Chapter Text
If asked, Harcourt will deny to her grave that she ever got drunk and did karaoke in front of strangers.
The problem with that response is that there’s really no refuting the evidence, which is staring at her clear as day from her phone, courtesy of one Adrian Chase.
She squints through her hangover to text back:
Me
Delete it, or they’ll never find your body
Hardcore
delete what
Hardcore
whoops lol i see what happened
Harcourt wills the letters on the screen to make sense, and then her vision skates past the screen to the unfamiliar case. She understands then.
Me
Why do I have your phone
Hardcore
uhhhhhhhhhhh
Hardcore
it was fr the Uber, u were SO DRUNK nd dropped a pin for me to get home
Hardcore
did u knw its like 5 bucks to cancel an Uber 😤 wtf 💀
Hardcore
arent we in like a 3rd wave recession
The pounding in her head worsens. It’s almost not even worth the sudden motion sickness it causes her to stand, but she does it. She pounds a whole glass of water and tops off when her phone buzzes.
Hardcore
try pickle juice btw
Hardcore
sounds weird, promise it helps tho
She hasn’t used the apartment for months, but Leota mentioned she’d been by to stock the fridge as soon as they got word her discharge papers were coming through. Worth a shot to at least check.
Sure enough, there’s an unopened jar on the door. She’s never been especially partial to them, but anything’s worth trying at this rate.
He didn’t say how much, so she pours maybe an ounce into a glass and tosses it back. Might just be the placebo effect at work, but it feels like it does something.
Me
Thanks
Hardcore
ill delete the pic u sent when we swap phones
Hardcore
u rlly dont wanna go thru my phone
Me
I’m legitimately terrified to ask
Hardcore
thats nat selection keeping u alive, srsly 👍🏻
Nursing her second glass of water, she replays the last twenty-four hours in her mind. Chase had shown up at the hospital to pick her up late in the afternoon. He’d been beyond excited for the chance to play chauffeur.
“I’m here to take you home!” he’d said, squirming around in his seat to make room for his gesticulating hands behind the wheel of his modest little Sebring. “See? It’s like a callback! To when you picked me up from prison. Remember?”
She remembered.
That was the first time she saw him as anything but a deranged psychopath on the prowl for the next bloodbath to commandeer.
Because without context? That’s how he’d seemed that night outside Goff’s. But after the incident with Smith’s father, it’d been difficult to refit her preconceived notions about him into what he’d demonstrated both nights in question.
Taking out butterflies wearing dead kids, much like waging war against an entire prison cellblock, apparently, didn’t give him a moment’s pause if it meant he could do it to spare Christopher Smith a little bit of heartache.
That wasn’t necessarily the same thing as being a good person, but it wasn’t not the same thing as being a good friend or teammate.
But she wasn’t going to tell him that. Hell no, she wasn’t going to tell him that.
It had been enough to get her to go barhopping with him last night, though, and when they blew into the karaoke bar right around two in the morning, good and shit-faced, she’d been feeling good enough to clamber onstage and sing a spirited rendition of ‘Edge of Seventeen’ to follow Chase’s surprisingly heartfelt ‘Goodbye Earl’.
She unlocks his phone with muscle memory, realizes with a jolt that she must’ve seen him doing it last night to be able to do it without looking this morning, and stalls on the home page. The tiny gallery icon stares sightlessly up at her, beckoning. She has her thumb hovering over it when a badge notification distracts her.
Chaturbate
69 new followers, Peacelover! Cum say hi!
Harcourt stares.
Me
We need to exchange phones immediately
Hardcore
same karaoke bar?? 😁
Hardcore
my treat!!! i got cash to burn
Hardcore
i came up 💫 w a list of songs we can duet 💖💖💖
Against all common sense, she finds herself smiling. A second later, it gains the traction to bloom like a laugh — the kind that makes her headache drum in time with her pulse.
Chaturbate
You have 120 unread messages!
“Well, well,” she muses, texting him back. She watches the three little dots bounce and bounce. Taking pity on him, she sends another text.
Me
I can probably find freelance work for you if you need it
Me
Passing no judgement, just if you need it
Hardcore
ok 👀 which app was it
Harcourt spits water back into her glass.
Me
…what do you mean which
/
Chase is at the bar with a plate of nachos in front of him when Harcourt walks in. He hums and waves her over with his whole arm.
If he woke up feeling even half a terribly as she did, there’s no evidence of it now. It’s taken her all day to feel somewhat human again, though, so maybe he’s been miserable all day, too. It’s impossible to tell.
“Hey! Harcourt! Over here!”
She beelines right over and stuffs his phone into his jacket pocket.
“Whoa.” He chuckles. “Hello to you, too.”
