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“They’re going to be up all night,” Auggie said, “throwing pies, spraying each other with seltzer, getting in and out of tiny cars.”
“John,” Emery said, “I want to apologize for every time I called you a comedian, because clearly I had set the bar too high.”
“Also, fuck you,” North said with a grin. He flipped Emery off and then, slowly, inverted his hand so his middle finger pointed in the general direction of his dick.
Auggie couldn’t believe it, but for a moment, he was sure Emery was fighting a smile.
“Did you know,” Shaw said, perking up, “saying ‘I want to apologize’ isn’t actually the same thing as apologizing?”
“Did you know that if that crochet were slightly looser, your dick would be poking out?”
“I did!” Shaw sounded breathless with excitement. “North said the exact same thing.”
“No,” North said, “I didn’t.”
“He said it would be the first ever ball doily!”
“That’s incorrect,” Emery said, “doilies are made of lace—” He cut off, glaring at Shaw, who beamed back at him.
John-Henry rubbed his shoulders. “Come on. Let’s go back to bed.”
“Don’t go,” Jem protested, and he did another flourish, sending the cards springing from one hand to the other. “If you go, Tean’ll make me go back to bed, and then I’m going to scratch my chest like a motherfucker.”
“I should have bought those safety mittens,” Tean said. “The kind for newborns.”
“Or the sex ones,” Shaw said, “like he’s your dog-slave.”
Tean made a noise that sounded like he might have swallowed his tongue, and Jem lost control of the cards for a moment. North looked like he was about to lose it, and when he coughed into his fist, it didn’t really sound like coughing.
Auggie couldn’t help the grin that was growing. “Do you know any tricks?”
“Oh, sure,” Shaw said. “I’m an empath, which means I can sense people’s emotions—”
“Wonderful,” Emery said. “Can you sense anything right now?”
“—and I’m a level nine psychic. No, wait! North! I’m level ten now, which means I now have access to retrocognition.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” North said. “Does level ten come with a wand or fairy wings or a unicorn’s cock ring?”
“What’s retrocognition?” John-Henry asked.
“It means I can see the past. Things that happened to me. Things I experienced.”
“Everyone does that,” Emery snapped. “It’s called memory.”
“That’s great,” North said, rubbing his eyes. “That’s really fucking great because now maybe you’ll be able to find the fucking remote when I want to watch TV for one fucking hour at the end of a very fucking long day.”
“I’m not very good at it,” Shaw said. “And I still think the remote might be a transliminal remote, which means it crosses a psychic threshold when you’re not being a good boyfriend and don’t spend enough time with me—”
“Don’t spend enough time with you? I spent four fucking days on a stakeout with you riding my Jockeys, and for the rest of you, no, that is not a fucking expression.”
It was strange seeing it spread through everyone else: the way Theo’s face opened, a smile hiding behind his beard, and Jem’s broad grin; how Tean leaned against Jem’s leg, the corner of his mouth curving; John-Henry’s smile was the same stunner he used every day, but it had a richness and depth that Auggie had only ever seen when the man turned off the sparkle and let himself be himself; even Emery wore one of those near-invisible smiles.
“I’d love to see your retrocognition,” Auggie said, “but I was asking Jem.”
Jem grinned and did another of those moves that made the cards leap from one hand to another. He gathered them again, held the deck in one hand, and then did something. It was hard to follow because his hand moved so quickly, but a card sprang out of the deck and flew into his other hand.
Shaw gasped.
