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Kami was in another pub, happy and distracted, laughing, but slightly concerned about him.
Jared felt sick of himself. The way he saw it, he had every right to hate Ash. As soon as he’d seen Ash, sitting between his mother and father and looking so much like Jared, it had given him the jolt of unexpectedly seeing yourself in a mirror. Except it wasn’t quite like a mirror. It was like looking through a window into another world, a world where he’d come out right. It was fair to hate Ash, but hating another guy because Kami leaned into him with perfect trust was too close to wanting Kami to be unhappy.
“I have to tell you, boys,” said Rusty. “The last time I went out with blondes who were related to each other, it went a whole lot better than this.”
Jared glanced over at Ash, who was studying the table and looking more like Aunt Lillian than usual. At least Ash was miserable as well.
“This isn’t really a hotbed of frenzied excitement,” Jared drawled.
Rusty looked around at the two old men on stools, the elderly couple bartending who had been giving Jared and Ash apprehensive looks since they’d arrived, and the pool table with the felt curling up at one corner. “Nonsense,” he said peacefully. “This is a very exciting place. They hold duck races here.” Then he put his head in his arms.
“You can’t seriously go to sleep here,” Ash hissed.
“Seriously,” said Jared. “He can.”
Jared went over to the bar and got a ginger ale.
“Seventeen’s old enough to drink over here,” offered the woman at the bar, who Jared thought was called Mary Wright. Her husband frowned a warning at her.
“I don’t,” Jared said, and tried out a smile that made her look more alarmed than before. “But than
ks.”
He gave up, wandered back to the table, and asked Ash, “Do you play pool?”
Ash blinked, looking extremely surprised and cautiously pleased. “Not very well.”
Jared smiled. “Great.” He jerked his head in a summons and made for the pool table, set up a game, and grabbed a cue. Then he walked around the table, considering it from all angles.
“How about you?” Ash asked, watching. Ash tended to watch everything Jared did, as if certain the next thing would be appalling.
“I used to hustle pool in San Francisco.” Jared leaned over the table and went for a power stroke. He looked up and grinned. “Sometimes I won by flirting a little. Not planning to try that here.”
“You were playing pool with girls?”
Jared grinned. “Sometimes.”
“What?” said Ash.
“Dude,” said Jared. “San Francisco.”
“What!” said Ash.
“What’s the matter, Ash? Off your game?” said Jared, and smirked.
Ash wasn’t as bad as he’d made out, but he wasn’t a bold player, and holding back at pool seldom paid off. Also, Ash steadfastly refused to make things interesting.
“I like winning something,” Jared argued.
“I don’t like losing anything,” Ash argued back, his voice polite even when arguing.
That was when fear exploded into Jared’s mind.
We can’t find her, said Kami, and then her panic ran through him: Kami had heard a scream.
“Kami,” said Jared. He broke his pool cue over his knee in one economical movement and ran. He saw Rusty rise from the corner of his eye, moving faster than a man who’d been napping on a table in a bar had any right to.
Ash’s voice behind him came clear and sharp: “Jared, don’t!”