“Don’t look at that now,” she warns gravely. “It’s been going crazy all day.”
“Shoot. Oh, you never answered my question.” He digs around on his plate to spear a jalapeño coin with the corner of his chip. “Which one was it?”
“Chat…” She mutters the second half of Chaturbate, turning bright red when the bartender peers at her curiously. “Seriously, don’t look at it until you’re home.”
“Sure. Hey, are you hungry? Want a drink or anything?”
The bartender lingers, waiting to see if they’re putting in another order. Harcourt dithers and climbs up onto the stool next to him.
“Fine. Just a beer, please.”
Chase drums his hands on the bar top. “This is fun! I like it here.”
Harcourt drinks half her beer when it’s brought out to her. Chase has eaten his way through most of what’s on his plate when she finally looks at him.
“Are you a cam boy?” she asks in an undertone.
“Yeah.”
She stares at him, a completely neutral look on her face. “And you’re happy doing that?”
“Pays better than Fennel Fields.” He pops an olive into his mouth. “It’s stuff I’d be doing anyway, and I don’t know if you noticed—”
Her hand at his wrist stops him from taking his phone out.
“But I’m really good at it!” he says, preening a little bit. “Like, almost as good as I am at the other thing I do really, really well?”
“I got that impression. You didn’t answer my question.”
“I’m not unhappy. Just really helps out having a second income. Plus,” he adds, trying to reach for his phone a second time, still without success since she’s still holding him firmly in place. “It’s so easy!”
Harcourt’s hand doesn’t budge on his wrist. She keeps on him with her flattest, most level stare. “Listen to me, Chase. Are you listening?”
“Uh huh.”
“If you ever decide you don’t wanna do it anymore, tell me. We’ll figure something out. I know you do good work, and I’m in a position to find more for you if you need it. Okay?”
“Okay.” He nods obediently to drive the point home. “Hey! Do you wanna see the song list I made for tonight? It’s on your phone.”
She narrows her eyes at him. “All right, but don’t think this means we’re shutting the place down two nights in a row.”
“Gotcha,” he says, winking.
“What is that? Why did you wink at me?”
“Because we’re not gonna shut the place down,” he repeats, winking again. “Two nights in a row.”
“You’re an idiot,” Harcourt sighs. She signals to the bartender. “Can we get some more nachos over here, please? Thank you.”
/
Leota gets the call while Keeya’s trying to decide between sushi or pizza for takeout tonight. She answers without really looking at the screen.
“Hello?”
“Le-oooo-taaaaa—”
“Yo, yo, A-de-bayyyy-oooooo, woo-woo-woo!”
“The fuck?”
Keeya looks up from the menus she’d been pretending to show to the dogs. “Who is it?”
“Uhh.” She looks at the screen. It’s Harcourt’s number, but that doesn’t make sense. “I think it’s work? Harcourt, you there? Hey! Harcourt? You got another job for me or what?”
“We got a job! It’s called showing these bitches who’s boss!”
Leota blinks and double checks the caller ID. It definitely sounds like Harcourt, except for the part where it doesn’t sound like her at all.
“Are you…drunk?”
“Ohhhh, that’s it! Hold my beer! Hold my beer!”
“Hiiiii, Adebaaaayo,” Adrian singsongs into the phone.
“Where are you?”
At Keeya’s curious look, Leota switches the phone over to speaker.
“—Karaoke bar! Hey! You a-and your lady should come sing songs with us. We’re battling with these biker chicks that might wanna fight-for-real after. ’S great. Call Ecosomono—” He trails off to giggle his ass off. “Econa-na-na-mos. And Peacemaker!”
There’s a sudden swell of obviously drunk, euphoric cheers and what sounds like the opening riff to some AC/DC song. A few seconds later, the words come through, confirming her suspicions.
“—best damn woman that I ever seen. Had those sightless eyes, tellin’ me no lies, knocking me out with those American thighs!”
The cheers taper off into laughter and hollering, and the call promptly disconnects.
“I say again,” Leota mumbles. “The fuck?”
“Your co-workers?” Keeya asks, starting to smile. “Sounded like they were having a good time.”
“They sounded drunk.”
Her phone pings. She pulls up the text message and lets Keeya read over her shoulder.
E.H.
[Shared a location with you]
Keeya bounces on her toes and gives Leota a look she knows all too well.
“This is such a bad idea. Can I say that on the record?”
“You said it,” Keeya confirms, kissing her on the cheek and twirling away to get changed. “I’m feeling red tonight! Let’s dress to match!”
Me
yo white boys post up
Me
[Shared a location with C.S. & 1 other person]
C.S.
why are u at a dive bar
J.E.
