Page 67 of Fraternizing with the Enemy
Logan ruefully rubbed his shoulder, slow to lose the grin. “Want to take a look around?”
“No,” I huffed on instinct, folding my arms across my chest. “Lead the way.”
Logan ignored my tone, jumping to attention as if he were some tour guide. He brought me forward to examine the items on the shelf closest to the door. Theywere filled with dice and other things, but I barely looked.
Logan, though, was sure to explain it all to me. “This one’s for epic campaigns,” he told me as he plucked up a die with such small sides. It was dark blue with white numbers—a lot of numbers. “DMs don’t use them very often, but a d100 is great to have.”
“I mean this in the nicest way possible,” I told him honestly, feeling my eyebrows pull together. “I don’t understand geek speak.”
Logan set the die back, chuckling, moving onto the next shelf. “Hugh has this deck,” he said, careful not to disrupt the other trinkets as he swiped up a card deck. “It’s got a misprint, and half the cards don’t have the correct etchings on the back.” He slid a few out of the box, showcasing me a card that had inscriptions on the front, but a white back. “Basically priceless for collectors.”
Priceless, he said. I would’ve called itruined. “Hmm.”
Logan had a story for a lot of the things we came across, almost as if this was his own store. Or as if he’d spent hours upon hours in here, learning the lore of each item. I kept my hands awkwardly in front of me as we meandered through, waiting for the guy—Hugh, apparently—to come back out, but I found myself listening to Logan intently. None of it made sense, except for his excitement.
“Hugh opened this place up last January,” Logan told me. We’d moved onto a display of smaller items, like little figurines of creatures and people. “Most of this is from his personal collection. He’s spent decades collecting everything.”
“And he’s just selling it?” A lot of the stuff looked like it would’ve been hard to find.
“Some. Some’s just for display. He runs this place as more of a ‘I’ll order this for you’ type of place. And it’s a hangout for anyone wanting to come in for a game.” Logan tipped his head toward the beaded door. “There’s a bigger room in the back with a D&D table. Free to use, but people usually leave donations.”
A lot of stuff Logan was saying went over my head, but I still nodded slowly. I’d never in a million years admit it to him, but the store seemed a bit different now that I knew this was someone’s personal collection. Years and years of someone’s life sat on these shelves for others to come in and gawk at, and even though most of it was absolutelygeeky, I wasn’t about to take something someone cherished for most of their life and spit on it.
I picked up a little gold dragon figurine, rubbing my thumb over the extended flame that billowed from its parted jaws. “He’s cute,” I found myself saying.
“Hugh hand-painted a lot of these,” Logan explained, using his pinky to point at the dragon’s scales. “You can see on this one where he used glitter paint and where he didn’t.”
He was right. Not all of the scales were glittering, but enough to add dimension. “Must’ve taken forever.” I gently put the dragon back among his other hand painted friends. “I don’t think I’d have the patience. Or a steady enough hand.”
Logan’s shoulder nudged mine. “Me either. But they’re cool.”
“Yeah,” I found myself murmuring, voice almost lost. “They’re cool.”
I followed behind Logan, watching as he admired the pieces on the glass shelves. His blue eyes traced over everything diligently, completely fascinated with the little trinkets and figurines. There was such a pure captivation in his eyes, and something in my chest fluttered at the sight of it.
The last time I’d felt that way about something had been when Jade had been rattling off the Top Tier rules at Brentwood’s open house. I’d been rapt, awestruck that we’d found ourselves at the top, fascinated by everything she’d listed off.
Now, though, that same fascination was absent within me. The rules, the requirements, the Most Likely To list—none of it held my attention the same way anymore.
The thought unsettled me, and I couldn’t even really pinpoint why. “Why are your clothes always wrinkled?” I asked Logan suddenly, needing to change the subject in my mind. I eyed the dark gray button-down he had on, though the creases weren’t as bad in the fabric today, and mainly near the hem of the shirt. “You don’t have an iron?”
“I don’t, actually.” Logan rounded the aisle with a chuckle, circling back toward the front. “And I guess with everything I’ve got going on, hanging my laundry doesn’t seem as important.”
“Everything you’ve got going on?”
“School, practice, work, homework.” Logan’s voice seemed a little heavy as he listed them off. He caught me looking, and quickly smiled. “But it’s fine. I can handle it. It just means I might have a wrinkled shirt here and there.”
“You’re booked and busy for a high schooler.” Iquirked my lips to the side. “You can’t ask your mom to iron it for you?”
“Nah.” Logan shrugged, rubbing the side of his neck. “You’re pretty busy, too, I’m sure. What does a normal day for Madison Oliphant look like?”
“School, cheer practice, then whatever Jade wants to do afterward,” I said, and, again, the unsettled feeling bloomed in me again. “Lately, though, we haven’t really been doing as much.”
“She text you after last night?”
Last night, when she left me outside of Wallflower, felt like forever ago. “No,” I admitted. “She didn’t.”
For a moment, Logan didn’t reply. His shoulders lifted with a deep breath in, and then relaxed as he let it out. “I want to be mad at her for leaving you there. I want to be furious that she’d leave you stranded without a way home, and I want to be furious that the jerk who was touching you didn’t give up his seat.”
