“What do you know about filters?”
“I know that if I peed in one, when the pee came out the other side it would still be pee.”
“Alchemy’s fake, you know,” adds in another voice, belonging to a man who’s just inserted himself next to Wyatt. “Hi. If anyone says they can turn pee into gold, they’re lying. Or very dehydrated.”
Gideon closes his eyes briefly, as if maintaining his composure.
“Andi, this is Javier. Javier, my girlfriend Andi.”
“Charmed,” Javier says, grinning like it’s true.
“Gideon doesn’t want to share his beer,” Wyatt says, as if that’s an explanation.
“Does he need to?”
“No,” says Gideon. “He does not.”
“The alcohol kills the germs,” Reid says.
“Beer’s not nearly that alcoholic,” corrects Wyatt.
“Really?”
“Really.”
Reid goes silent and looks very thoughtful.
“Anyway,” Javier says. “Where are the best seats?”
* * *
“You know how this works?”Gideon asks me, so close his lips are practically against my ear. The derby players are lining up on the track, and the music is loud and the crowd is also loud and there’s even a few spotlights swirling around.
“Sort of?” I say, because I went to the derby once in Brooklyn but it’s been a couple of years.
Gideon leans in further and rests a palm on my thigh, right where my stockings end. I have no idea if it’s an accident.
“So, it’s divided into two-minute segments, which have a goofy name I don’t remember right now,” he says, his voice all rumbly and his hand warm. “See Lainey and the other woman with the star on her helmet?”
“I don’t know who Lainey is,” I remind him.
“Oh. Sorry,” he says, pointing at the track. “She’s the Black woman with the helmet star. I don’t know the other one. Lainey is, um, friends with Wyatt.”
I can’t see her very well from here, but I’m pretty sure she’s wearing rainbow fishnets and a lot of pink glitter, so she’s probably cool.
“Sure,” I say.
“They’re the ones who score points,” he says, “Which they do by skating through this pack of other women—” he points at a cluster further up the track, “—and then the goal is to lap the other team as many times as they can in two minutes by skating fast.”
“That’s it?”
He shrugs. “More or less.”
Silas and his girlfriend Kat come sit in front of us right before kickoff, or skateoff, or whatever it’s called. She’s quiet but knows way more about derby than either Gideon or Silas, so I wind up sitting next to her on the bleachers, leaning back against Gideon’s knees. He talks to Silas and keeps playing with my hair and then stopping, like he doesn’t know he’s doing it.
It’s good, seeing Gideon like this: relaxed and happy in public. Ever since we’ve been back he’s been stuck in the middle of all his siblings, trying to mediate The Sadie Situation. I’m not even sure any of them remember what sparked it, but I know that now they’re arguing about whether Matt went to a wet t-shirt contest in college one time or if Jacob secretly dated someone before he met his wife, if Zach’s wife is allowed to know the Secret Family Biscuit Recipe, or how Ariel might, sometimes, wear a two-piece swimsuit.
Watching over all this are William and Emma, Gideon’s parents. They’re either staying out of it (Gideon’s words) or allowing their progeny to kill each other,Lord of the Fliesstyle, until the final remaining child has proven his or her love for them by strict adherence to their impossible rules (my words, which I haven’t actually said to Gideon). I’ve seen his dad twice and his mother once since I moved back to Sprucevale, both times in passing. We didn’t speak. I’d be happy if we never spoke again, because as much as I can forgive Gideon for what happened back then, William and Emma can have my forgiveness when they ask for it on their knees and maybe not even then. So, yeah, I’m still mad.
