Hazel suppresses a yawn as she winds the duct tape around a hockey stick. The bags under her eyes and the dreamy smile she’s been fighting all afternoon tell me all I need to know.
“Long night?” I ask teasingly.
Her smile breaks free like she’s been dying for me to ask. “She’s adream, Katie. My jaw is sore.”
I laugh as she keeps winding tape with a loudrrrip.
“Have you done any actual talking between all the face-sucking?” I ask, going to collect the net from where it got hung up on a bookshelf. (Fun fact: a leaf blower will explode if you try to launch an enchanted net out of it.)
“We talked!” Hazel says defensively, then flushes. “For a few minutes.”
With both ends of a bungee cord taped to hockey sticks, I grab the middle and walk back. “What’d you learn?”
Hazel holds the hockey sticks vertically and ducks her head while I put tension on the bungee.
“Well, she loves cooking and gardening… Used to have a pet snake…” Her voice softens. “Sounds like her family life is rough, to be honest. Not a great relationship with her mom, her dad died when she was little, and her brother died recently. The dog was his.”
“Damn. That’s really sad.”
I ball up the golden net and lay it against the bungee, chewing my lip. Thismightwork?
What we’ve essentially made is a giant slingshot. The idea is to launch the net much higher into the air than I’d be able to do by hand. Aiming, however, might get interesting. This is either a genius invention or the most absurd fucking thing ever to exist within the walls of C.S.A.M.M. And that’s saying something, considering I once set eyes on cursed bagpipes.
“I know,” Hazel says, her arms straining as she fights against my pull. “She feels like Wyatt is one of the only tangible parts of him she has left.”
I freeze, the name sending a chill through me. “Wyatt?"
She must hear something in my tone because her brow pinches. “Yeah.”
Coincidence. Must be. Wyatt is a common enough name. Except…
Dead brother, dead father, shitty mother…
“What kind of dog is he?” I ask, the hairs on my neck prickling.
“German Shepherd.”
My fingers fail me, and I let go of the bungee. Hazel stumbles. The golden net flies into the air, hits the ceiling fan, whips around a few times, and smacks into the wall. The ivy ripples and shudders as if offended.
No. No, no, no.
My heart is beating out of my chest. My lips are numb. “Hazel, what’s your girlfriend’s name?”
The confusion on her face intensifies. “Oaklyn.”
I step back. “Oh my God. Tell me you’re joking.”
She drops the hockey sticks with a clatter. Her eyes glint with excitement. “You know her?”
I lunge for her, knocking some ping-pong paddles off the table, and grab her flannel shirt in my fists. “Hazel! You’re dating a Madsen!”
“I—” She splutters. The excitement vanishes as quickly as it came, replaced by blank shock. “No I’m not.”
“Tall, pale, could bench press both of us at the same time?”
“Th-that could describe…” She falters, and the color drains from her face as realization begins to take hold.
“Septum piercing? Razor lines in her eyebrows?” I shout, pulling her closer. “Black hair—”
