Page 127 of Midnight Curfew

Not to mention every other waitress and teenage punk who likes to come over to steal our shit and loiter around the ice cream stands and the movie house.

“Their drive-in goes first.” Milo walks past me. “I want a hotel, a convention center, and a seaside arena.”

My eyes meet Jerome’s, and I don’t know what we’re saying exactly, but we seem to be in agreement.

Jerome moves one way down the aisle and I move the other, turning the corner. “We bulldoze everything,” I state, tipping down another book.

“Are you sure that’s what you want?” I hear Jerome ask.

I narrow my eyes but just for a second. I don’t like that he seems to have a read on me I barely recognize myself.

“Not the lighthouse.” I drift along the shelves, hearing my friends select their volumes. “We can keep that.”

It’s a historical landmark, after all. And aesthetically pleasing.

I see On the Shortness of Life by Lucius Annaeus Seneca. I touch my finger to the top of the spine, pulling it toward me.

“The cemetery,” Jerome adds. “You’ll need to find a solution for that.”

Plucking the text off the shelf completely, I fan the pages of the old edition, the entire thing no thicker than a comic book.

“It dates back to the late fifteen hundreds,” Jerome informs me. “The city won’t want it decimated. The fucking Jaegers have never let us in to excavate anything or at least research the headstones. There could be some of our ancestors there, too, for Christ’s sake.”

I’m not keeping the cemetery. It can be moved.

Or better yet, a whole mausoleum for them at the cemetery in St. Carmen. It would be a lot cheaper.

“Are we keeping nothing?” Vincent finally speaks up.

I walk, tossing him a glance.

He shrugs. “I like Mariette’s.”

We’ll build new restaurants. She can cook there.

“Callum’s father wants it all,” Milo tells him.

I pass a bust of someone without a nameplate. I’m not even sure if it’s a St. Carmen citizen. They probably put it here because it looks prestigious.

“How did it go in the Wolfe Room?” Milo asks me.

I stare at the statue’s strong nose, sharp jaw…“None of your business.”

It’s not that I’m embarrassed that I still haven’t screwed anyone in there, but I don’t care to have a conversation about Dallas. Jerome was there, so I can’t lie about anything.

“Who is the Jaegers’ assistant?” Jerome asks. “That girl who manages the restaurant and bar?”

“Aracely Diaz?” Milo turns and continues with picking books for the students’ library. There’s a display of Ministry Picks, and every time we meet, we offer selections to be stocked. They get changed out every month or so.

“Tell Dallas to bring her,” Jerome tells me. “To offer her in the Wolfe Room if he wants in the Den.”

I pull down another book, still carrying the Seneca. “What makes you think he’ll agree to that?”

But he passes behind me, whispering, “He’s already had her, right? She won’t have expectations.”

Before I can turn around, he’s gone, down the next aisle.

Again, he’s picking up on things I wish he wouldn’t.