Page 55 of Fluffed and Folded

“We don’t have to,” he assured her, placing his hands on her shoulders. “It’s not too late for us, we can move somewhere Tristan will never find us.”

Darby laughed, feeling lighter. Eli had that effect, no matter the situation. “Not sure it’s Tristan we need to be worried about in this scenario.”

“Yo,” Tristan called, hurrying them along.

“Or maybe so?” Darby whispered.

“Hurry, before he replicates and sends his tracker bots to retrieve us,” Eli said. He clasped her hand and tugged her along beside him, smiling when she giggled.

Tristan stood on the doorstep to Darby’s apartment, when they arrived. His expression remained placid, but somehow they knew he was perturbed. To Eli’s extreme surprise, he answered their unasked question.

“I get antsy when I feel I’m near the end of a case.”

Eli and Darby traded glances. “How are we near the end?” Eli asked.

“Won’t know until we find the key,” was Tristan’s cryptic answer.

“It’s like we’re in a live-action video game, and we’re the NPC’s, following the main character while he finishes his quest,” Eli whispered.

Darby smashed her hand over her mouth, but he saw her shoulders shake.

“I can hear you,” Tristan noted, but it didn’t stop him from barreling ahead of them, eyes scanning back and forth like a tracker hound unleashed.

“All we have to do is jump over the lollipop canyon, scale mount doom, not get eaten by the magic mushrooms, and ride the elephantacorn to freedom,” Eli hissed to Darby, who laughed harder, and then harder still when Tristan faced them, hands on hips.

“Where do you keep things?” he demanded.

Eli raised his hand. “Things like joy and laughter? Are you ‘asking for a friend,’ or is this you having a breakthrough?”

Darby doubled over and pressed a hand to her stomach, holding herself together as a peal of laughter took her.

“You broke her, and I need her,” Tristan said.

Pretty sure I need her more,Eli thought and, whoa, where exactly did that thought come from? It was so shocking that he was much more sober when he rested his hand on Darby’s shoulder and said, “Tell us where to look, we’ll help, if that’s all right.”

She stood and wiped her teary eyes. “Honestly? I have no idea where I might have put things in the midst of my tumor era. It’s not like I was functioning normally.”

“Where do you normally hide things?” Tristan asked.

Darby shrugged. “I live alone, I have no need to hide things.”

The way Tristan looked at her, with something like disgust, made them think he hid everything, despite the fact that he also lived alone. Eli didn’t want to contemplate what that might be. Guns? Ammo? Emotional baggage?Good luck to Josie,hethought, and when Darby caught his eye and tilted her head, he thought she might be thinking the same. “Just start looking,” she said with a shooing motion. “You both have my permission to rifle my things.”

That was all the permission Tristan needed. He turned and began a methodic and thorough search. For a while, Darby and Eli watched him.

“Should we actually help?” Eli whispered. “I feel like we’d be impeding his inner Marie Kondo.”

“It’s weird if we don’t, right?” Darby whispered.

“Maybe this is like therapy for him,” Eli said.

“If I tossed in things I need cleaned or organized, do you think he’d notice?” Darby asked.

“Someone, somewhere should definitely be doing a research paper on him,” Eli said.

“Bold of you to assume I’m not the topic of several,” Tristan said. With no help from them, he located the key in Darby’s freezer, shook off a few frozen peas, and held it aloft. “Where do you think this goes?”

“According to Darby, behind the ice cream,” Eli said, and Darby bent over to laugh again.

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