Pan plants a hand on my shoulder as he passes me into the kitchenette. “How’s my fearless crew?” he asks on a yawn. “Lounging your lazy asses around as usual, I see.”
“Hey,Ihave appointments today,” Kit points out. “Some of us do work around here, you know.”
“And I’m learning about skin types,” Fox calls from the couch. “It’s educational. Right, Wendy?”
Wendy titters behind her mask, and Pan does a fake double-take, clutching a hand to his chest. “Is that a ghost? Oh, no.” Herelaxes. “Just Wendy. Damn, I thought with that thing on your face?—”
Wendy laughs again. “It’s asheet mask.”
“Yeah, I’m saying,” Pan says. “Sheets, ghosts…” He frowns, swivels back to me. “Where’d she get a sheet mask?”
“You,” I remind him. “Remember? On your phone?”
“Oh shit, that’s right,” Pan murmurs, leaning forward and drawing his phone out of his pocket. He rests his elbows on his knees as he flicks it unlocked and starts scrolling. “Goddamn,” he mutters under his breath, thumbing through his phone. “How does someone run up four hundred dollars at Valu-Mart?” He looks up at me. Again. “Twenty dollars for sunscreen?”
“SPF is important!” Fox chimes in from the couch.
“She’s…into skincare, I guess,” I reply in a low voice. “It looks like, anyway. Just…let the kid get what she needs to be happy, okay?”
At leastsomeonein this house should get nice skincare products,I think.
Pan runs a hand through his cherry-red bedhead. “Yeah, but like…” He trails off and sighs. “Fine. Whatever.” He yawns again. “Any food around?” He eyes the cereal box, which Fox clutches closer to his chest.
“Too late.” Fox sticks a hand in and funnels crumbs into his mouth. “If’s jus’ duft now.”
“So?” Pan puts down his phone. “The dust is the best part. Gimme.”
“No!”
Pan lunges anyway. Fox jumps up and out of his grasp—“too lateandtoo slow!”—but Pan grabs the box just in time to catch it in a tug-of-war that dumps the remaining sugar and Mini-Wheat dust on Fox’s head.
Wendy, on the couch, cracks up.
“Aw, gross.” Fox drops the box and shakes himself like a dog, sending fragments everywhere, which Nana once again leaps up to lick off the floor. “Now I have to shower.”
“Thank God,” Pan says.
“Seriously,” Kit agrees, kicking the now-empty box toward the spiral stairs. “Do us all a favor.”
God, this is all so fucking stupid. As Fox tramps off to the bathroom, I grab myself a second energy drink and slide over to the couch. “Yo, can we talk?” I murmur to Pan. “About…stuff?” I tip my head as subtly as I can toward Wendy, who’s glued back to the TV.
“Huh? Oh.” Pan chews his lip and nods. “Yeah, I guess. Sure.” He clears his throat. “Wendy, can you, uh…” He flicks his gaze around the room. “Go help Kit in the shop?”
“Huh?” Kit says, looking up from where he’s scrolling his phone against the island. “I don’t need…oh,” he says, catching Pan’s gaze. “Uh, sure.” He nods at the stairs. “Come on, I guess.”
“Okay.” Wendy looks a little skeptical, but gets to her feet anyway, trailing Kit as he goes down the spiral steps, the dog following both of them.
Finally,finally, it’s quiet up here.
Pan drops onto the couch, props his bare feet on the coffee table, and puts his hands behind his head. “So. What’s up?”
“What’s up?” I take Kit’s place leaning against the counter. “We’ve got a ten-year-old girl in our shop, is what.”
“Yeah, I dimly recall that.” Pan tilts his chin at the ceiling, squinting. “Guess we should figure out where her family is, huh.”
“You think?” I deadpan. Pan flips me off, but he’s smiling.
“Okay, okay.” He sits up a little straighter, rubbing his temples. “I mean, Fox and Kit will apparently have a conniption if we just call her in, or whatever?—”
