Brody listens as you tell him about the awkward car ride with Jace.
“Man, it’s not like you’ve ever done anything to him,” Brody says.
Which is technically true, depending on how you look at it. It wasn’t like Jace was around forthe incident.
“He’s just being a drama queen.”
“Yeah, but it still sucks. I don’t know.”
Brody scoffs. “Giving people the silent treatment is a major red flag.”
You hadn’t thought of it that way. But you suppose it is. You weren’t as close to Jace as you were to Cooper or Tyler, but they all cut you out of their lives like you were never there to begin with.
You spend half an hour at GameStop, looking for deals on used games, taking a turn to try out the new ones on display when they’re not being hogged by all the ten-year-olds whose parents don’t let them have enough screen time at home. There’s a cool vintage-looking Optimus Prime shirt on the racks, and unlike most of the stuff here, you can actually afford it. You surreptitiously check the size—yeah, it would fit—but you don’t know if Brody used to like Transformers or if he would tease you for still kind of being into them.
Eventually, you get tired of the college-aged cashier at the checkout counter giving you the stink eye as you browse but don’t buy, so you head back out.
“Hey, let’s go to Barnes and Noble. I gotta pick up something.”
“Okay.” You didn’t know Brody liked to read. Back when you were in ISS together, he acted like having to read after finishing his work for the day was a punishment worse than death. You kind of figured he hated books, but maybe he just hates the stuffy old books in ISS.
You read once that the smell of books makes some people have to poop. You’re grateful you’re not one of those people as you follow Brody toward the escalator to the second floor.
“What’re you looking for?”
“The newStar Warsbook dropped on Tuesday,” he says. “I’ve been waiting all month for this.”
You nod.
“What?” he asks.
“What what?”
You both hop off the escalator, in your case literally, because the little teeth at the top freak you out a bit.
“Why are you smiling like that?”
You didn’t realize you were, but now that he’s pointed it out, you smile wider.
“Didn’t realize you were such a huge nerd.”
He laughs and gives you a lighthearted shove toward the sci-fi section. You haven’t spent much time in it. Truth be told, you usually go for the graphic novels a few aisles over.
Brody finds the one he wants—a chonker of a book, tall and wide and thick, with the edges sprayed black—and nabs it off the endcap. “They’ve got the special edition!” he says reverently.
His grin widens as he opens the book and flips through it, then goes back to the front and starts reading, standing there at the end of the aisle.
Like, really reading it. Not just staring at it. It’s like he’s tuned out the whole world.
You wonder how long you should give him. You’ve never seen him like this before. Brody’s a bundle of energy, always moving. Now he’s still, calm, and peaceful.
It makes you smile even wider.
You decide to leave him to his book, at least for a little while, and go check out the graphic novels, but when you turn into the aisle you stop short.
Tyler’s at the other end.
You’ve known Tyler since fifth grade. You and Cooper used togo to his house after school to play UNO and watch movies and eat junk food.
