“Shitty,” Leon barks from a leather chair next to the roaring fireplace. “Can’t you tell from his expression?”
“It’s fine,” I say. “Though I am still on the whiteboard.”
“You should be in testing now,” Leon says.
“Uh-oh,” Fergus says.
“It’s under control,” I say. More under control than the Stella part of my life. I pull up the custom app that Leon developed for our group.
Did they leave the happiness out of your coding? Along with empathy and human decency?
Apparently so. Jesus Christ, kissing Stella like that. Touching her the way I did. What’s wrong with me? I am a man of codes. Codes, once established, are not optional. Once you start breaking your own codes, everything starts to unravel.
Everything was unraveling.
She’s off-limits, and I was out of control. A creature driven by craving.
I’d always wondered how my parents ended up the way they did, feeding their cravings for alcohol while their lives went to shit. This thing with Stella was a window into that—I wanted her so badly, nothing else mattered. That’s the very definition of weakness in the face of addiction.
It’s good that she’s angry at me, good that she thinks the worst of me.
Cooper watches me closely. “Attila the Hun with an axe or Wulfric Pierce with his infamous blue iPad? Who I want less on my ass? I’ll take Attila the Hun.”
Fergus laughs. “I’d take Attila the Hun and give him a free shot at that.”
I grab a seat. “With an axe? No way.”
Ronan deals with concise, elegant movements.
The cards fly. I lose one hand after another. All I can think about is the kiss. Her scent. Eager little hands pulling at me shirt. The way she locked her legs around my waist, like she couldn’t get enough.
I met Stella the summer I turned eleven, an age I was pleased with, being that eleven is a prime number and a palindrome.
My parents had just moved us to Percy Pines. We’d set up house in a hotel—we stayed in a lot of hotels before the money ran out, and my parents sent me to lots of camps.
Camps had their downsides—namely other kids—but I enjoyed the structured activities and regular meals.
And this one was math camp.
I met Charlie the first day. He’d been the star of the camp two years running. He’d already skipped a grade and was deep into geometry. He tried to compete with me at first, but I ended it quickly, and we became friends after that.
He was my first real friend, but he came with a major liability: Stella.
Math camp was the last place Stella should’ve been sent, but her parents must have gotten some sort of deal, being teachers. Stella was an outsized presence there; she’d laugh and whisper during quiet work times. She’d call out ridiculous answers to the equations posed by our long-suffering camp counselors. When she wasn’t doing that, she’d be busy corrupting the younger kids with her worldly, nine-year-old ways, or moping around bored, all untied shoes, haphazard ponytails, and blindingly bright outfits.
Needless to say, Charlie and I spent a good deal of energy avoiding her. This only spurred her to bother us more and create more chaos.
I had a daily routine at math camp that involved a walk to the welcome center vending machines during a twenty-minute break between sessions. Most kids went for the dining hall vending machines, but the welcome center ones had almonds, and almonds are amazing brain food.
I had inserted $1.00 into the vending machine when I discovered I was a quarter short. I hit the button to get change, but change wouldn’t come out. The machine stood there waiting for my last quarter.
I didn’t know what to do.
If I walked back to our cabin to get another quarter, some other kid would come up and see the $1.00 in LED lights on the front of the machine and realize they could get any snack they wanted for a quarter. I thought about writing a note but that would only encourage somebody.
I stabbed the return button.
“It’s probably out of quarters,” said a voice from behind me.