Page 47
He clicks off his phone and sets it on the pillow next to my head. “So we’ll be extra careful. We can’t just stop posting—” His voice breaks when I thrust up. “—to the… the board, Beckett.”
True.
That would upset our fans, and then the comment sections would be less entertaining to read.
But that can wait a little bit.
The rest of the evening disappears into a comfortable…
Domesticity.
I keep expecting something to be weird, or us to start arguing over motive versus entertainment like we do at Horror Enthusiasts.
Instead, he makes me rank every conversation heart by flavor and “vibes” before he tells me what it says. I like the banana and mint ones the most, and he dissolves into manic, hyena-laughter for ten minutes straight before calling me a psychopath.
I think it’s a compliment, but I’m not sure.
Then he tries to get me to explain why I wear all black. We go back and forth, as if we’re in debate club, before he wins that argument with a blunt: “If no one’s alive to see you, why are you smothering yourself in knit? What about breathing, Beckett? Don’t you value your oxygen?”
There’s no comeback to that.
By nine-thirty at night, he’s corralled me into my car and taken control over the radio like we’ve been doing this for years.
Ira’s bouncing in the passenger seat, jamming to a random pop song he’s blasting. It’s snowing outside, and he’s still in a black, sleeveless shirt, except the thin parachute pants are blue this time—somehow brighter than the pink.
His palette is beyond obnoxious.
I’ll let him slide on multiple things, but I’m holding firm on this: he doesn’t understand color theory in the slightest.
I flip on the turn signal and check the clock on the radio again. We’re almost two hours past curfew, and there are police cars parked on almost every corner. We’ve already been stopped once, and I had to explain I’m driving home a drunk friend; Ira plays inebriated so well it’s frightening.
“Mo.” His finger jams against the rolled-up window. “That one.”
The car keeps rolling, but I glance over.
Small, one-family bungalow-style home with a slightly overgrown yard. It’s the only one on the block without a bike or kids’ toys in the yard, which probably means they’re single. The car’s too nice to belong to the house—bright red, sports model with a convertible top, probably a middle-aged crisis impulse buy.
Looking back at him, he’s still mouthing the words to the song, grooving his shoulders back and forth against the seat. Not concerned about his pick, even if it’s arguably the best choice we’ve seen in an hour.
My fingers tighten around the wheel.
It’s a little fucking annoying that I would’ve chosen the same one after weeks of research and stress.
“You hate it?” he asks, turning down the music. “That’s cool. I didn’t like your first two choices either.” He turns to me, adjusting his seatbelt, and I see his hands doing something out of the corner of my eye. “Rock, paper, scissors, Beckett. Park.”
Laughter bursts out of me, no matter how hard I bite my lip. I pull the car into a gas station that used to be twenty-four hours last week. Now it’s empty, but the flickering neon lights make Ira look even more colorful.
“We’re not doing rock, paper, scissors,” I mumble, still laughing. “I like your pick.”
He leans over the middle console until all I can see is his smiling face. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Yes,” he hisses, moving back to his own seat. His arms shoot up in the air. “Ten points to Team Pink. The crowd goes fucking wild.”
I can’t keep laughing—this is supposed to be serious art. I feel like we’re in a sitcom, and someone’s going to run off-stage to prep the audience for the next scene.
“Get out of the goddamn car, Ira,” I say, choking back the last of it until it burns my lungs.
