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My head whips around to look August in the eyes. “Did I… did I make that scenario up? Am I seeing things?”
“No… you didn’t… somehow,” August says.
“So much ink.”
“And it was really good too,” Lex says. “Like…reallygood.”
I nod slowly, still trying to comprehend this. “But… Ellison? He’s the guy that wears the suit and has the rod up his ass and uses cuff links. Like who has cuff links?”
“Willanyof you worry about how naked you are?” Valerie pleads.
“Cufflinks,” I repeat, hoping she understands the issue here.
“I upset him… I’m really bad at making friends. I should apologize,” Deus says as he hangs his head and wanders after him.
“Please put clothes on first,” Valerie begs as she tries to hand off her jacket which I tie around my waist, not wanting to miss a single moment of the upcoming events. August takes a shirt from Wyatt, and suddenly, we’re hurrying down the hallway and hiding around the corner as Deus comes out of his bedroom—where it looks like he ran in for something that definitely wasn’t clothes—before knocking on Ellison’s door.
Somehow, in the span of around three minutes, Ellison has put a new suit on, cuff links and all.
“I’m sorry if what I said upset you… I’m not very good at this stuff,” Deus says. “We weren’t allowed familiar relationships growing up because then if our friend got a bullet to the head or something it could make us hesitate, I don’t know. I didn’t pay very good attention in class, if you can believe that. But I’m sorry.”
Ellison stares at him for a long moment as he fumbles with his tie that is already perfectly in place. “It’s fine,” he blurts out before quickly trying to close the door.
Before he can, Deus presses into it. “Wait! I made this for you last night!” He holds a “lucky” doll out to Ellison. “It was really hard to find the material here, so for the hair, I cut some hair off Lex’s dog when he wasn’t looking.”
“You didwhat?” Lex growls, but I clamp a hand over his mouth to shut him up so he doesn’t disrupt what’s going on.
“I don’t want—” Ellison starts but Deus presses it into his hands.
“I insist! Take it!”
“I will literally throw it in the trash.”
“It’ll give you good luck, and if you put the name of someone you don’t like on it, you can feel better about yourself when you stab it!” he declares.
“I will write your name on it and throw it in the trash.”
Deus doesn’t seem offended by any means as Ellison grips the doll in anger before slamming the door shut. Then he opens it again just to throw a blanket at Deus before slamming it again.
Deus takes it and drapes it over his shoulder while going, “You know I can just turn invisible, right?”
But Ellison doesn’t answer. Deus’s eyes snap over to us as we all, including Valerie, try to scramble back out of sight, but he’s already seen us.
“We’re acting horribly unprofessional,” Valerie decides even though sheand Wyattwere right there with us trying to catch the latest gossip.
“Sometimes there’s a time and a place to act unprofessional… this was definitely the time and place,” I assure her.
“Anyway, I just wanted to check in to see how you guys were holding up,” she says as she pulls out her all-business expression.
I look around. “Everyone’s alive. August is naked… I think it’s a pretty good day so far.”
“You guys are being so patient… it’s concerning,” she says.
“Don’t be concerned, Valerie. We’re good boys. Doing good boy things like looking at each other naked, and don’t mind the truck stuck in the ceiling,” I say.
The poor woman looks beyond exasperated and still… I weirdly don’t feel guilty. “You stuck a truckthrough the ceiling?” she growls.
“Only partway. Only like… the front end, you know?”