I second that question
Me
me n Keeya r goin 2 meet Hard court n V
Me
Harcourt*
J.E.
at a dive bar??
Me
theyre white girl wasted
Me
n SINGING
C.S.
oh shit
J.E.
this is a terrible idea
Me
i already said, but Keeya wants 2 go, so pussy up
Me
see u there 👋🏾
/
John beats the others to the karaoke bar. He chalks it up to the fact that he lives right up the street, but he’d already been dressed up with nowhere to go. For him, anyway. Dressed up, for him.
The place is packed. Could just be the usual Friday crowd, except then he sees the stage.
“Oh, God.”
It’s Vigilante and the team’s goddamn de facto leader butchering Queen.
Or Jesus, judging by the way the crowd’s losing their shit, they might be crushing it. John’s never been any good at gauging these kinds of situations.
“What in the actual ever-loving fuck,” Peacemaker says from just behind him.
“Okay, right? Thank you. I thought maybe I just didn’t get it.”
“No, this is awful,” he mutters, crossing his arms so that the short sleeves on the tiny shirt he’s wearing pull around his huge biceps and across his even huger chest. Is it too much to ask beefed up muscle guys to just wear the right size shirt? Jesus Christ.
“Maybe the secret is…we just get as drunk as they are?”
They both flinch at a mismatched vocal harmony and flag down the first person they see carrying a tray.
Two shots later, the song ends, and the next pair of singers takes the stage. John notices Vigilante spot them and holds up his hand so Harcourt will see them lurking by the exit, too.
Maybe this is just John’s overactive imagination, but Harcourt seems underdressed, even for this place. Her white tank top’s stretched an inch to the right and showing parts of her bra.
She swaggers over to them and puts her finger first in John’s face and then in Peacemaker’s face.
“You’re not Leota,” she says, staring very hard at both of them by turns.
“My fault,” Vigilante calls out, and he’s got a woman’s red flannel tied sideways around his hips. There’s a tie looped around his forehead — where the hell did that come from? “Sorry, Ems, I tol’Leota to bring them.”
“Ems?” Peacemaker mouths.
John shrugs. He has no idea what’s happening.
“You called — I said…” She points at Vigilante’s face, and he goes cross-eyed following her finger. “I said, get Keeyota and Leeya — and — and you turned my girls’ night into a sausage party? I trusted you!”
“This is a lot of information to take in at one time,” Peacemaker says out the side of his mouth for just John to hear.
Lucky that he’s the only one that does hear it because Emilia Harcourt, even plastered, with frizzy hair and a spot of nacho cheese congealed on her cheek, has scary eyes.
“Oh, shit. Ems! Oh, shit!” This time Vigilante points at John’s face. He looks at Harcourt and — John’s a little dismayed to see that the manic brightness in his eyes doesn’t go away even with heavy intoxication — jumps up and down. “Do you think!?”
The razor sharpness of a few seconds ago fades, and Harcourt’s eyes light up to match Vigilante’s. She smiles with all her teeth, and John is honest to God scared shitless.
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes. C’mon!”
“Oh, my God! Peacemaker! Save me!”
But he just hangs back like a shitty traitor and pretends to be busy flagging down their waitress while Harcourt and Vigilante cart John away to do terrible things to him, probably. Like force him to sing Hall & Oates in front of a packed bar.
“I can’t do karaoke! I’m not drunk enough! I’ll puke!”
“Chill out, bro.” Up close and under the house lights, the boozy glaze in Vigilante’s eyes is anything but reassuring. “Jus’be — jus’be ssssuper cool, okay?”
“You are in no position to be telling anyone to be super cool about anything!”
But to his immense confusion, they aren’t taking him to the stage. They’re taking him to the bar, to a woman with hair like wheat and a killer low-cut dress that does not a single thing to hide the fact that she could probably bench press him if she was of a mind to do it.
She’s singular. What’s she doing warming a barstool all alone on a Friday night when she looks this good?
“Hey, Denise!” Harcourt shouts to be heard over the music. “‘Member us, from las’night?”
Denise turns to look up at them. “Barbie and Ken,” she says, not unkindly, smiling a little and lingering on Vigilante. “Gonna let me put you in my pocket this time, sweetheart?”
“Tempting offer then and now,” Vigilante murmurs dreamily, and then jolts when Harcourt smacks him on the arm.
“This’s our friend, John. He wants t’buy you a drink.”
“Is that so?” she muses, and then she stands up.
Oh, God, John thinks. Oh, shitting, fucking, weeping Christ. He blinks myopically, feels his heart race and his hands begin to sweat. She’s as tall as him, and even taller in heels.
“Hi, Denise,” Vigilante whisper-hisses. “I’m John, and I’ll like—” He belches. “T’buy y’a drink.”
