Page 6 of Windlass

Truthfully, she and James had come to a truce some time ago; the antipathy was mostly for show on both counts. He even deigned on occasion to sit next to her, so long as she did not make any overtures of friendship not initiated by him first. This was significantly more than he allowed most people. Her own childhood cats had been friendly, affectionate creatures who warmed up quickly to strangers, but they’d led very different lives than James had.

Thinking about his story made her sad, so she didn’t. What she thought about instead wasn’t much better. Angie was so much like her cat it was laughable, except she didn’t feel like laughing.

Had something almost happened the night before? Had she imagined it?

Her stomach tightened with nerves. Angie was in the kitchen, but soon enough she’d venture into the game room. That was okay. That was fine. They just needed to adjust to the reality of Morgan and Lilian’s departure and the new dynamic that void had created between them. She’d suggest they play a game, and that would break the ice enough to maybe talk about the weirdness.

Or they could never talk about the weirdness. That was fine too.

Angie’s footsteps approached. Stevie looked up, the smile she’d prepared pinned to her face: bright, carefree, the comic relief people expected her to be. Angie’s answering smile was shaky, and she dropped her brown eyes quickly.

Stevie’s smile fell and died before it hit the ground.

“Wanna let me kick your ass?” she asked, nodding at the console tucked in the TV stand of their game room. The main living room had felt too big and empty. This room, with its deep couch and single armchair, the shelf behind it devoted to the books both she and Angie loved, as well as comics and other accoutrements of nerddom, was safe.

“I might draw, if that’s okay.” Angie pulled her sketchbook from the shelf behind her chair.

“What are you working on?” She refused to be daunted. They could get through this. Theyhadto.

“Nothing much. Doodles really.”

“I like your doodles.”

“You’re my best friend. You have to like them.”

Still, she saw the smile Angie tried to hide.

“‘I want you to draw me like one of your French girls.’” Stevie infused her voice with melodrama in an ode toTitanic.

Angie’s lips twitched in a second slight smile. “Only if you let me on the raft.”

“Uh, science says it would sink if I did. Sorry.”

“‘Fair.”

“I’ll cherish your memory.”

“No need—I’ll just haunt you, shivering, dripping icy ghost water all over your floor.”

Angie’s pen left off tapping her chin and she began to sketch, glancing up at Stevie with slightly narrowed eyes and a focus that did not see Stevie the person, but Stevie the form. Stevie struck a pose, careful not to disturb Marvin.

She needn’t have worried. Sensing the mood, he rolled onto his back so she could rub his belly, gravity pulling his lips down over his teeth in a ridiculous grin.

Stevie wanted to grin, too. The mood had lightened. Everything was going to be okay.

Angie’s pen moved swiftly over the page. The scratch of the ballpoint on paper filled the silence, preventing the awkwardness from moving back in. She had a habit of chewing her lip when she drew that didn’t help Stevie’s own Angie-specific oral fixation. More than that, though, she liked the way Angie’s face changed. In total concentration, the shadow that lay across her countenance lightened.

The shadow wasn’t noticeable the rest of the time; she only knew it was there because she’d seen Angie without it. Angie with a sketchbook was an Angie totally in the moment, and it was obvious, so excruciatingly obvious, that the moment was one of the few times she was at peace in her own head.

“Any luck finding a roofer?” Stevie asked. The house roof had an ominous dark patch that hadn’t yet turned into a leak, but threatened to with a few more storms.

“I haven’t had a chance to look.”

“The trials of land ownership.”

“You have no idea, peasant.” Angie paused, then with a nod of satisfaction held up the rough sketch.

Stevie laughed. Angie had placed the drawn Stevie on the couch with a ridiculous feather boa covering her faux nudity, and the rapturous, vacant expression that Stevie had been trying to project stared back at her, captured perfectly in a few strokes. Angie’s style blended realism with the comic style favored by graphic novelists, all wrapped up with a hint of abstraction. She had no idea how good she was. Stevie knew—and one day, if she had anything to say about it, so would the world. Angie just needed to listen to her first.

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