Page 51 of The Explorer
“Like this?” I pulled up a picture of my friend Sparrow and showed it to him.
Banni was quiet for a long moment and just stared at my best friend’s photo. “Who’s that?”
“That’s Sparrow, whom I told you about. She’s the one I was recording a vid for that time you cleansed your wound, remember?”
He didn’t take his eyes from the picture. “What is she doing? Why is she laughing so much?”
“Oh, we were out skiing when I took that picture. We’d just eaten our lunch at that lodge in the background and she was cracking up because I entertained her with an embarrassing story. Sparrow and I share a dark sort of humor that not everyone gets.”
“She’s… She’s pretty.” Banni kept looking at her photo and pointed to her nose. “Are those freckles?”
“Yes. Cute, right?”
He was quiet but nodded.
I arched an eyebrow. “What’s with you?”
“I wish I could meet your friend and experience her rare beauty for myself.”
I broke into laughter. “Nice try, Frenchie. We both know you don’t care about my best friend on the other side of the world. You’re just hoping Indiana and I will smuggle you out of here, but we can’t! The reason we’re here to begin with is to smooth over an international crisis. Bringing you with us would be seen as kidnapping.”
“First of all, I do wish I could meet Sparrow, and secondly, it’s not the same as with Belle.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not asking tomoveto the Northlands. I just want to visit. Besides, Belle hadn’t done her civic duty yet, while I already donated my sperm when I was sixteen. I do important work, but Explorers like me are seen as expendable.”
I frowned. “Don’t say that.”
“Think about it, Aubri. Wouldn’t you be excited if you had an opportunity to go to a new country?”
He was hitting me where I was softest and kept pushing.
“I already thought about how we could pull it off, and it could work.”
We had stopped in front of a store that looked as antique as the items we were bringing. There was even a small bell above the door that chimed when we entered.
Indiana and I browsed around as we waited for someone to greet us. Old mechanical toys stood on shelves next to frames with paintings that looked to be from the Renaissance.
“This can’t possibly be real.” Indiana took down a frame and turned it around to study it.
“Banni wants to come back with us this summer.”
“Yes, he told me.” Indiana kept turning the frame.
I bent toward a lower shelf to study an old doll that looked creepy to me. “Can you imagine how shocked he’d be to learn that none of the women there would sleep with him?”
Indiana shrugged. “I know of a widow who has no interest in remarrying but likes to have sex.”
“What? You never told me that.”
He still wasn’t looking at me when he muttered, “I know you like to think that you know everything about me, but you don’t.”
In a sharp whisper, I asked. “Did you go to her?”
“Who?”
“The widow.”