“Hi-Denise-I’m-John-and-I’d…like to buy you a drink?”
She smiles. “Step into my office, big boy. What’re we havin’?”
He’s distantly aware of Harcourt and Vigilante scampering off and cackling like drunken hyenas, but it doesn’t get to him like it normally would. Not when he’s got a woman to keep happy, at least for the next five to ten minutes.
Holy shit.
/
“Holy shit,” Chris says from his position of relative safety by the door. “That’s a lotta woman.”
“Do I even wanna know who you’re talking about?”
“Leota!” Chris turns, grinning at the sight that greets him. “Oh, and that makes you Keeya. I’m Chris.”
“Hello.” The woman in question flashes a shy smile but shakes Chris’s hand confidently enough. “It’s nice to finally get to meet some of Leota’s co-workers!”
“Not for long,” Leota warns, and sure enough, here comes Vij and Harcourt, sloppy drunk and wearing each other’s clothes.
That’s weird, by the way. Chris could’ve sworn Harcourt was wearing a tank top when they took off dragging John behind them, but now she’s rocking Vij’s shirt, and he’s squeezed into a tiny plaid top that’s almost certainly Harcourt’s.
“You guys made it!” she slurs. “You look fucking amazing, by the way. Oh, my God, and you’re matching, even. I’m Emilia,” she says, holding her hand out to Keeya. “This’s Adrian.”
“Hi, Mrs. Adebayo!”
“John’s here,” Harcourt continues solemnly, “but we kidnapped him.”
“He’s over there.” Chris points him out for Keeya’s sake. “With the glasses and the totally natural beard he’s never dyed.”
“Oh.” She smiles, and then her eyes get big. “Wow! That is a lot of woman.”
“Keeya,” Leota chides, and then her eyes get big, too. “Oh. Damn!”
Chris nods. “He’s got this. Who else in this whole place can either of ‘em dance with and not get a crick in their neck? Seriously. The laws of nature, and mathematics, want those two to bump uglies at the end of the night.”
Vij snorts.
“That just leaves you then,” Keeya says, looking just as sweet and wholesome as apple pie. No wonder Leota snapped her up and married her. “We’ll have to find you a dance partner!”
He looks around, realizing half a second too late what she’s telling him. John’s got his Amazon biker lady, Leota’s got her actual honest-to-God wife, and Harcourt’s — got her hand in Vij’s back pocket.
“What—”
“Our song! Our song,” Harcourt’s saying, dragging Vij off to the stage again.
Apparently they’re a big hit with this crowd because people yell their heads off as soon as they see it’s them again. Chris can’t relate. He thought they’d sounded like cats.
“Anybody else think they sound like cats?” he asks, flagging down the bartender at the one end of the bar that’s not swarming with people.
“I think they’re sweet,” Keeya says, because she’s new and doesn’t know any better. “And they have a lot of energy. It’s contagious.”
“Honey, if I start to look like that,” Leota says, gesturing at the mess onstage. “I’ve blacked out, and I want you to take me home. Okay?”
The crowd collectively loses their shit, and Chris shakes his head, passing out the shot glasses as they’re handed to him.
“I might need to black out to understand what’s happening here tonight.”
“To blacking out?”
“No! Keeya!”
Chris clinks his shot glass to hers anyway, and Leota, sighing, follows their example. It’s a weird fucking night.
/
Adrian loses track of the team. He can sort of find Keeya and Leota if he looks around for two matching red dresses, but that’s the only way to do it. Chris and John blend into the crowd, and then there’s Harcourt. She keeps putting her hand in his back pocket for some reason.
The bartender spots them wilting against the bar and asks what they want. Adrian asks for water and holds up two fingers.
Adrian tries to spot Chris in the crowd, but he doesn’t know where he went. When he can’t find him onstage or at the bar, he turns to Harcourt. She’s looking at him, eyes clear and slurring a lot less than she had been earlier. Maybe slamming into that waitress with the tray of drinks earlier sobered her up some.
“Chris looks good tonight,” she prompts.
“He always does. D’you want — I could ask if — if he’d do a threesome?”
He holds her eyes for a solid three-count before he starts to snicker. The edge of her mouth twitches into a smirk, and then she’s snorting, too. He gestures between them with a floppy uncoordinated hand.
“No, right? Us?”
“Absolutely not,” she laughs. “You sounded pretty confident for a second there. You almost had me convinced.”
“I don’t wanna confidence you — or, convince-idence, uhh — what were we talking about?”
“You were saying you wanted a threesome with Chris,” she says.
“Oh, yeah!” He giggles. “It was fun last time.”
