Page 25 of Lovely War
It is, thankfully. Unlike the next hype video, which is still working itself out in my head. “All done,” I say. “I’ll send it to you when I’m back at my desk.”
He raises his eyebrows. “And when will that be? Ten?” His tone is playful, but he’s not wrong. It’s all part of my process. Also, I have a process now. This job requires actual creativity. I let things percolate in my brain in the morning, sometimes wandering the building while I think. I get them done later, usually at night. I do my best work then, when the office is quiet and few people are around.
“Very funny.”
“It’s usually closer to ten thirty.” Ben’s disembodied voice comes from his office. My non-identical eyebrows contract. Eric is my friend, and he’s allowed to joke about my work habits. But Ben is not invited to this bantering session.
How does he know my routine, anyway? I tuck my hair behind my ears. “Got my schedule memorized, Callahan?” To Eric: “Let’s get away from the heckler.”
“You’re talking right outside my door,” Ben protests.
Okay, fair. I shoot him daggers anyway, but he’s alreadyfocused on his computer again, the tip of his tongue poking through at the corner of his mouth. Eric follows me into my office.
“I’m coming over tonight to keep Cass company while she packs,” I say, leaning over my computer to drag the file into an email and send it to Eric.
Cassie’s big case settled, so she’s going to New Orleans for ten days to see her family. Eric will join her for forty-eight hours, flying down on Christmas Eve. I’ll be at my parents’ house in New Jersey, submerged in Dad’s old leather couch with the cupholders, watching games with Kat and reading Mom the instructions for her AncestryDNA kit. Holidays still don’t feel right without Dad, and they probably never will. We need to accept that instead of trying to fight it.
Eric points at me with both hands. “That reminds me, Cassie’s already thinking ahead to when she gets back.The Beach Housestarts in January. You should come watch at our house.”
“You guys are obsessed, huh?” I take a big sip from my new water bottle. It has lines marking how much I’m supposed to drink each hour. I used to be good about staying hydrated, but lately I keep forgetting.
“Have you ever seen it?”
I wrinkle my nose. “I’ve seen the commercials.”
He makes apsshsound and picks up a mass of fleece from the back of the chair facing my desk. He holds it up and turns it in different directions, trying to figure out which end is up. I have a lot of fleece in my office, but this item is reserved for the coldest days. The thermostat war is still ongoing.
“Is the actual show drastically different than the commercials?” I ask.
He ignores the question. That’s a no. “We do a fantasy league with some friends. You pick different contestants each episode and get points when they kiss or go skinny-dipping or fight. It gets competitive. Is this a dress?”
“It’s a wearable blanket.”
“Looks like a dress.”
“I bought it at the grocery store. Nothing sold at Giant legally qualifies as clothing.”
Before he can say the words “meat dress,” my phone buzzes.
Quincy: can you come to my room
Quincy: 911
I squint, rereading the messages. Uh-oh. I hope he’s not upset about the assholes online who’ve been calling him “soft” since he tweaked his ankle during our last game. In high school he injured the same ligaments—badly. Losing him would be disastrous, so he’s sitting out tomorrow as a precaution and will have plenty of time to recover over the nine-day holiday break.
I kick Eric out of my office and hustle over to Quincy’s dorm. It’s easy enough to find. His RA must be a Cricut fanatic, since each door in the hallway is marked with an elaborate sign listing its residents’ names atop a cartoon stack of books. Someone scrawled a lazy sketch of a penis on theIinQuincywith a Sharpie.
“That was fast,” he says when he opens the door, dressed in sweatpants and a hoodie. A mountain of similar sweatpants and hoodies sits on the floor behind him. His roommate, another freshman basketball player, is nowhere to be found.
“What’s wrong?”
His face is grim. “Follow me. We need to go to the basement.”
“I’m not totally opposed to helping you dispose of a body,” I say, “but it depends on the circumstances of the murder.”
We take the elevator because of his ankle, emerging into a musty corridor and then entering a fluorescent-lit room. There’s no body, and, in fact, nothing worthy of a 911 text at all. Just a basket full of sweaty clothes and an unopened bottle of Tide.
“Oh, hell no,” I say. “You didnotsummon me here to do your laundry.”
