Page 95 of Antihero

“E, huh?”

“Yeah. Evil E. Agent E. Like that.”

“Clever,” Evan said. “But who could ever take an alias like that seriously?”

“Who says you should be taken seriously?” Mia said.

He noticed once more: She was wearing a sundress.

Evan nodded in greeting. “Counselor.”

“Mr. Danger.” The old jest about the middle name she’d jokingly assigned him. She had a vague sense of the lethal work he undertook, had even glimpsed an instance or two firsthand, but they’d dodged ever truly clarifying who he was. As a DA, if she ever gained higher resolution about Evan, she’d be compelled to arrest him.

“How was your stint with the San Francisco DA?” he asked.

“You know, fighting crime, cape and tights and whatnot.”

“Tactical tights?”

“Lululemon leggings.”

Peter peered over the top of his Lego diorama, his charcoal eyes moving from his mom’s face to Evan’s.

“What’s that?” Evan asked, just to have something to ask.

Peter hoisted the project proudly. “School project for Mr. Cobbledick.”

At the name, Evan felt his eyebrows lift, and his gaze found Mia. Her crow’s-feet had tightened slightly to prevent laughter, but her eyes said, Just don’t.

Fortunately, Peter kept on: “I installed magnets under them to show attraction and repulsion.”

Mia’s mouth twitched playfully. “Mr. Danger could certainly stand to learn about the laws of attraction.”

Evan shifted, a trace of Candy’s plumeria wafting from his shirt.

“If you think about it,” Peter said, “magnets are just wireless Legos on an atomic level.”

“How about if I don’t think about it?” Evan said.

“Then,” Peter said, grinning, “they still are.”

At the pause in the banter, they stood for a moment awkwardly. Behind the security desk, Joaquin politely pretended not to notice them. Through the glass doors to the swimming pool, Evan could make out some of the older residents doing water aerobics. They looked slow and ridiculous, bloated from age and neglect, but the rigor of their movement, their synchrony, elevated the spectacle into something approximating beauty.

“Well,” Evan said, “I should head up.”

“Oh, I didn’t mention?” Mia said, checking her watch. “We have to stop by the HOA for a vote.”

Heat rushed to Evan’s cheeks, an embarrassing display. “You’re kidding.”

“Yes,” Mia said. “I’m kidding.”

“I’m not, Mr. Smoak.” The dreaded voice lofted from behind Evan. “We have a vote tonight at eight P.M. regarding grass length for the landscaping borders.”

Hugh Walters, 20C, long-reigning Homeowners Association president and world-class busybody, oversaw Castle Heights regulations with Stalinist rigor. Absent his usual black-rimmed fifties-engineer eyeglasses, he was wheeling a shopping cart brimming with flowers, a genocide of peonies. At his side was his newish girlfriend and newish HOA copresident, Lorilee Smithson, 3F, with Boba, her cousin’s oft-borrowed purse dog, stuffed in a capacious Louis Vuitton.

“Ev!” Lorilee shrieked, crushing Evan in a claustrophobic embrace, her fake breasts inorganically rigid against his chest. “It’s been fore-evah!”

He extricated himself. To hide her amusement, Mia pretended to scratch her nose.