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“She might be mentally ill,” Theo said, his voice even, almost detached. “But belief in conspiracy theories isn’t a mental illness, not in itself.”
“You’re the expert, huh? What are you? A doctor?”
“No,” Theo said.
At the same time, Auggie said, “Actually, yes.”
“I’m not a doctor,” Theo said.
“He’s got his doctorate. In English literature.”
Jem wrinkled his nose. “What do you do with that?”
“Tell teenage boys not to sit on each other’s laps, mostly,” Theo said drily.
“He’s only saying that because he had Colt and Ashley in class,” Auggie said with a smirk. “Wait, do you know Colt and Ash?”
“You teach high school?” Jem asked.
“It’s not just Colt and Ash,” Theo said to Auggie. “Ninth-grade boys can’t stop touching each other. It’s enough to make me want to join a monastery.”
“I don’t understand what we’re supposed to be looking at here,” Tean said.
“Keep scrolling,” Auggie said. “You’ll see it.”
As Jem slid his finger along the phone’s screen, he said, “Sorry, but what makes a high school English teacher an expert on conspiracy theories? Is that, like, your hobby?”
Auggie burst out laughing. The sound was bright and full of life, and it washed away the last of that darkness that had etched his face. Theo grinned seemingly in spite of himself, and when he relaxed, it was easier to see what might have drawn Auggie to him: the dark blue of his eyes, crinkling now at the corners; the prominent cheekbones; the thick beard that Tean knew, without Jem having to say anything, Jem was worried might be better than his own.
“Theo’s hobby is reading,” Auggie said. “Oh, and breaking things and then making me hire someone to come fix them.”
“I do not break things,” Theo said, “and I certainly don’t make you hire people to come fix them.”
“We had this old window unit that didn’t do jack shit. The summer after I graduated, Theo took the whole thing apart.”
“I was fixing it.”
“Pieces everywhere.”
“I’d watched a video!”
Both men laughed for a moment. When their laughter stopped, Auggie’s eyes came to Tean, and a strange uncertainty charged the air—as though Auggie felt he had exposed too much in that moment.
Tean heard himself say, “Jem tried to fix my toaster once.”
Jem paused scrolling through Una’s feed to look up, his face stricken.
“Well,” Tean said, “more than once.”
“You rat bastard traitor,” Jem said.
Fighting a grin, Tean said, “He never actually took it apart. Well, he never actually fixed it either.”
“How dare you?”
“But he was fixated on this screwdriver, like that was the problem.”
Auggie started laughing first, and then Tean. Theo joined in a moment later, although more reserved, and Jem was last, finally cracking a grin as he tried to scowl at Tean.
