Page 129 of Puck You Both

Everybody drinks to that, except me, because my throat's too tight right now for liquids to go down right, and nobody looks at me directly, a mercy I suspect Washington ordered in advance somehow.

"'Two whole guys' goes on a shirt," Becker says, already typing.

That's when the doorbell rings one more time and half the idiots in my living room morph into cartoon characters, looking around the table wide-eyed, two of them using their fingers to count, and the underlying conclusion seems to be, ‘But, but… We’re all already in.’

Phase four, then. On time to the minute, because I texted one of them the schedule, and one of them respects schedules.

Every face swings to me as I get up, cross my living room through a silence with popcorn in it, and open the door on Patrick and Theo, holding bakery boxes.

"We brought bribes," Theo announces to nineteen people, into a quiet you could develop film in. Then he spots the whiteboard across the room, and his face lights up like a slot machine paying out. "Are those standings? Why don't I have a column? I'm half the standings!"

That does it. It takes them ninety seconds to absorb him, and I time it. He's got Snooze holding boxes, Jinx blessing him, or the dessert, unclear, and then the crowd parts on its own instinct and Theo and Becker are face to face.

The two of them go still, both at once, two apex predators recognizing the silhouette. Becker looks at Theo. Theo looks at Becker. Something passes between them that I can only describe as a merger.

"Know any good print shops?" Becker asks.

"Ohh, I know plenty.”

"There are two of them now," Kane whispers at my shoulder.

"We’ll get used to it," I lie.

Patrick's entry is quieter, which was always going to be the harder route. Loud, they trust on sight. Calm, they investigate. Devon and Mateo get to him before his coat's fully off, and they run him like a two-man forecheck, Mateo opening with methodology ("This is purely for my own curiosity, I want to state that up front. I have four questions, the fourth has parts"), Devon closing with the three-second stare he does before verdicts.

I can't hear all of it from where I'm being held hostage refereeing merch concepts, but I catch fragments. The word "intentions." The phrase "cross-cultural." At one point Patrick says something with a completely straight face that makes Devon cackle and slap the counter, and Mateo writes it down.

Theo materializes at my elbow with a donut in each hand, watching with me. "He's doing the thing where he answers the real question instead of the asked one," he says, around dough. "Gets 'em every time."

"It barely works on the press."

"It worked on you."

Oh.

By the window, Washington is waiting, and the crowd delivers Patrick to him. The two of them stand apart from the noise with the city behind them, and the conversation runs long, and quiet, and I watch it the whole time over the rim of a glass while pretending to listen to Becker's t-shirt sizing survey.

Whatever Washington asks him, Patrick answers without a glance for help.

Whatever Patrick answers, Washington ends it with a handshake and keeps his hand a moment, saying one more thing, and Patrick nods once.

"He's approved," Washington announces on his way back to the couch. "Also, the locker room has a standing pierogi order now. First batch arrives Thursday."

"You negotiated food?" Becker asks.

"I vetted thoroughly."

The rest of the night stops being phases and becomes a party in my apartment, which is a sentence I've never produced before. Devon comes back from the bathroom at some point with his eyebrows up.

"Hey, so, quick question. Why is there a throne in your bedroom?"

Theo inhales half a donut and has to be struck on the back by two people. Patrick, across the room, develops a deep interest in my one piece of wall art.

Heat creeps up my neck. "It's a reading chair."

He squints. "You don't own books."

"I…read reports."