“I wish I could get paid for socializing.”Elodie settled in to the seat and the door closed automatically.
“You?Socialize?” Astrid clutched her chest in mock horror.
Elodie shook her head and ignored the comment.“Well, I’m glad you did.A lot happened at work, and it’s better to talk in person.”
Astrid stretched her legs out in the open interior, toeing the seat across from her before crossing her long legs at her ankles and resting them on the fleecy carpet.“Real life meetups are highly overrated, and always seem to interrupt things.”
“Gah.Thanks, Astrid.I’m so glad you could make some time for li’l ol’ me.”Elodie batted her eyelashes sardonically.
“Shut up.None of that applies to you.Just, you know, to...”Astrid tapped her black polished fingertips on the tinted window at the pedestrians briskly walking along the sidewalk.“Everybodyelse.”
“You’re only saying that because you get reclusey in that apartment all by yourself,” Elodie commented with a little more brusqueness than she’dmeant.
“Thea is crashing with me for a bit, so I’m no longer wild and free.You remember my sister?”Astrid didn’t wait for a response.“Did I detect a hint of jealousy in there somewhere, Miss Elodie Grace?”She combed her fingers through her hair and settled back against the seat.“Gwen’s on one again, isn’t she?”She brushed the end of her ponytail against her cheek.“What am I saying?It’s always something withGwendolyn Benavidez.” Astrid stuck out her chest and lifted her chin in the same ostentatious way Elodie’s mother did anytime she introduced herself to anyone.
Elodie let her hair down and massaged the tender spot where the rubber band had pulled at her scalp.She couldn’t tell if the tight tie or the mention of her mother had made her temples start to throb with the first dull pains of a headache.“Don’t get me started.”
“Couldn’t if I wanted to.A ride out to Zone Six wouldn’t give us enough time.”The apples of Astrid’s highlighted cheeks lifted with a smile.“And this bad boy isn’t charged up with enough juice for a trip likethat.”
Elodie blew out a long,lip-rattlingsigh.“It’s nothing new anyway.Same neurosis, differentday.”
And this day had truly been different from therest.
Elodie pressed her hands against her thighs.“I met someone.He’s really...”She bit her lower lip, pausing as she searched for a word that encompassed the mohawked stranger.“Interesting.”
Elodie flicked the zipper on her backpack as she replayed her encounter with tall, dark, and handsome while Astrid listened, her dark eyes widening with each detail.
Astrid stopped twirling the ends of her hair and sucked in a sharp breath.“So, he asked you if you’d ever had awater bath”— disgust pinched her features—“and then told you that he works in the morgue?”
Elodie hugged her backpack against her chest and pressed into the seat’s milky soft fabric.“Yes, but not in a way that sounded as creepy as you just made it.”At least, she didn’t feel like what had happened was creepy.Strange, yes.But not creepy.Creepy implied danger and fear, and Elodie didn’t feel threatened or afraid.
“It sounds creepy because that’s really the only way itcansound.”Astrid’s inky black ponytail swished emphatically as she spoke.“When we talked about you being able to speak to guys, I didn’t think you’d shoot so low.And I mean that both figuratively and literally since you found him in thebasement.” She rested her elbow on the armrest dividing the two bucket seats.“Although, I guess I should be happy that you talked to anyone at all about something other thanwork.”
“I knew you could find the positive if you just looked hard enough.”Elodie relaxed a little, letting her backpack slump into her lap.“And it wasn’t super awkward.I managed to speak the whole time and everything.”
“Did the whole ‘Let me give you a bath in the ELU’conversation happen before or after you ranface-firstinto the door?”Astrid sucked in her lips to keep from laughing.
“Oh, don’t remind me.”Elodie groaned and slid down in the seat of theself-drivingPearl, tucking as much of her face as she could into the collar of her shirt.“He probably only spoke to me because he felt sorry for the weird girl who couldn’t manage to enter the building correctly.”
As the Pearl glided out of the city and into suburbia, the chunky gray freeway barricades ended, replaced by the blushing pink of flowering plum trees, brilliant green pines, and the steady thrumming of construction bots still working to upgrade the thousands of stores and homes that had made up the prepandemic suburbs.
“Possible, but I bet he wanted to talk to you because of how gorgeous and fabulous you are.”Astrid held up her long finger.“Not that I am in any way rooting for or condoning an emotionally romantic liaison.”
With how much Astrid obsessed over the rules, the thought that she would hope for something as torrid as an emotional liaison never crossed Elodie’s mind.Plus, Elodie wasn’t quite sure what an emotionally romantic liaison would even entail.
Astrid threw her ponytail over her shoulder.“Actually, if you ever encounter him again, tell him you’re engaged to a Key Corp Major and then turn and run in the opposite direction before he has a chance to attack you with one of thoseEnd-of-Life Unit body carvingbots.”
Elodie zipped and unzipped the small front pouch of her backpack.“I don’t think I need to worry about being attacked.”
Astrid pursed her lips.“You say that now, but when you’re lying face up on an exam table with bots waving their blades overhead and you hear creepy mohawk dude’s maniacal laughter echoing around the room, you’ll remember this conversation and wish that you had listened to me.”
Comments like that made Elodie question whether or not Astrid had ever read one of the banned books she went on and on about having destroyed.
They passed by the faded orange Home Depot building stretched next to the freeway like spilled juice.Elodie held her breath.She’d seen a video of some kids who had broken into the abandonedwarehouse-sizedstore not too long ago.It had been fifty years since the Cerberus virus first tore through civilization, yet blood still stained the concrete floors within.
Elodie drummed her fingertips against her knees.“Anotherincidenthappened today too,” she said, changing the subject.She didn’t want to think about Cerberus or let Astrid continue to destroy the only pleasant thing that had happened all day.
Astrid cocked her head and fingered the top button on her denim jacket.“Another scaryreal-lifeconvo with a different creepy weirdo?”
