Page 88

“You whacking off in there, or what?” He laughs. I cringe and try not to look at myself.

“Good one. No, I…” I clear my throat. “What’s up?”

“Just…wondering if I can buy you a beer,” he says. “I need to talk.”

Sure. “Sure,” I say out loud. “Just, uh…gimme a second.”

CHAPTER 20

FOX

“So,” Kit says, drumming his fingers on the outside of his beer.

It’s kinda early to be at a bar, let alone the Lagoon, so we’re pretty much the only people here except for some real sad sacks in the corner who honestly might have been here overnight. It’s quiet, the lights are all still mostly a normal color, it smells more like bleach than alcohol, and the music is kinda weirdly calm.

“So yeah,” I say, and gulp half my beer in a single go. I tip my head, actually listening to the soundtrack. “What is this, like, lo-fi or something?”

“It’s a study playlist,” Emerald says, pushing a rag around the top of the bar. “Like hip-hop beats for concentration or something like that? I put it on when DJ wants a break and there’s nobody here actually paying for…” Her eyes widen, and she trails off, looking at the two of us.

Kit lifts his shoulders then drops them. “No offense taken,” he says. He darts a glance at me. “I mean, I can’t speak for my brother here, but…”

“No, I’m good.” I nod a few times. “It’s good. Relaxing.” And I mean it, too. Relaxing is good. It’s what I need. Because my mind is all over the place, and the only person I could think to talk to is, well, the person I’ve known the longest in life. Technically before we were alive, depending on where you think that whole thing starts.

“Cool. Well.” Emerald still looks a little guilty and flips a long blonde chunk of hair over her shoulder. “Um, here, have some pretzels.” She pushes forward a little seashell-shaped bowl and then scoots off.

Kit frowns down at the counter. “She only wiped, like, half of it,” he says.

“Yeah,” I say, not really listening. I take a handful of the pretzels, which is most of the pretzels, and stuff them in my mouth. “Free snacks, though.”

“An-y-way,” Kit says, extending the word a whole lot, “what’s going on?” He angles a look at me from behind his glasses.

Suddenly I find myself chewing extra noisily, like the crunching of the pretzels can drown out my thoughts in case he can read them. Which he can’t, but one time he lied and said he got X-ray glasses at the doctor, and I totally believed him for, like, a week. So you can’t be too careful.

Finally, I swallow.

“I don’t know, man,” I say, looking down into the foamy surface of my beer. “Just…”

I trail off, not sure how to begin. Kit’s the smart one, the good one with, like, feelings and words and understanding how things work in general. Me, I’m just…dumb. A big old dumb drain on everyone’s resources.

I sigh again. Kit sighs too, but louder.

“Look, dude, do not make me play Twenty Questions about this,” he says. He sips his beer and breathes out. God, even his beer is better than mine, some fancy import in a bottle instead of whatever’s just on tap. “Can you at least give me, like, a domain, a realm to be concerned in? Like, do you owe someone bad money?”

Again, he does that X-ray stare of his.

“No. No way.” I swipe my hand through the air for emphasis. “Nothing like that. I mean, only except as far as, you know, we sorta all do.”

I glance at the door, in the direction of the shop where the window’s still busted, even though there’s no way I could see it from here, because the Lagoon doesn’t have front windows and I don’t have X-ray vision.

“It’s just…” I clutch my beer, pick it up, put it back down, lower my head. “Dude, I think I’m in love with Tink.”

“You what?”

Kit’s voice is more…something than I thought it would be. Alarmed? Concerned? Surprised? I don’t think it’s bad.

“Yeah.” I scratch the back of my neck. “I don’t know. I just…she’s so pretty and she’s so smart and she’s so⁠—”

“Dude,” Kit mutters. “What is this, middle school? You can’t fall in love with someone just because you made out once⁠—”