She snorts into her water glass, whittled down to half-full next to his totally-full. Oops.
“What do you mean, last time?”
“Hang on, gotta water my brain.” He chugs the glass in front of him, and then Harcourt’s when she slides it in front of him. “You’re so right about Peacemaker. He looks — premium luscious tonight. Talk — talk about virile masculine vibes. I mean.”
“Okay, what the fuck is going on over here?”
Adrian wheels around, forgets he’s drooped precariously on a backless barstool, and nearly spills right onto the concrete.
Except Chris catches him.
“I think you’re done, man.”
“Done-z’oh.” Adrian laughs, still just wilted against Chris’s massive, sculpted chest. It gets him thinking. “Chris, do you wanna fuck again?”
His mouth’s right there by the vein in Chris’s neck, so he feels it when that even, steady pulse skips a beat. Chris smells like whiskey and PBR and the artisanal soap he keeps in the shower at his place. Sweat, too, and body heat. It’s making Adrian’s head spin and his palms go hot.
“Uh, am I forgetting something crucial here, Vij? When did we fuck?”
Hiccuping, Adrian says, “We got naked and h-had orgasms, together.”
“Right.” Chris pats his back. “Okay, bud. Let’s get you home. You have his phone?”
“Already two steps ahead of you, Smith. Just get him outside. Look for a White Ford Taurus. Driver’s name’s Danny.”
Someone — probably Harcourt — slips his phone in his front pocket. Chris hauls him off the stool in a controlled fall and walks him out to the parking lot. The night air’s quiet and refreshing, like a drink of cold water. Adrian tips his head back to count the stars.
Chris bunches his fingers in Adrian’s hair so it pulls away from his forehead. That’s like a drink of cold water, too.
“Shoulda known you’d be a mouthy drunk,” Chris mutters. “You gonna be all right if I dump you in the car and leave, or do you need someone to hold your hair back for you when you puke?”
Adrian gazes up at him, grinning widely, drunkenly, and swaying. His skin’s hot beneath Chris’s hand in his hair, over-warm and probably flushed from the alcohol. He can’t tell what face Chris is making, if he’s even looking at Adrian, or if he cares one way or the other. His hands feel good, the one cradling his skull and the other at his ribs, holding him upright.
“Harcourt was right,” he murmurs. “You look fucking hot tonight.”
“No shit?” Chris glances over his shoulder. “She said I looked hot?”
“I al-already asked. She doesn’t…w-want a threesome with us.”
“You asked — oh, my God.” He barks a laugh. “The balls on you, Vij. Jesus Christ.”
Adrian smiles sleepily. “So she said no, but — you didn’t.”
“I didn’t say no to what?” Chris asks, scanning the parking lot instead of looking at Adrian.
“You—” Flopping forward to press his feverish forehead to Chris’s neck, he says, “You ’n me, fucking again.”
“We didn’t fuck the other time. There was a girl there.”
“Well, d’you wanna fuck without a girl there?”
Chris sighs, bunching his fingers in Adrian’s hair again. “You’re drunk, man. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Is that why you don’t wanna tell me?”
“Tell you what? Oh, I’m funny now? Is that it?”
Adrian, still laughing, ducks his head when Chris scoops him into a headlock and scrapes his knuckles over the top of his head. He relaxes his grip around Adrian’s head after just a few seconds, and Adrian goes limp against him.
With Chris’s arms still coiled around him, he feels held. Caught. Adrian presses his chin against the collar of Chris’s shirt to look up at him.
He’s so happy the world has Peacemaker back in it. Life sucked big time without him.
“You’re my favorite person,” Adrian whispers.
He must look really pathetic then because Chris just stares at him for a while before scoffing and rolling his eyes. “Dude. How fucked up are you right now?”
“Lil fucked up.” Adrian holds up his fingers, pinched together. “This much.”
“I think you’re underselling it by a lot.”
“’m not. I’m…prac-lic-ally — pra-practically sober.”
“Oh, yeah? Prove it.”
Chris shrugs his shoulder, bouncing Adrian off him, and there he goes collapsing sideways into Chris with the combined powers of gravity and Tito’s vodka. With his nose mashed into Chris’s pec, he snuffles out:
“Mmm, comfy.”
“Vij.”
“Wha?”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, all right? Look! Your car’s here. In you get. Hey! Are you Danny?”
“Yeah. Oh, goddamn it, is he unconscious?”
“He’s awake!” Adrian shouts, throwing himself in the car with renewed vitality and rubbing at his tweaked nipple. “I am. Me, I’m awake.”
“You’re Adrian?”
“He sure is.” Chris shuts the door behind him and pounds his hand on the roof of the car. “Sleep it off!”
