Dara knew he was a selfish person himself. But he’d been in a lot of minds—selfishness was a universal trait. Unless you were Noam Álvaro. Then your thoughts were a mess of anger and idealism, tilted so sharply towardthe greater goodthat anything else, everything else, became ephemera. It was one of the things that made Álvaro so frustrating, so impossible to talk to. It was a naivete that couldn’t be shattered by anything Dara said. Worse, Dara wasn’t sure he wanted to shatter Noam. He feared Noam would put himself back together all wrong, the pieces mismatched, his mind taking on the same dingy patina as everyone else’s.
Besides, Noam didn’t see Dara the way other people did. He had no idea who Dara was, politically speaking—he didn’t know Lehrer had adopted Dara as a child or what that meant. Therefore, he didn’t see Dara as someone to beused. In fact, he spent most of his time thinking Dara was insufferable.
Noam thought about Dara quite a lot, actually.
One time Ames had dragged them all out to a club, and afterward they’d sat in a little twenty-four-hour diner on the outskirts of town that served floppy waffles drowning in corn syrup and shriveled-looking strawberries. Dara had eyed his plate and promptly asked the waiter to bring him a bowl of lemon slices, which he ate plain while Noam bloody Álvaro stuffed his face with 1,020 calories worth of preservatives and carbs.
“Shall we order you a second serving?” Dara had said dryly once Noam had consumed the last bite of waffle—although not without smearing it around to soak up all the extra syrup first.
Noam had glanced up, his amber eyes meeting Dara’s across the table. Dara ignored the little thrill that rolled down his spine.
“Not all of us can survive on lemon slices and sour grapes, Shirazi.”
And then Álvaro’d reached over and picked up Dara’s plate of waffles and eaten them too.
“Don’t worry,” Ames had added, her elbow poking Dara in the ribs. “Dara gets plenty of calories from bourbon.”
A comment perfectly crafted, of course, to make Dara want to crawl under the table and disappear.
They walked back from there, even though it was two miles from the government complex through what Taye informed them all was abad neighborhood. Dara could tell from the bitter twist to Noam’s thoughts that he’d interpreted the comment to meanAtlantian.
“It seems fine to me,” Dara had said. “There’s even a playground. It’s probably a lot of families.”
Ames snorted. “You grew up in the government complex, Dara.”
“And you both grew up in Forest Hills. What’s your point?”
Noam just kept walking, his gaze fixed on the broken concrete of the sidewalk a few paces ahead. And suddenly Dara was irritated—with all of them, including himself. Because Noam clearly wasn’t going to point out that he’d grown up in a neighborhood a lot worse than this one. Thatworsejust appeared to be a synonym forpoor. And even if there were violent criminals lurking in the bushes, they’d hardly stand a chance against four Level IV cadets at the height of their powers. The damage that a single word from Dara Shirazi could do against someone from this neighborhood was a whole lot worse than anything they might do to him.
“Whatever,” Ames said. “I’m calling a car.”
The cab met them at an upcoming intersection. Ames and Taye piled into the back seat, but Noam held back, shaking his head.
“It’s a nice night,” Noam said. “I think I’m just going to walk the rest of the way back.”
“Are you sure? It’s our treat,” Taye offered, which was of course the stupidest thing he could possibly have said.
“Pretty sure. Thanks.”
“I’ll walk with you,” Dara said abruptly, taking a step back up onto the curb.
Noam grimaced. “You don’t have to. I don’t need protection.”
“Don’t worry—I’d just as soon let the serial killer have you.” Dara shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m feeling queasy, that’s all. I need the fresh air.”
And of course there was nothing Noam could say in response to that. He’d shrugged and let Dara fall into step beside him as the cab peeled away, taillights vanishing over the dark horizon.
“I’m sorry I stole the rest of your food,” Noam said after a while.
“It’s okay.”
“I’ll buy you another waffle.”
Dara snorted. “Oh, I’m counting on it.”
Noam laughed and kicked half a broken beer bottle into the grass. There was a warm quality to his mind all of a sudden. Dara wanted to curl in closer to that heat, let it sink from Noam’s skin into his.
“So you really like lemons, huh?” Noam said.
