Payback’s coming, you little shit!
She isn’t budging, so I try a more encouraging vibe. “Go on, Lois.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
She slides off the stool and walks over to her bag, pulling out a laptop and settling back onto the goddamn couch, stuffing a pair of earbuds into her ears and vanishing behind her screen.
She plucks out one of the buds. “Can I get the Wi-Fi password?” she asks meekly.
“?‘JuicyBalls,’?” Carter answers for me.
“What?”
“?‘JuicyBalls.’?” He keeps his face straight. “Capital ‘J,’ capital ‘B.’?”
“Right. Got it.”
She stabs at her keypad, frowns, and looks back over at us. Carter is struggling to hold back his laughter. And so am I.
She clears her throat. “All one word?”
“You got it.”
She chews her lip, like it’s taking everything she has to bite her tongue. Over the top of her screen, her eyes are flashing back and forth between us. I wait for her to take a swipe, but it never comes.
That all you got, Lois?
Her mood swings are a lot. Yesterday, she was shamelessly ripping into me, this morning she can hardly get a word out. It makes sense, though: She’s in such a shitty situation, she must feel like she has no choice but to hold back. I don’t know which I like best.You don’t like any of it, dude! Remember?
She readjusts her earbuds, and I can hear the bass throbbing from here as Lois seals herself away in her own little world.
“Lane?”
“What?”
“Look any harder and you’ll set that couch on fire.”
I drag my eyes back to Carter, and before he has a chance to piss me off with any questions, I sift through the notes he brought with him, offering up comments and questions as I read, but it’s no use. He doesn’t respond to a single one of them. When he twists in his seat to look at Lois, I keep my eyes on the papers.
“It’s not bad, I love the tubing idea. Do you think it’s doable, technically?”
He doesn’t reply, and when he leaves yet another one of my questions hanging in the air, I slam the bundle of notes down on the table.
“Carter! You’ve been up my ass for three days now, wanting to talk through these ideas. So can we do this, or what?”
“Uh-huh.”
I snap my fingers in front of his face.
“Can you please stop staring at her?”
“She’s kind of nice,” he says slowly, flicking his tongue piercing between his teeth.
“You spoke to her for all of five minutes.”
“So?”
“So what?”