“Fuck, was that your boyfriend?” the driver, Danny, mumbles, pulling the car away from the curb. “No offense, but he seems like an asshole.”
Groaning, Adrian gets his phone out and texts Harcourt.
Me
i’m s stupid
Hardcore
you’re very drunk
Hardcore
water, sleep, pickle juice
Me
right? it wrorks 🥒
Hardcore
[shared a picture]
Adrian opens the attachment and goes warm behind his sternum. She must’ve snapped it right when Chris had stopped him from falling off the barstool. With Adrian curled up in Chris’s big strong arms, it almost looks like…
He doesn’t know, but it feels…
“Oh, shit. I’m gonna barf.”
The brakes screech.
“Boy! Do not!”
/
Keeya’s having fun. She’s feeling good.
“Babe, where’d your coworkers go?”
“Hmm? Let’s see.”
She scans around and laughs, high and gleeful, at something she sees in the crowd. Keeya follows where she points. It’s the whole-lotta-woman and Leota’s friend, bespectacled John Economos, who doesn’t dye his beard, slow dancing to a sweet rendition of Air Supply’s ‘Lost in Love’.
The couple onstage, a pair of hard-ass-lookin’ bikers, and very much in love, to look at them, are singing to each other more than they’re singing to the bar.
It’s pretty.
“Our boy’s gettin’ laid tonight,” Leota gushes, teeth flashing in a happy grin.
Keeya laughs. “Oh, and there’s Chris and Emilia. Do you see Adrian anywhere?”
She looks around but notices after a minute that Leota’s not looking. She’s staring right at Chris and Emilia where they appear to be arguing at the bar.
“Ugh, I don’t want none of that. Dance with me, baby.”
“Mmm. Don’t gotta ask me twice. Have I told you how good you look tonight?”
Leota beams, twirls Keeya out, and reels her back in.
It really is a beautiful night out.
/
Harcourt doesn’t know what Smith’s making a big fuss about.
“There was a girl there.”
“I heard you the first time, Smith. Also? I don’t care.”
“Well, you should!” he gripes, gesturing with his hands pretty much the same way Chase does when he’s trying to make a point, though he probably doesn’t realize it. “He made it sound like we…”
“Had sex?”
“We didn’t!”
“I still don’t care.” She gets a text from Chase, frowns, and texts him back. “If I knew you were gonna just come back in here, I would’ve gone with him. What kind of best friend are you? You carried him out of here.”
“First, Eagly is my best friend—”
“Oh, my God, Smith, we know. So your second best friend—”
“Is Leota.”
She stares at him. “What?”
“It’s obviously Leota. Don’t tell Vij, though. He’ll flip shit.”
He shrugs like he thinks that would be an overreaction, like he thinks her stunned reaction is an overreaction.
Maybe it is. She’s had a lot to drink tonight.
But she can’t shake that memory of Adrian Chase, nobody to her but a fucking stalker, gently taking over for Smith on the rifle that night; Adrian Chase hanging his head in her car when he’d “failed” to take out Auggie Smith in prison; Adrian Chase blowing himself up and throwing himself into a fight with white supremacist shit heads on that backroad, while concussed.
“Interesting,” she says, and calls Chase’s phone. “Send Danny back to come get me. Tell him I’ll pay double your fare.”
“Harcourt—”
She slides off the barstool. “Sorry, can’t hear you. My best friend’s drunk and needs supervision.”
“Your what’s drunk?” Chase slurs, tiny and metallic on the other end. “You have a best friend?”
“Yeah, you,” she says. “Come pick me up.”
Smith is still following after her when the white Ford Taurus swings around the front of the bar again. Harcourt gets in the backseat with Chase.
“What happened? How’d you get here so fast?”
Danny the Uber Driver throws his hands up.
“Is he all right?” Smith calls through the open window.
“I throwed up,” Chase moans, raspy, like it might’ve just happened.
“Oh, Jesus Christ. In here?”
“There was a…Slurpee cup…”
Harcourt grabs it and throws it, still warm, out the window. It splashes near Smith’s feet, but that’s his fault for following her.
“Please drive, Danny.”
“Yes, ma’am. Hey, if you’re the girlfriend, I like you better than the boyfriend.”
“I’m not the girlfriend,” she says, drawing Chase up off the floor of the backseat and guiding him over to rest his head on her knee. She fixes his glasses so they sit straight on his nose. “I’m the best friend.”
“Fine by me.”
They clear about three blocks before Chase’s brain catches up with the conversation.
“I’m your best friend?”
“Yeah, is that okay with you?”
He laughs. “But I already—”
“You’re second, after an eagle,” she tells him, deadpan.
“A very smart eagle.”
