"Dylan," I said.
"Wes," he said.
"Have you heard anything? About Cross."
Dylan was quiet for a moment. Not the thinking quiet. The deciding quiet.
"Talk to you later," he said.
Nothe's fine.Notdon't worry.Just—talk to you later,which was Dylan's version ofI have something to tell you and I'm not doing it in front of Rob and Linda with the game on.
I looked at him.
He looked back.
Then my phone buzzed again.
I picked it up. Not Jenkins this time.
Knox.
Knox didn't do preamble. Knox had never done preamble in his life.
Knox:Heard doc got fired. That true?
I stared at the text.
The wordfiredsitting there on the screen. No softening, no context, no Knox-style elaboration. Just the word and the question mark.
From the armchair, Dad said something about the power play.
From the kitchen, Mom said something back.
Dylan was watching me.
I put the phone down.
I got up off the couch, which I wasn't supposed to do, which Linda's voice in my head immediately noted. I stood in my apartment in the clean-laundry-real-food version of it, the Morrison family version, Rob in the armchair and Linda in the kitchen and Dylan on the couch watching me, and I thought about the lanyard.
The space where it should have been.
Just his shirt.
Fired.
"Wes," Dylan said.
"Yeah," I said.
"Sit down."
I sat down.
Dylan looked at me for a long moment. Then he picked up the remote and handed it to Dad.
"Turn it up," Dylan said.
Dad looked at him. Turned it up.
