Didn’t know there was a new panda. Apparently I need to brush up on my kid shows.
“You not nice,” Ava says.
“Are you sure you’re only two?” I ask her.
“I Ava,” she says.
She wolfs down all of the mushrooms that I have in the house, two string cheeses, and two dragon fruits before she announces she wants to play.
Beck bundles her in a little vest, and we head back outside so she can run.
“She gonna puke?” I ask Beck.
“Unlikely. You gonna puke?”
I glance at him.
He grins. “Or get yourself arrested?”
“I’m not going to get myself arrested.”
“You’re searching for Thorny Rock’s treasure.”
“Patrick Dixon is too.”
That thing where Beck’s always happy?
It stops when his sister’s ex-boyfriend is mentioned.
Fucker dumped Ellie at Christmas, which set off a string of events that led to her having a car accident where we almost lost her.
She’s good now—she married Wyatt Morgan, one of the few guys from the neighborhood who didn’t have any interest in joining Bro Code, and who’s always been tightest with Beck—but Dixon is one of maybe two people I don’t expect Beck will ever forgive and forget in his lifetime.
“The fuck?” he mutters, eyes on Ava—probably to make sure she’s too far away to hear him—while his expression turns grim.
Maybe a little pissed off too.
“Dude’s been in town for two weeks,” I tell him. “Caught him trying to break into the new museum this morning. Pretty sure he’s the guy who was in there Saturday night too.”
Beck slides a glance at me, then looks back at Ava again. She’s chasing leaves in the light breeze. “That’s all? You’re not gonna pull a Denver again? You’re just trying to beat him to the treasure?”
This is what I like most about Beck.
He’s not gonna question that I’m hunting for a treasure.
He’s not running a museumabout the fucking treasurewhile pretending it doesn’t exist.
He’s not suspicious about why I know where a map came from and about how it shouldn’t be in Shipwreck.
He just says,oh, there’s a treasure and you want to find it? Cool.
“Just trying to beat him to the treasure,” I agree.
And also stop him from learning anything else he shouldn’t know about this area.
Some things are better kept quiet.
“And then what?” Beck asks.