She shakes her head and doesn’t mention that she hadn’t been questioning the eagle’s intelligence.
“Fine, I’m your second best friend. But you’re my first, all right?”
“First ever?” He blinks up at her, and it must just be the reflection of the streetlights catching on his glasses making his eyes look all starry right then. It must be. In an awed, quiet voice that doesn’t sound like him at all, he says, “But I’m…like, crazy. And I’m bad. I’m r-really bad, Harcourt.”
“Well, so was Murn, Chase. Maybe I have a type and you’re it.”
“Ohh,” he says, nodding like he understands. “You’re crazy, too.”
She snorts. “Yeah, I must be.”
He closes his eyes, chuckling some more with a wide smile on his face.
“White people,” Danny mutters under his breath from the front seat. “Y’all like music? Or do you just wanna, like, keep gazing soulfully into each other’s eyes and whispering weird shit?”
“If you’ve got the news, or NPR, or anything quiet, I’ll take it,” she tells him.
“But the news is so depressing,” Chase mumbles, but not like he’s actually putting up a fight.
“Not all of it. You just gotta keep your ears open.”
She tugs on his earlobe, and Chase squirms, laughing. Danny turns the radio up so it’s above a hum, and Harcourt eases back in her seat and listens to the world moving.
/
Keeya laughs from the bar where Chris and Leota are doing a really adorable job with that song from Titanic when John Economos drops into the seat beside her.
“Hi, I’m Keeya!” she says, holding her hand out to him.
He turns, showcasing a hot pink lip print just beneath his ear that goes really well with the overall flush in his face. “Oh? Oh, Keeya! Gosh, hi. Hi, I’m John. Uh, Economos. I work — I work with Leota and…” He gestures vaguely at the stage. “Yeah.”
“They pointed you out to me,” she tells him, and brushes her fingers underneath her ear. “You and your lady friend?”
If possible, he turns even redder and slaps his hand over the lipstick kiss on his jaw. “Right. She’s…a very special lady.”
“I could tell!”
“Uh…anyway, we’re…we’re going back to her place?” he admits in a rush, laughing deliriously and looking like he can’t believe his luck.
“That’s great. I hope you have a great night.”
“Yeah! You, too! Uh.”
He winces at a very discordant note from Leota that has Keeya grinning from ear to ear unabashedly. Seeing the look on her face, John Economos softens. His smile then is kind to match his eyes.
“Your wife’s awesome by the way. Really fuckin’ brave. And a good person? Which is weird. ‘Cuz we’re not. Even remotely. Any of us.”
“I might’ve thought that, too, at first. But I haven’t for a while now.” Keeya looks over his shoulder and nods. “Neither should you.”
“Ready to go, sweetheart?”
John Economos startles off his barstool. “Yes, absolutely.”
Very Tall Lotta Woman winks at Keeya and sweeps John Economos right off his feet. Onstage, Chris and Leota are belting out Whitney Houston like there’s no tomorrow.
Keeya takes a video on her phone. They’re really just too sweet.
/
Chris shares an Uber with Keeya and Leota when the bar finally closes. He makes sure they get home safely first before continuing the rest of the way to his trailer. He keeps checking his phone to see if Vij has texted him back, but all he sees is the text he sent after Danny the Uber Driver sped off with him and Harcourt in the backseat.
Me
vij txt me whn u get this
It get right under his skin, that quiet thread.
Without anything to do, he feels restless. The team’s long night out left him wired rather than beat, and since he hadn’t ended up taking anyone home, there’s nowhere to put all that excess energy.
And Vij isn’t answering, so he texts Harcourt.
Me
ok maybe i shouldve gone w him in the Uber
Me
can u at least let me kno hes alrite
“The fuck do you care if he is or not?”
“Ugh, Dad — Ghost Dad, whatever. Not now.”
“Wishing you took him up on his offer? Is that it?”
“Okay, look, goddamn it. Even if I wanted to — and that’s none of your fucking business, by the way; I’m a grown-ass man, and you’re dead; I know ‘cuz I fucking killed you, and Economos blew your nazi friends to hell and back — he was wasted, all right? That’s sick. You’re sick.”
“The only sickness in this family came outta your mother when she had you.”
“Y’know, Dad, considering half of what makes me who I am came outta your fucking ballsack? That’s true. Fuck the hell off already.”
His phone chimes, and he forgets briefly about the apparition of his dead father coming back to haunt him.
Vij
he’s fine, he’s sleeping
Me
why are u talking abt urself in 3rd person
Vij
shit
Chris waits. His phone chimes again.
