Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
“She’s hurt.” The word is a small, sharp stone in my mouth. “She shut things off. She asked for space. I’m trying to give it without… abandoning the perimeter.”
Gage taps the mic on the coffee table, a tiny sound. “Don’t defend it. Don’t justify. Be where she tells you, when she tells you. Keep your hands off her steering wheel.”
“That last part’s your kink, not mine,” I mutter, and he actually huffs a laugh.
“Arrow.” He leans forward, forearms on his knees, and looks at me the way he looks at a shot he wants. “Keep being there. If she asks for water, you bring water. If she asks for silence, you shut your mouth. If she asks for a wall, you become concrete. But let her decide the shape.”
I sit with that. It’s good advice, mostly because it tells me to do less and I am constitutionally bad at less. The floor creaks over by the bookcase—old building bones complaining about the cold. I let the sound pass through me and breathe into the hollow place behind my ribs.
“Render texted on my walk,” I say. “The burner ping was under the bridge by the rowing sheds. Nico’s LLC is Nicolas Armand. He’ll get us valet logs.”
Gage nods, installs a battery, checks a level. “I’ll pre-build a composite from your stills. If he breathes on a municipal lens, we’ll catch the fog.”
My phone buzzes face-down on the end table. I don’t need to see the name to know it’s her; the vibration goes a different frequency when it’s Juno. A Spidey-sense I didn’t consent to.
I thumb it open.
Juno: Home. Doors locked. I did not turn the Ring back on. Thought you should know so you don’t do the anxious hover.
The knot behind my sternum loosens a notch.
Thank you for telling me. No hover. I’m on the couch trying to teach Gage manners.
Across from me, Gage raises one eyebrow without looking away from his rig.
Juno: Tell him I appreciate his bat energy.
Juno: Also tell him I know he stiff-arms sentiments and that’s fine because I have enough for both of us.
I read that out loud. Gage goes a little pink around the ears. “Tell her to hydrate,” he mutters, which in Gage means tell her I care.
Hydrate. Orders from the bat.
Juno: Wow, powerful. Drinking water now.
Juno: …fine, half a glass. Don’t narc me out.
I grin at the screen like an idiot. Gage sees and sets his rig down, and stands. “I’m going to go scrub the plate frames in my cave,” he says, gesturing to his room-slash-lab like a troll under a bridge. He pauses at the hall. “Hey, Arrow?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not wrong to want to keep her breathing.” He scratches his jaw. “Just don’t do it by taking her lungs.”
That hits hard. “Got it, thanks.”
He disappears down the hall. The apartment gets very quiet, the kind of quiet that feels like a held breath rather than an absence. I stretch out on the couch, one knee up, phone balanced on my thigh.
What are you listening to?
Juno: Do not laugh.
Juno: Hold The Peppers—the live album. Yelling along quietly so my neighbors don’t file a complaint.
My heart does an undignified thing. Hold The Peppers was our shared rope-ladder in high school. We traded bootleg recordings on burned CDs and argued about whether the drummer’s fill in “Statue of Liberty Tax Fraud” was intentional (it was, Gage later proved it in a waveform).
Track 7?
Juno: Obviously. The clap-clap before the bridge still makes me think I’m invincible.
You are. But also maybe don’t try parkour off your couch.
Juno: Parkour is a state of mind.
Juno: What about you? Listening to anything besides router fans and your conscience?
I chuckle, thumb hovering.
I queued the demo where they mess up the second verse and keep going.
I love it when they don’t cut the mistakes.
A pause. Then:
Juno: Of course you do. That’s very… you.
Juno: Do you remember the basement show senior year? You snuck me in because my mother thought I had the flu.
You did have the flu. You almost passed out in the bathroom and I had to keep splashing water on your face from that sink with zero water pressure.
Juno: And you missed the encore because of me.
And?
Juno: You still bring it up when you want me to feel guilty and give you the last fry.
Lies and slander.
Three dots. Stop. Start. Stop.
Juno: I don’t like being mad at you. It feels… itchy. Like I’m wearing a sweater made of bees.
I stare at that for a very long second, then type and delete three versions of I deserve the bees.
I’m not asking you to stop being mad. I’m learning to sit next to it.
Bees like me. I’m basically a flower in flannel.
Juno: Wow. The image.
Juno: You know what else I remember about that show? Your hand on my back in the crowd. You did it so I wouldn’t get shoved. You didn’t make it weird. You just… anchored me.