“Cool. Well, ah, I’ve got a few movies rented and some popcorn. Dad bought some poker chips last week that haven’t been deflowered, so we could do that --”
“I don’t know how to play poker,” Cathy cut in as she hung up her coat.
“You know how, you just always lose,” Mike retorted, rolling his eyes.
“That would be the definition of not knowing how to play.”
“-- I was also thinking we could order a pizza later. Kay’s delivers all night, right?”
Cathy paused, frowning from Xander to Mike and then back again. “Sweety --”
“Hey, if you don’t like pizza either, that’s your own damage. You can have the garlic fingers.”
“Xander,” she started again, fighting to keep her voice neutral. “Why are we here?”
The smile ran away from his face then, his eyes cast downward almost instantly. He watched his foot kick the mat back and forth for a second, then turned back to them. “I like to think I don’t need your help, but I do,” he said so low that it was almost silent.
“Help with what, exactly?” Mike asked, taking a look around the house.
He sighed. “It’s like I was saying to Cathy earlier. I need to get a lid on this whole situation. Need to get some of my humanity back, stop the Womb from doing whatever it does. I know it’s not a permanent solution, but right now I’m just not going to sleep tonight. Was kind of hoping you guys might be able to help me with that.”
Cathy tisked, stepping forward to give him another hug. “Of course, that’s... of course.”
“I was worried you’d say no. You have every right.”
“Of course we’ll help. That’s what family’s for.”
“That’s it?” Mike laughed, placing his hand on Xander’s shoulder and smiling. “That’s the big deal for tonight? I didn’t make that big a deal when I beat the crap out of you earlier.”
“That’s later,” Xander smiled, nodding as he and Cathy started toward the kitchen.
Mike paused a moment, then walked in behind them.
There were two party-sized bags of chips laid against one another on the kitchen table, the dip between them both like a man squat down inside a tee-pee. There was a two-litre bottle of Cherry Cola there as well, which made Cathy smile.
“You’re a doll,” she said, fighting back a yawn. “But I think we should start with the coffee. Been a long couple of days.”
Xander nodded, flipping a switch on the side of the auto-perk.
“There enough coffee for two cups?” Mike chimed in, sitting down at the table across from Cathy.
“There’s enough for ten thousand,” Xander said, shooting him a sly look. “Let it never be said that I don’t know how to pull an all-nighter.”
Mike smiled. “Remember the last one?”
Laughter rumbled out of Xander’s mouth and he slapped his knee, almost tipping over the mugs he’d laid out.
“What?” Cathy asked, looking from one to the other and shrugging. “What am I missing?”
Mike kept laughing.
“What is it?” she demanded again, pinching him on the arm.
“Ow. Okay, it was back in grade seven. We were all gone camping, the lot of us, and there was this bet to see--”
“Whoa, whoa,” Xander interjected, smiling and waving both hands out in front of him like an air-traffic controller for his friend to stop. “You’re telling it wrong.”
“You just don’t like where the story goes.”
“No, you always fuck up the story. You always fuck up every story,” he drawled, coming over and sitting between them. “It was in grade eight.”
“Grade seven.”
“It was the summer between grades seven and eight.”
Mike stopped, doing some quick Math in his head. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”
“Anyway, that little guy from Canada was down to visit. Keenan. Calla’s cousin.”
“Right,” Cathy smiled nodding. “Little guy, freckles, used to hit on Julie a lot?”
“Yea. Anyway, he was down from Canada for a few weeks and we were really making the best of it. You know, every day it wouldn’t just be one fun thing... it’d be ten. Go swimming out in the cove, playing street hockey, staying up late, having barbeques... everything we could think to do.”
“It takes you so long to tell this story,” Mike sighed, leaning back on his chair.
Xander shot him a look as the auto-perk clicked off and he got up to get the coffee. “It takes a long time to tell it.”
“It wouldn’t take this long to go back in time and experience it.”
“I’m building mood.”
Mike crumpled his brow. “Who are you?”
Xander shook his head, walking back with a cup each for Mike and Cathy and then going back for his own. “Anyway, Keenan and the whole gang were around that summer. So this one night we decide to go camping, only our parents won’t let us go out into the forest alone.”
“So, what?” Cathy stopped him, laughing. “Don’t tell me you just camped out on the front lawn or something.”
“No, that’d be lame. We went up to the park and camped there.”
“What park?”
“Remember off of Laird there used to be this big outdoor wooden basketball court with a wire fence all the way around and one part gated off for when people wanted to watch?”
“Oh, yeah. I loved that place.”
“Up there. We set up our tents in the place where people were supposed to watch games.”
“Hilarious,” Cathy snickered, rolling her eyes as she took a sip of her coffee.
“No, see the funny part was Keenan,” Mike said, leaning forward and motioning off to one side as if he were actually pointing to Keenan in his mind’s eye. “That kid was just the most annoying little pervert I have ever met. I think he was touching himself before the rest of us even realized there was a
