Page 34 of Puck You Both

Which is nothing. Doing nothing. Somebody strike me a medal.

Footsteps cross the landing.

Every muscle in my back goes rigid. The steps slow, then pause right outside the door. I have no plan, no exit, and a face that would confess everything to a knock—

They move on. Down the stairs. Gone.

Relief empties my lungs, and right behind it, close enough to be incriminating, comes a flicker of disappointment.

"No," I tell the mirror.

The mirror has seen too much tonight to respect me.

By degrees, the situation in my jeans stands down. I count sixty after it stops being a medical concern, then open the door. Empty landing. The office door is shut now.

I look at it for under a second. Two minutes, tops.

Then I go downstairs.

***

THE BAR SWALLOWS me whole—heat, noise, donation bell ringing a foot from my ear—and I walk straight into Becker.

Fuck.

He catches my shoulders before we both go down. The grin drops off his face the moment he takes in mine. "You look like Petrov's word of the day."

From the bar, Petrov raises his phone. "Agog."

"I'm fine."

"You're wet."

I glance down at my shirt. "Sink."

"You fought a sink?" His eyes narrow, tick toward the staircase, come back to me. This is the design flaw in observant friends. Eventually they observe you. "Where were you?"

"Sponsor numbers," I mumble.

"And the numbers attacked?"

"Aggressively."

Petrov arrives and studies my face with interest. "Agog is adjective. Means filled with wonder or amazement." A pause, while he consults my shirt. "Also can be horror, maybe."

"Thank you, Petrov."

"You are welcome."

Somewhere behind me, Theo laughs.

I don't turn around. I don't need to. My body triangulates the sound instantly, twenty feet back and to the right, near the dartboard, and adds that Patrick will be close. That's a sense I did not possess last week.

I would like to return it.

"I'm leaving," I tell Becker. "Campaign's over target and I have an early skate."

The narrowed eyes follow me all the way to the door.