Harcourt
Our phones are really similar
Me
hes rlly ok? he looked pretty shitty whn u guys left
Harcourt
Why did you leave him then
Biting his lip, Chris looks around his empty dark kitchen for any sign of his dad. He always just comes and goes when he feels like it, so he’s not that surprised to see he wigged out while Chris had his back turned.
Me
he was saying crazy shit
Harcourt
Like?
Me
jus gay stuff, dont make me repeat it
Harcourt
Oh he already told me everything in the Uber
“Goddamn it, Vij.”
Me
didnt want him to get the wrng idea if i went w him
Harcourt
Did you try telling him he had the wrong idea?
He stalls with his thumb over the keyboard.
Hadn’t he said Vij had the wrong idea? When he brought up the threesome with Amanda, and when Vij called him out on never actually giving him a straight answer?
But…no, then.
‘Cuz if he had, Vij wouldn’t have had to call him out on it in the first place. Was that what his whole giggling fit outside the bar was about?
“You called it right. The sissy boy has bigger balls than you do.”
“I didn’t see you calling him a sissy boy when he wrecked your armor, after blowing you up,” Chris mutters back, rubbing a knuckle beneath his lip. “And I’m not arguing the size of the man’s balls.”
“‘Course not. No need, since you got a good, long look at ‘em once already.”
“There was a girl there, okay?” Chris snaps, though his mind plays back a helpful snippet of memory he’d filed away at the time of the event in question. “And I didn’t look, except to compare parts. That’s basic locker room decorum. Perfectly acceptable.”
Harcourt
That’s a no then
Harcourt
Maybe think about why that is
Harcourt
Goodnight, Smith
“Even the girl’s got bigger balls than you.”
Chris sighs. “If you were actually here right now — and not just as a ghost or as a figment of my fucked up imagination, but actually here — we could get into gender politics, and I’d take great pains to disabuse you of the notion that women can’t kick just as much ass as as men, if not more, but you aren’t here. So go back to doing what you did when you were alive, and leave me the fuck alone!”
He shoves off the counter and paces angrily to his bedroom to try and sleep.
After about ten minutes of silently fuming from behind a pillow, there’s a slap of something hitting the window and bouncing on the floor. Chris waits a beat before tugging the pillow away from his face. There’s something small lying beside his bed, twitching.
The flap of wings at his window is an expected relief.
“Thanks, buddy.”
Eagly chirps at him.
“One of these days you’re gonna realize I’m not an eagle and I don’t eat that shit raw off the ground like you do,” he mumbles, turning over onto his side.
Feathers all ruffled up, Eagly screeches quietly, for him.
“Eggs are different.” He huffs a sigh into his folded up hands. “That’s good protein.”
With Eagly there, it’s easier to unwind and relax. He drifts off before he’s let himself consider the practicalities of falling asleep with a dead rodent or whatever the fuck on the floor of his trailer. But whatever. That’s a problem for Future Chris.
Harcourt’s texts to him and Vij’s question; those are problems for Future Chris, too.
Fuck, and also shit, he thinks, and falls asleep.
/
Adrian wakes up only once in the night to be sick in the bathroom. He gets halfway to his room before he realizes something critical and walks back out into the front area of his apartment.
“Harcourt,” he says, kicking the edge of the couch.
She jerks awake, still wearing his shirt over her beer-stained tank top. “Ugh, Chase. What time is it?”
“I don’t know.” His jaw cracks around a yawn. “You’re gonna mess up your therapy muscles sleeping on that couch.”
He sees her sit up in the half-dark. He hears her shoulder, or maybe her neck, pop.
“Oh, ow!”
“Yeah. Come on.” He walks around the side of the couch and holds out his hands. “Trade me.”
“Sure,” she says, but when she gets up, she doesn’t let go of his hand.
“This isn’t how trades work,” he says, stumbling after her in the dark.
“I’m not trading you. That couch needs to be launched off a cliff.”
Adrian’s too tired and too head-achey to put up much of a fight when she bosses him back into his bed, on top of the covers and everything else. She flops next to him, more whispery, fabric-moving sounds in the dark. He hears something slap the tile in the bathroom.
“Give me my shirt back,” she grumbles, and Adrian, complaining the whole time, flails his arms around to let her take it off him.
“Jeez, fine, just — ” He breaks off, crowing and curling in on himself at her icicle fingers jabbing him between the ribs. “AH! Har—GAH!”
She gets the flannel off him and shrugs it on, leaving him in just his shorts.
“Well, now I’m cold.”
“Get off the blanket then.”
It’s a struggle, and Adrian falls out of bed somehow, but they get situated under the blanket, both of them.
“Oh, I’m drunk,” he mumbles, snuggling into his pillow.
“Join the club.”
“That’s the problem, I did.”
Harcourt snorts, and smiling, Adrian dozes off.