Page 43 of A Queen and Her Knight

“That’s what I mean,” Rachel Dyer continued. Kyle had never actually heard her talk, not like this, but wondered if her superior tone would have bugged him so much if he hadn’t encountered her before. Probably. Some people were just natural born Pains in the Ass.

He emptied his basket onto the conveyor belt and then dropped his basket onto the stack of them, where it fell into place with a loud, plastickyclackthat made both women glance at him.

Rachel Dyer, the bitch of Tanglewood Drive, paused at the sight of his uniform, then looked into his face and exhaled in either relief or annoyance before turning away. He didn’t think she recognized him, but that wasn’t what had spooked her anyway; for a second there, she’d thought Kyle had been one of the other deputies. One specific deputy.

“People go online and they read things, and they find groups that reinforce all these wrong ideas they have,” Rachel Dyer continued to Annalee, neither of them seeming to care that there was now a line. “The people on the forum I visited said that’s common. Kids and the young especially find these places online where everyone agrees with them and soon, they’re moving out or cutting their parents off so they can better fit in with their groups. Like cults.” She hummed and leaned in closer to Annalee. “Though in Everlasting, they don’t even need the internet. Everyone knows where they go. They just won’t say it out loud because they’re intimidated by that “boy” dragon.”

Boywas in air quotes so heavy that even Kyle’s ma would have noticed, and she was the kindhearted sort of lady who didn’t get sarcasm. Schmitty would have said Rachel Dyer had madeboy into a slur. Schmitty said a lot of things were slurs, or code for slurs.

Forrester would have just called Rachel Dyer an asshole.

Kyle was kind of with Forrester on that one. But either way, Kyle wasn’t going to fuck the dragon, so why the fuck would he care if he was a boy or a girl? Though he wasn’t sure he’d want to piss next to him in a men’s room, not because of gender issues or whatever, but because that Zarrin Xu seemed like someone who’d wanna chat in there.

Maybe no one had ever told him you were supposed to go in, do your business, and leave, no talking and no eye contact. Boys were supposed to learn that early on. Maybe dragons didn’t use public restrooms. Or maybe Zarrin’s parents were like this bitch in front of Kyle and couldn’t do basic parenting shit.

“Where did you find your group?” Annalee asked. “Maybe I can tell Terri about it so they can help her figure out why Kevin won’t talk to her.”

“He really didn’t say a word?” Rachel Dyer tossed her head. “Isn’t that typical? It’s either fantasies and nonsense or nothing at all, because you live in the real world and they don’t.”

“Well, he wrote her a letter,” Annalee admitted. “She said it was a pack of lies and things he exaggerated. She said now he won’t speak to her just because she wouldn’t pay for him to take trips up north to Seattle when he was younger—that’s where his grandparents live on his dad’s side. Of all the trivial reasons to cut off a mother.”

Kyle cleared his throat. Loudly.

Annalee gave him a single glance. Rachel Dyer shook her head—not at him, at this Kevin kid.

“See what I mean? One little mistake and now her son won’t talk to her. His friends probably convinced him that it was abuse because of a train ticket.”

“He can talk to his grandparents on the phone. That’s what I told her. He probably just wanted to go on the trips to get out of babysitting. Kids always try to get out of their responsibilities like that. Claim it’s… what’s that word? Parentification,” Annalee rolled the word around in her mouth like she was trying to keep it off her tongue, “to expect him to help out with his stepsiblings after school. We just called that being in a family when I was young.”

“That’s what they do now, on those sites, in certain coffee shops.” Rachel Dyer wasn’t hissing like a snake but Kyle half expected her to. “They make up words to try to get people on their side. The people on my forum said it’s so common, you wouldn’t believe it. Suddenly the parents are the villains. If anyone is a villain here, it should be my useless ex-husband who didn’t even teach Martin how to be man before he left. But no, somehow,I’mthe one who deserves to be ignored.”

Kyle looked over and met Deborah’s eyes across the distance. He wondered how much she heard. Probably all of it since Kyle could still hear the self-checkout machine complaining. Her expression was pinched. She was older than Kyle by a few years, which meant older than Martin Dyer by even more, but nearly everyone in town went into Everlasting Cuppa at some point, so everyone knew or knew of Martin Dyer.

He was an awkward, friendly nerd with his head in the clouds—of weed smoke, usually. That was how Kyle would have described him before all this. Maybe he would have noticed the red hair. Maybe he would have noticed the way the kid smiled at everyone. Maybe he would even have noticed the way the kid stared at the other barista. But that’s all. Just a friendly kid who smiled when he saw you. Now, of course, people knew a lot more about Martin Dyer than that. But most of them still would have described him as friendly. Maybe even sweet.

“Well, you know,” Annalee was suddenly, delicately, slowly, examining Rachel’s items without managing to scan any of them, “he’s still there, working in that shop. You could just go in.”

Kyle coughed into his hand. This was also ignored. But he personally would not walk into a coffee shop frequented by Ian Forrester, known prick. Not if he was someone Ian Forrester very clearly did not like. Especially not if an employee of said coffeeshop was the one person on God’s green earth capable of making Ian Forrester stop pretending to be nice—which still wasn’t all that nice—and look ready to commit murder with his bare hands for the chance to defend them.

Him. Not them.Him. A boy. A man, even if he dressed like a teenager. He’d said so, or something like that. Something about fairies and genders and Zarrin Xu.

But that really wasn’t any of Kyle’s business. Martin Dyer made Forrester less of a prick and that was all Kyle cared about.

That and his smoothies, and getting home at some point tonight, and maybe asking around with his friends in Stapleton to make sure the problem with this Kevin kid had beenshittyparenting and notcriminalparenting. There were still kids in that house from the sound of it. Somebody had to.

“I wouldn’t step inside that shop if you paid me,” Rachel Dyer insisted. “Nothing but,” she lowered her voice, which was a small surprise, “queers and visiting beings now.”

Or that frowning barista had booted her ass out the last time she tried. Or the hot girl who worked in the afternoons had ripped her a new one. That girl would do it too. She had a mouth on her and she was Martin Dyer’s friend. A good friend. The kind to pick up a troubled kid in the rain and then chew out Kyle for no real reason except she was worried about her friend and mad at this bitch, and had nowhere else to direct her anger.

Pissed off and wet was a good look on her. Too bad she’d hated Kyle on sight. She’d probably like Schmitty’s type more. The read-books type.

Which reminded him, he had one of Schmitty’s mystery paperbacks in his locker and he needed to give it to Charlene, who was waiting for the next one in the series. Pretty solid mystery, but a lot of beings characters for some reason. Not the worst, but Kyle could have done with more werewolves and less fairies.

“No, they’ve thoroughly indoctrinated him. I just have to wait for him to come to his senses—not that he ever had much sense to begin with.” Rachel Dyer made a tiny, huffy, sniffy sort of sound, like a snotty noble lady in a PBS drama. Kyle opened hismouth, then shut it and decided to read the label of a pack of gum. “Got that trait from his father.”

“Martin really didn’t say anything? I’ve tried to talk to him, but he goes through the self-checkout now when he comes in.” Annalee clucked her tongue. “Same with his friends, except for the dragon.Hecomes through my line. Helooksat me.”

She said that in a whisper.

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