With Love, from Cold World(15)

Of all his housemates, John was the biggest mystery. He used to be the guitarist in some one-hit-wonder band, apparently. Asa had no idea how royalties worked, but he knew that John still made money off that song—enough that he didn’t need to work aside from playing a few gigs here and there with various local bands. Despite any rock-star stereotype, though, John was a homebody and kept to himself. Most nights, Asa found him a lot like he was now—his wild black curls sticking out over the top of the couch as he watched this show, a bowl of cereal in his lap.

“It’ll be that guy,” Asa said after watching a few minutes of the episode. An earnest ginger was doing a talking head about how much he’d given up to be on the show, but how worth it the experience was for the chance to meet the love of his life. “He’s talking sacrifices. That’s a death knell.”

“Yeah, but the other guy cried on his phone call home,” John pointed out.

“Fuck,” Asa said. “They’re onto me.”

So far, he’d been able to predict who was going home the last five episodes. He was very proud of his streak. He would’ve liked to settle in and hang out, see which unlucky bastard would have his dreams crushed on streaming television, but he’d told himself he would at least start thinking about his idea to revamp Cold World. He went into the kitchen to grab a drink from the fridge, planning to take it back to his room while he worked.

He almost missed the note, but his own name caught his eye. There was a word bubble suspended over one of their magnets: I’m getting a strong “A” vibe . . . Asa? Ass? It was a fairly regular occurrence at the house, them all riffing on one another, coming up with new and creative ways to call each other names. But he would know that scratchy, crowded handwriting anywhere, despite only really studying it for the first time that day.

He leaned out into the living room, grasping the kitchen doorframe with one hand. “When was Lauren here?”

“Oh, uh,” Kiki said, not taking her eyes from the TV. “Earlier.”

“Why was she here?”

That got Kiki to peel her attention away from the show. “She was returning my red dress,” she said. “What’s it to you?”

It was nothing. It was weird, that was all. The day that they both got an opportunity at work, the day that he’d offered to work together and she’d shut him down in no uncertain terms . . . that was the day she showed up at his house for the first time? And he wasn’t even there.

Plus, he thought she’d had some big plans for tonight. He wondered if that meant they’d gotten canceled or pushed back. He wondered if she regretted saying no to Daniel’s dinner invite.

He couldn’t get her voice out of his head, the way she’d said there had to be something in it for the winner of Dolores’ little contest. Whatever it was, she’d made it clear that she was in it to win it. Well, so was he.

He did know Cold World better than anyone. Maybe better than Dolores herself, at least in a boots-on-the-ground kind of way. When he’d gotten hired there, he’d been barely out of high school, staying at a friend’s while he figured out where to go. Someone from the church had seen him making out with his then-boyfriend, and had sent pictures to his pastor father. He never did discover who it was, but it didn’t really matter—the damage was done. He was out.

Officially, his first job at Cold World had been Snow Globe Guard. That wasn’t a recognized title, but was essentially what the role had amounted to. He would stand just inside the doorway to the Snow Globe and make sure people were being responsible with the fake snow (mostly, that there weren’t kids shoving it into their younger siblings’ faces when their parents weren’t watching). He’d ask people not to put it in their pockets, reminding them that it would melt. After ten minutes, he’d politely encourage them to move on to another feature, to give the next group of people a chance to play in the snow.

He definitely knew Cold World better than Lauren. She’d only worked there for two years, and in the front office. He doubted she’d even been in the Snow Globe.

Asa pulled out a sketchpad from his desk, settling onto his bed with the pad on his lap. Art had always been one way he could express himself, a place where he could tuck every emotion or memory or whim without needing to explain it. Just colors and lines and composition. He could draw a boy on the stairs, reaching for a hand he’d never grasp, and Elliot would say something like, “Cool, man.”

He liked the idea that he could put so much into a piece and then let it speak for itself. But for whatever reason, he didn’t like the idea of just anyone entering into that conversation. At one point, he’d thought maybe he’d try to make a career out of his art—selling stuff independently, or looking into graphic design school, or whatever that might entail. But then he thought of putting himself out there over and over, and he just couldn’t do it. Big, fat coward.

Well, maybe this was his opportunity to do something with his art, even if it was just to design a new look for Cold World. The problem was that his mind was a total blank. He doodled a few snowflakes, wrote out the letters and traced over them several times, even drew a little snow globe with a wintry scene inside.

Lauren would hate playing Snow Globe Guard. She’d overly police everyone’s fun, and get flustered if people didn’t seem like they were moving on fast enough. He might be struggling to think of an idea to revamp the place, but suddenly he had a hell of a good idea as to how to make the competition more fun.