“Honey, I’m never gonna stop judging you for that. You’re way too cute and unassuming for this kind of shit,” she said. Lacquered nails tapped against the surface of the desk. Jackwaited for her to nudge his shin with her foot, but she just glared at him. “You’re like… some kind of adorable, deranged woodland creature.”
“Um, thanks?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I kinda dig it.”
With a sigh, he said, “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
She groaned into her hands and exhaled slowly. “Yeah. Neither am I. OK. So digging up corpses aside, what else did you try?”
“I did some exploring. I asked some people why they thought I’d be stuck in a time loop.”
“You did?” Carla clucked in astonished delight. “Tell me more.”
“Well, the bookstore owner told me it’s probably aliens.”
“Aliens?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh.” Carla tilted her head, eyed him skeptically. “Like space aliens?”
“I think so. Have you ever been there? She’s got conspiracy books all over the place.”
“To space, or the bookstore?” Her cheeks lifted into the ghost of a grin.
He couldn’t help but grin back. “Either.”
She shook her head, smirked. “Yeah, I’ve been to the bookstore once or twice. I buy most of my books at the grocery store, though.”
Jack imagined the romance novels and cheap thrillers at the supermarket and almost smiled at the thought of Carla thumbing through them. It was charming, domestic. Not the kind of thing he expected from someone who looked too rich to run her own errands. Everything she wore was designer. Even the rings on her fingers were inlaid with real diamonds. “You like to read?”
“Sometimes,” Carla said. “Why? Do you?”
“Once in a while.” Jack thought of the dog-eared books in his living room, most of them unfinished, victims of his short attentionspan. Magazines and newspapers added to the clutter, but they allowed him to shift easily between stories and articles. Coupled with the inclusion of pictures, they were so much more bearable. “I’m not what you’d call an academic.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing."
“Isn’t it?”
“Who the fuck told you that? Who do I need to slap?” Her brows arched, eyes narrowed, nostrils flared.
He stared at her. “I—Look, it’s just that Itriedto be an academic, alright? I wasn’t very good at it.”
“Who says?”
“Um, like every teacher and professor I’ve ever had. I’m really, really bad at focusing sometimes.”
“Yeah, you’re always fiddling with that bag. I’ve noticed.”
Jack decided not to comment and let the strap of his satchel fall from his fingers. “It doesn’t exactly translate into good grades. I can find a subject really interesting and write a paper on it, but I can’t stop fidgeting and I can’t stop losing things, conversations are hard to keep up with, and I just—my professors really hated me.” He stared down at the bag in his lap and adjusted the strap so that it was evenly spread across his legs. “I tried really hard, but I just wasn’t good at it.”
Carla capped the pen. “Come on. I need a ginger ale.”
“I thought we were working until we died?”
“I changed my mind. I’m thirsty. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER
