Cash sighs.
“Your brother wrote that?” I know the answer, even before Cash snorts.
“Not a damn chance. I’ve heard his shit. It’s trash.” I wait for him to say it. I know he wants to. “Onyx wrote it.”
Onyx is his brother’s best friend and drummer in their punk rock boy band Whiskey Horizons. Cash has had a crush on Onyx for ages.
Unlike Benson, Onyx is a nice guy. He’s kind, thoughtful, and intelligent. Better yet, he doesn’t have a stick up his ass like Benson.
“Want to know something… interesting?” Cash asks.
“Yep, what’s up?”
“A week ago, I was sitting outside when Ben and Onyx got here. I was scrolling ShareIt, which means meme central, right? I was laughing over a ‘this could be us’ meme when they walked by. Ben, of course, scowled and basically told me to die. Onyx rolled his eyes and asked me what I was laughing at. I showed him the meme. It said ‘this could be us but you’re too busy screaming.’ One guy was looking at a sexy position and the other guy was screaming at a video game.”
“Ohhh.” I say, grinning hugely. “Those words?—”
“Are in the song!” Cash finishes. “I know. I don’t know what that means.” He sighs.
To me, it means that Onyx is talking to Cash through a song. This isn’t the first time something Cash has said or shown Onyx that’s ended up in a song. This is maybe the fifth or sixth.
“I’m just his muse,” Cash says.
“Maybe,” I say, though I don’t think that’s it. I think Onyx is communicatingsomething,but I don’t want to say what it sounds like, so I don’t get Cash’s hopes up.
I look down at my feet. My toes are in those spacer things while the nail polish dries. I think the summer teals are beautiful and dry now. I set my crocheting aside and grab the clear coat polish from my windowsill.
“You went to the resident meeting, didn’t you?” I ask.
“Oh my god, have we not talked since then? Okay, first, I’m going to give you the tea that’s happening in my own backyard. So, the house on our left is Mr. Simmonds’.”
“I thought he was on the right.”
“No. That’s Mr. Simms. I tell my parents all the time that we need to change our last name to Simmons without the D, so the graduation of one name to the other makes sense.”
I snort.
“So, across from Mr. Simmonds is Mr. Tilly. He’s one of the bakers at a shop on Makara. Well, his wife pulled into their driveway, and James Grayclimbed out the back window. Mr. Simmonds didn’t justseethis; he caught it on film when James Gray was halfway out the window!”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. I saw the video. Bestie, there have been rumors about James and Mr. Tilly forages. We’ve always thought they were silly because no one has ever even seen them together.”
“Isn’t James Gray?—”
“The house husband of Wyatt Williams, General Manager of Tourism for Kala? Yes!”
“Hmm.”
“Someone isn’t keeping their house husband satisfied,” Cash sing-songs.
I laugh. “What happened at the meeting?”
“The uzhe. Leo’s flowers are too long again and too brightly colored according to Brittany, who we know is simply jealous because they’re nicer than hers by like… what’s the scale that one measures the beautifulness of flowers on?”
I shake my head, laughing. “Dunno.”
“Well, that caused a stink for a good ten minutes. Some anonymous person is turning books upside down at the library. We’re not talking one or two, but entire rows. Mrs. Lambert is getting annoyed. Oh! There’s something exciting proposed.”
