Jag turned to Archie.“What happened?”
“Fabe was trying to do a man-to-man with Mal to get him totalk and Mal called him a poof.”
“Poof” was better than some things Mal could have calledhim.
Regardless, he shouldn’t be saying shit like that at all.
Jag shouldn’t be, but he was curious.
“Is Fabe, uh…?”
Archie rolled her eyes and told him, “He’s pan.”
“He’s what?”
“He does chicks.He does dudes.He does dudes and chickstogether.He does trans.He fucks whoever he thinks is pretty.And he thinks alot of people are pretty.”
Well, that answered a question that hadn’t been burning inJag, but he had it.
“The fact remains it’s uncool to call people names,” Archiewent on.“Especially people who have been awesome with you.”
“Yeah,” Jag agreed.
“I think Mal looks up to you,” she told him.“He asked methe other day when you were coming around again.”
That surprised Jag.
“No shit?”Jagger asked.
She shook her head.“No shit.”
“Is he in the library?”
“The what?”
“The library, your book section.”
She smiled at him.“I dig you call it that.”
“I dig you dig that, baby.But can you answer the question?”
She nodded.“Yeah.Last I saw of him, he headed in there.Hereads.This is another reason I know something is up.When he gets into hishead, he gets into it with a book.Problem with that is, we have homework timeright after school and he starts reading and doesn’t do his homework.Which ishow this all began.I asked him about his homework, he wasn’t cool with me.Fabe waded in.And it went south from there.”
Jag drew in a breath to gain some cool at the thought thatMal gave her shit, then he bent, touched his lips to her forehead, and made hisway to the library.
He found Mal in that mini-maze of shelves, sitting in an oldarmchair, nose in a book.
He didn’t miss Jag showing, his eyes flicking Jag’s way,then he made a point of ignoring him, shifting in the chair to send a shoulderJag’s way.
Jag tamped down his annoyance and evened out his voice whenhe said, “Soda fountain, bud.Now.”
“I don’t wantnothin’,” Malmumbled, not meeting Jag’s eyes.
“I didn’t ask,” Jagger replied.“Let’s go.”
There was more belligerence in it when Mal turned fully tohim and snapped, “I told you, don’t wantnothin’.”
“Ass to a stool, I’m making you a malt.”
