Page 72 of Puck You Both

Me: It was a campaign meeting. Sorry to disappoint.

The chat goes quiet for a moment. This can’t be good.

Becker: OMG He's EXPLAINING

Becker: Wall has never explained anything in his LIFE

Becker: [image]

The new image is my own face, cropped out of the diner photo and zoomed until the pixels beg for mercy. I'm mid-argument, pen raised, visibly enjoying myself.

In public.

No wonder there's a task force.

Kane: Is he... animated???

Ace: Never seen that face before.

Becker: Campaign meetings do NOT produce this face. THIS IS SCHEMING.

Well, that’s enough assholes for the day. The phone goes under a couch cushion.

Yes, I’m a grown man, hiding from his own phone. This is my life now.

I dig it back out an hour later, obviously. For my own sanity, I don’t read the 50+ new messages in a chat that’s now labeled WALL WATCH.

The real hit comes at the bathroom sink, toothbrush in my mouth, when the screen lights up with a direct text.

Leila Washington: :eyes_emoji:

I stop brushing.

Fuck.

Foam drips into the sink and I stand extremely still, on the theory that motion attracts predators. No words, No question. Nothing I could deny, deflect, or answer with a skull. Interrogations can be survived. Leila doesn't interrogate. Leila tells you what she already knows, and this is her telling me.

Any reply is a confession, no reply is a confession, and the two little eyes just sit there, glowing.

In bed, lights off, I run the threat assessment.

Betting lines have updated. Witness protection is now thirty to one. It’s starting to look undervalued. Maybe I should bet on it. I might need to get myself into one, eventually.

***

"NICE CHAIR YOU'VE got at home, I hear."

Patrick says it at the warmup changeover, gliding past my crease, eyes forward, and he's back at his own end before the sentence finishes landing on me.

I don't own a chair.

I'm going to buy a chair.

And do what with it? Unclear. I'll figure that out at the store.

The phantom chair takes a toll on the rest of my warmup, despite not existing. I miss a glove on a shot I could stop asleep. The next one clips my mask. Becker circles in close. "You good?"

"Yup."