“He’s always right. It’s extremely annoying.” He leans on the counter. “Break at two. I’m taking you to the games.”
“I’m working—”
“Tristan has it covered for an hour, he has the backup crew on today. Two o’clock.” He’s already backing away. “Don’t make me come in there.”
“You can’t come in here, it’s a food prep space…”
But he’s gone.
Tristan, without looking up from the serving window, says: “Go at two. The rush drops between two and four.”
“You planned this?” I ask.
“I plan everything,” he replies, which is entirely true. I return to the serving window with something that is not quite a smile but lives close to it.
The break happens at two as foretold.
Jack takes me through the game alley at full operation, which is his domain at its peak. Every station is running, the sounds layered into something close to music, competition and laughter and the mechanical rhythms of games in play. He knows every operator by name. They all light up when he passes. His enthusiasm is real rather than faked. I watch this and file it.
We play three games. I win two. He wins one through what I’m fairly confident is cheating, which he denies with complete composure.
“You absolutely interfered with the ball trajectory,” I say.
“I was standing on my side of the booth.”
“Your side of the booth has very flexible borders.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He’s already steering me toward the next station, hand briefly at my elbow, a touch that comes and goes before I’ve processed it. “Come on. Archer’s doing something at the central stage that I want to see.”
“Archer is doing something?”
“It’s the town talent segment. He does it every year.” He says it with delight I don’t understand yet. “He doesn’t know I’m bringing you.”
We head toward the stage and wait. The talent segment begins.
Archer plays his guitar.
I stand at the edge of the stage crowd and I watch Archer—impossibly, the same suspicious-perimeter-walking-wrist-grabbing Archer—sit on a stool in the center of the stage with the acoustic guitar from his bedroom. He plays something that has no right to be as good as it is, and I recalibrate.
He’s not acting in the theatrical sense. He’s justplaying. With the same focus he gives everything, the same economy of movement. The music that comes out of it is unhurried and beautiful. The crowd has gone quiet so they can hear every bit of it.
Jack is watching my face.
“Stop,” I warn.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re watching me react to Archer playing the guitar.”
“I’m watching you find out that people contain multitudes,” he says unabashedly. “It’s one of my favorite things to watch.”
Archer looks up at some point and finds me in the crowd, which takes him less than a second. Something in his expression does the recalibration thing—but inverted. He’s recalibratingmeseeinghim.Being seen in something he didn’t advertise.
I hold his gaze.
He looks back at his guitar.
Jack makes a satisfied sound beside me.
