“Which is why I said what I said.”
“What is more hilarious than this place, Bay? I could work at a grocery store where customers yell at me because their coupon won’t work, or I could be a Protostar whose quarterly review involves learning a line dance. That, my friend, is gold and should be treated as such.”
It was such a Nekesa thing to say.
Sometimes best friends were like twins separated at birth. But Nekesa and I—not so much.
She was outgoing, hilarious, and always down for a good time. She sewed her own amazing clothes, she took ballroom dancing classes for fun, and she’d punched someone in the mouth once. She was like the heroine in a zombie movie who’d be wielding a stake and yelling, Come and get me, you zombie pussies!
I was… well, not that. I was perpetually trying to keep up with her. I’d be the girl too busy yelling Wait and flipping through the Zombie Rule Book to notice the zombie hovering behind me, about to eat my brain.
“Well, I’ve never even heard of the Bopper Shuffle.” I scratched my eyebrow and felt uneasy at the thought of working for a company whose core values were fun and belly laughing. “It is ludicrous that my potential pay increase should hinge upon cheesy choreography.”
“You’re just scared because you suck at dancing,” Nekesa teased, nudging my side with her elbow.
“It’s a ridiculous assessment!” I did suck at dancing—Nekesa said I was too repressed to enjoy it—but that didn’t change how absurd the assessment was.
“Nekesa?”
She and I both turned around, and a short-but-built guy with curly blond hair ran up beside her. I expected her to make a smart-ass comment because he was wearing a pinkie ring and a fake Rolex, but instead she squealed, “Oh my God—Theo!”
And she rarely squealed.
Her face lit up as she smiled at this stranger like she was genuinely happy to see him.
The dude, wearing a space suit that matched ours except for the purple R patch, smiled and said to Nekesa, “Let me guess—you’re a Protostar.”
“We both are.” She gestured to me, but neither of them actually looked at me as they started walking again and I followed. “What made you assume that?”
“Our trainer said Protostars are pretty much buzzkill know-it-alls,” he teased, “and that is like the actual description of Nekesa Tevitt.”
I opened my mouth to argue, because he’d described the opposite of Nekesa, but he added with a laugh, “Just kidding—they obviously have you on the wrong team.”
“Right?” She reached up and gathered her hair in her hands, like she was making a ponytail. “It’s the wrong team, but I’m glad because I want to be with Bailey.”
She gestured to me with her head, and once again, neither of them looked my way. She said, “I still can’t believe you’re here. When did you guys move back to Omaha?”
“Last summer. I go to Kennedy Prep.”
Ah, Kennedy Prep. So the Rolex might actually be real.
“How come I haven’t seen you at mass?” Nekesa let go of her hair, looked at me, and explained, “We used to be CCD buddies.”
I wasn’t Catholic, but a surprising number of my friends in Fairbanks had spent their elementary years going to those weekly classes at the church too. I didn’t even know what C-C-D stood for, but we’d never really been a church family either.
“We go to St. Patrick’s now.” He looked a little embarrassed and added, “It’s closer to our house.”
“Ooh—uptown,” she teased.
They shared a smile, and I wondered what their history was. CCD was way before I moved to Omaha, so I didn’t know Nekesa back then. But their vibe today felt a little flirty, which was weird because Nekesa was wildly in love with her boyfriend, Aaron.
I was probably reading it wrong.
I tuned out their catching-up chatter as I saw food approaching. I was starving but also mildly nervous about what kind of culinary offerings this place was going to have. Would an establishment whose core values were fun and belly laughing really care if their snacks were FDA approved?
“I heard there’s a hidden pub, just beyond the Galaxy of Funstaurants, that has better food than all the other places put together.”
I turned to my right, and there was Charlie. Where did he come from? I looked up at his face—damn, so tall—and was still torn between dreading the sight of him and finding a strange comfort in his presence.
It was a little unnerving, wondering when Mr. Nothing was going to show up and cancel out this Charlie. So I just said, “Really?”
He leaned in a little closer, his lips turning up into a slow smirk. “It’s designated as a kid-free zone, so they put it in a separate corridor. The DJ told the Red Giants about it in confidence, but since I’m now of the House of Proto, betrayal of the Red Giants is my duty.”
“Nekesa—did you hear that?” I nudged her with my elbow and turned to my left. “Bar food up ahead.”
Charlie muttered, “You left out the part about my dutiful bravery.”
“I know,” I replied, not looking back at him.
I heard him say “Ouch,” and it kind of made me want to laugh.
Nekesa glanced at me and then looked back at Theo. “Bar food up ahead.”
Theo shook his head. “Constellation Pizza has calzones in the shape of Saturn. Rumor has it the rings are made out of breadsticks. You cannot miss out on that, Nekesa.”
She looked back and me and Charlie. “You guys, come on. Planetary pizza? We have to do that shit.”
Charlie shoved his hands into the pockets of his flight suit and turned to face us, so he was walking backward. “I’m sticking with bar food—Saturn pizza is too nauseatingly cute for me. Feel free to join me, Bailey, if you’d rather have fries and amazing conversation than fuckshit pizza.”
Did he just invite me to join him for lunch?
And if yes, why? Why would he do that?
“I believe the first is possible,” I said breezily, even though my mind was turning, clueless of how to make sense of this version of Mr. Nothing. “But not so much the second.”
I really wanted bar food, but I wasn’t sure I wanted the company that came with it.
“Oh, come on—we can finish whining to each other about our nightmarish home lives.” Charlie turned back around and slowed his pace, so he was walking right beside me. He lowered his voice so he was just talking to me and said, “Vent together now so we don’t kill later.”
He didn’t look like he was messing with me. His eyes were on mine, but he looked like he was waiting for my answer—nothing more, nothing less. Was it possible he’d grown up?
I knew I’d probably regret it, but as I looked at Nekesa and Theo, deep in their conversation about people I’d never met, I sighed and said, “Fries it is.”
CHAPTER EIGHT Charlie
I hadn’t expected her to say yes.
Yes, I’d been trying to convince her, but now that she was leaving her friends and walking with me toward the pub, I wondered if it’d been a mistake. She was all about doing things the right way, ordering her food with shit on the side, and overthinking, whereas I just wanted to take a load off and eat a burger.