Page 20 of Solo Stan
“Maybe not, but I can give you a midnight curfew and forbid guests in the apartment.”
This was that same noise he heard from everyone—his mother, his father, his sister, his principal, basically every friend or romantic interest he’d ever had. They didn’t like his edges, but they didn’t seem to complain when they could use them.
Elias folded his arms over his chest. “I really thought you’d be different,” he said, his voice completely devoid of emotion. He glanced up to gauge Moodie’s expression, but it didn’t change.
“You’ve got no one but yourself to blame.”
Elias bolted from the table and burst out of the storm door. Itfluttered against the vinyl siding with a metallic twang before it returned to its place within the threshold.
He checked to see if Moodie was following him, but he wasn’t. He waited around for a few moments, but his uncle didn’t have kids of his own and probably didn’t know that he was supposed to run after him.
A loud groan echoed from Elias’s stomach. “Why am I so fucking hungry?” he growled. He threw his head back and let out a frustrated breath. “That’s right—because I stormed outbeforeI ate dinner.” He kicked a rock and cursed when it scuffed his shoe. “I love hush puppies,” he whined.
11
Kai
5:23 p.m.
“Hewasmaking fun of me,” Kai muttered as he darted into the house, past his parents, and up to his room.
Elias never wanted to be friends; all he wanted to do was piss off Moodie. Well, he did, and he pissed off Kai too.
Kai took his frustration out on the air, beating his fists against it in a most uncoordinated fashion, when, finally, his anger converged on the candle he’d lit the day before. He had blown it out before going to bed last night, but something about it just being there was offensive. It was mocking him just like Elias was mocking him.
With a swift motion, he grabbed it from the nightstand and bounded back down the stairs, his parents’ eyes following him as he charged through the living room and right outside into the backyard. In an instant, he had brought the candle down hard in the center of the cobblestone patio and was blasting it with the highest setting on the hose.
Mama forced open the window behind him, poking her head out and asking, “Baby, what are you doing?”
“Putting out a candle,” he answered as he continued sprayingthe candle until it fell over and rolled away. He chased it with the hose, pushing it farther into the garden.
Mama’s voice was kind and patient as she asked, “What happened?”
“A boy.”
“Should I get the fire extinguisher?”
He considered it a moment before he shouted, “No, it’s okay, Ma!” over the noise of the water stream.
Mama nodded and yanked the finicky window shut.
Kai charged through the living room once again and shut the door to his bedroom, muttering to himself, “I don’t need Bobby or Winter or Emmy, or especially Elias, to have fun. I’ll go to the concert alone.”
Chasing the candle around the garden certainly made him feel better, but it didn’t solve the pressing matter at hand: The concert was within two hours, and he still had two tickets. Hunched over his father’s laptop, he posted one of the tickets for sale. It was a single seat, and not even on the floor, so it was unlikely to sell, but he was out a few hundred dollars from this failed venture and wanted to recoup as much of the funds as possible.
His finger hovered over the mouse as he impatiently refreshed the page every few seconds. He barely waited for it to reload before he pressed it again and again, his eyes doing rounds with the circle loading symbol. After several moments of this, a notification chime alerted Kai that the ticket to the sold-out show had indeed gone.
Another solo attendee,Kai thought. Perhaps they could be alone together.Unless they bought their ticket specifically to be alone.
He was overthinking it, as usual. Sometimes, for shows like these, people did go with their friends but ended up sitting in separate seats because they couldn’t find two next to each other.
Putting away the laptop, he stood in front of his full-lengthmirror, trying on every single T-shirt he owned, only to discard them in a pile on the floor. He was left with one option—the last shirt hanging—because no son of his mother was about to wear a shirt off the floor. He sprayed himself with cologne, just as his father had taught him—wrists, inner elbows, behind the knees, jugular—which sounded more like a self-defense combination.
All that remained were his shoes, which he dangled from two fingers as he rejoined his parents at the dinner table, where they were having a date night. Hiking his leg up, he leaned his knee against the edge of the table so he could reach his laces and muttered, “I’ll show him.”
Kai’s parents exchanged glances. “A boy,” Mama mouthed, to which Pop responded with a silent “Oh.”
Kai groaned as he once again yanked his index finger from the loop of shoestring he had made. “I don’t understand how I keep tying my finger into the knot.” As soon as he did this, the entire knot fell apart, and he had to start over.
