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“We agreed—” Theo began. Then his gaze came up to the rearview mirror to catch Tean’s, and he said, “Would you excuse us, please?”
Face hot, Tean slid out of the Audi and shut his door. A moment later, Jem’s thumped shut.
“That was the politest way anyone has ever told me to get the fuck out of his car,” Jem said as he joined Tean.
They started up the road in the direction Auggie had indicated, looking for signs of Una’s car.
“What was going on back there?” Tean asked.
“What?”
“The way you were acting. How you talked to Theo.”
“You heard him. He learned about conspiracy theories in school?”
“Jem, they’re trying to help us.”
“They’re amateurs.”
“We’re amateurs. That’s what Emery and John-Henry said to us at the party, and they weren’t wrong.”
“Emery and John-Henry don’t know us. And we don’t know them, Tean. We don’t know any of them. You should remember that.”
“What does that mean?”
Jem took a deep breath. When he spoke, he slung an arm around Tean’s shoulders, throwing Tean off balance on the next step before their strides merged. “We both should remember that. Just because they say they’re helping us doesn’t make it true. People believe what they want to be true. Or what they’re afraid will be true. Let’s not make that mistake.”
In the distance, a rooster crowed, which was one of the many disappointing realities of animals that Tean had encountered; the whole crowing at dawn thing was nonsense. The damn birds crowed around the clock.
“So far, these guys have helped us. We’re here, aren’t we? And John-Henry and Emery saved us.”
“We could have handled that.” But when Tean looked at him, Jem blushed and shrugged.
“And North and Shaw took our side at the resort,” Tean said.
“What else were they going to do?”
“Jem.”
He smiled, and the expression looked sad on his face as he pulled Tean closer. “You, Teancum Leon, are a very smart—”
“Not that smart.”
“—very hot—”
“Not really.”
“—very good guy.”
“I’m not that good. I told that man at the party some, uh, facts I’d learned about Missouri, and I knew he wasn’t going to like them, and I told him anyway.”
Jem’s real smile glowed in the darkness. The moonlight fell into the slight gap between his front teeth. “Hit me.”
“Did you know that in 2017, a man died in Missouri after being hit by a deer?”
“I thought there were a lot of deer around here. I thought hitting a deer was kind of normal.”
“No, he was hit by a deer. The deer ran into him.”
