about Kitty's life, and if she was being nice to us to boot, this brunch would be a much better time than I expected.

I was curious to hear a bit more, and maybe a bit about a few others in her family.

"Say, what's Aki's deal?" I asked. Her brother was apparently married to Caya, but I didn't buy that. I'd only seen Aki on the Kilander show, but he very much didn't seem to be Caya's type.

"What isn't Aki's deal..." Kitty said before stuffing her face with a big bite of pancakes.

I wondered if I should press her on evading my question.

"Good luck getting her to talk about family," Alix said. "The only one I can get her to talk about is Caya, who's not even related. And even then she just talks about work."

"I talk about Berin and Penty too!" Kitty said.

"Not Reit?" I asked.

"Nah, he's boring and weird," Kitty said. "Just like the rest of my family."

"Would you count Caya in there?" I asked.

"I guess, I always have to hang around her, huh?"

Caya's co-principal job did put the two together a lot, two very different personalities. Maybe that had an effect on Kitty being a bit...I don't want to say softer, but maybe a lot more tolerable than usual.

"Not much else to say about my family," Kitty poked at her remaining pancakes. "OK, enough questions about me, I wanna know more about you now."

"Me?" Alix asked.

"No, id...no, not you," Kitty said.

"If you do call Alix an idiot, I will make you stop." I said, wanting to make it clear I didn't want Kitty to talk to my Alix that way.

"That's why I cut myself off!" Kitty said. "That has me curious about you though, how'd you two become a thing? Did you tell me that already?"

I laughed. "Kitty, this is only like the second or third time we've even spoken to each other."

"Oh yeah," Kitty said.

I told her the gist of my time with Alix, omitting some of the details about the Brambler camping dating event where Alix and I made out, and the vacation where we first slept together.

"That's actually...kinda cute," Kitty said. "I was expecting Alix to fuck it up and somehow land you still."

"Oh, I goofed plenty up," Alix said.

"You didn't, not that much," I said. "Even if you did though, I'm really into that, so."

"That like failgirl charm, right?" Kitty said, sighing.

"Yeah," I agreed, then realized what I'd just heard. "Wait, wait, you get the failgirl allure Alix has?"

What the hell? Was that sigh a wistful one? Was Kitty into Alix's failwoman behavior like I was? And she just...said that out loud?

Kitty pointed her fork at me like I just told a wild story. "I mean....yeah? It's kind of funny when she ties her shoes together and falls down."

"You do that to me," Alix said.

"No, there was one time I didn't, I watched you tie your shoes together," Kitty said.

"Ohhh, right," Alix said. "OK, yeah, that one was me."

The two talked like they were better friends than I realized. I don't really think they were; Kitty and Alix's flings in the past weren't what I'd describe as fluffy. They had a lot of toxicity going on, and all of us hanging out was maybe me wading into drama that I didn't need to.

I still found myself optimistic that this was a good move. Because, bizarrely, so far it felt like there was something between all three of us. What that was I didn't know. But a seedling of something had been planted, and I was curious to see what it'd grow into.