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“Oh, does he?” I say, gulping out the words.
“He does. You know who he thinks it is?” He’s really close now, looking at me with a knowing stare. Oh fuck.
I shake my head slowly.
“He thinks,” Andrew says, his voice a low whisper, “it’s Myrtle.”
“He what? Myrtle? That’s… No way.”
He presses his lips together and nods. “Yeah. I hear you. I think he may be wrong too.”
“Oh. You do?” I swallow.
“Yeaahhhh, just too obvious. I think.” He nods, like he’s waiting on me to say something. Which is weird. And I’m not gonna. So…
I stand up and brush off my ass out of habit, not because I actually have anything to brush off. “OK. Well, good talk, Andrew. Good talk. And thank you for saving my ass.” Nope. Stop talking, Presley. Don’t wanna talk about your ass or boobs or any of your other naughty bits right now. I laugh, uncomfortable. “But I gotta go and I see there’s a handy-dandy ladder to get down once you’re at the top, so—“
He grabs my hand. Gently. Not squeezing tight, but he does pull. He sighs and says, “Dammit, Eden.” He looks down and shakes his head.
“What? What?” I say, growing ever more emphatic. “What is it?”
“Do you know what Myrtle said to me the first time she and I met?”
Wow. Non-sequitur much?
I shake my head slowly. I can feel my eyes getting bigger.
“She said, ‘You are not what I expected.’”
He stares right through me. I try to stare back right through him to show him that I’m not going to break first, but my eyes are kind of sweaty and it’s fogging up my glasses and I can’t really see him that clearly all of a sudden. Crap.
“You know what I told her?” he asks.
I don’t say anything. Not because I’m being badass, just because I’m trying not to rub my eyes, because he might mistake that for crying and I don’t want him to think that. But then again, he might be the kind of guy who gets all protector-ish when a girl cries and that could be to my advantage and—
“I told her, ‘Nobody ever is.’”
Fuck it. I pull my glasses off, rub my eyes so I can see, and I look dead into his face. He’s looking back at me with a mix of accusation and maybe disappointment.
“So… the next time I talk to Pierce…”
A long, thick moment. I double down and keep staring. But damned if, despite my best efforts, I don’t wind up blinking first when he says…
“Who do I tell him you are?”
CHAPTER TWENTY – ANDREW
She turns away from me, says, “OK! Well… Thanks for the lift,” kind of snorts because I think she thinks she was making a joke, and then makes for the edge of the wall. Her feet close to the lip, she stares at the handholds to get down. Down below, the Le Maniacs, as I have just decided to call them, are milling around again. Over by the entrance, Pierce and Myrtle appear to have missed the whole thing. Pierce has his arm against the wall in very much a, “Hey, babe, let me tell you about my Porsche” kind of a way, and Myrtle is sweeping her hands across her clavicle, swiping away imaginary strands of hair. My guess is that she thinks she’s flirting with the boss and he thinks he’s interrogating her.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe it is Myrtle. Maybe I’m way off about what I’m thinking. Except he isn’t. She isn’t. And I’m not.
“Hey,” I say, going to stop her. “Hey.” I reach her and grab her arm. She spins on me, her hair smacking me in the face.
“What?”
“I need you to talk to me.”
“And I need you to let go of my arm.”
I put both hands up in a gesture of surrender and take a step back.
“Listen,” I start to say, but at that moment am interrupted by a new body cresting the wall’s top. It’s the dude in the Cannibal Corpse t-shirt.
“’Sup?” He nods.
“Uhhhh. ’Sup?” I nod back.
“Yo, Eden, nice climb,” he says, lifting his chin toward her in affirmation.
“Aw, thanks, Leo,” says Eden.
He pulls out a vape pen and takes a hit. The smell of cannabidiol oil fills the air.
“Um, dude, can you—?” I start to say.
“Oh, my bad,” he says, and then extends the vape pen in our direction.
“No, no, I’m good. Thanks. I just… Never mind.” I decide it’s not worth the conversation.
“Eden?” He extends it in her direction.
“Oh, no, thanks Leo. I’m good too,” she says. “I’m already higher than I’d like to be.” She snorts again, slightly.
Leo laughs a bit and then excuses himself past us, giving Eden a fist bump on his way down.
“Friend of yours?” I ask.
“Leo’s in tech support. He’s fixed my computer a bunch of times. I made him brownies and now we’re friends. What do you care?”
