“No, man,” Tommy laughed, something that sounded for the world like a squeaky tire, sharp and in quick bursts. “I’m not up. Wish I was though... high up, if you know what I’m sayin’?” he grinned devilishly. When he asked the question, he reached out a hand and placed it on Mike’s shoulder, unknowingly sending bursts of pain through him again.
Mike grimaced, then turned his eyes to glare briefly at the hand on his shoulder, mentally commanding it to burst into flames and then getting irritated when the event did not occur. “Yeah,” he nodded curtly. “I know what you’re sayin’.”
“High,” Sud said in the background, finally making his way over to the conversation from the male washroom. His hands were still dripping wet and his palm prints slathered across the front of his jeans.
Is it me, or did it just get stupider in here? Mike quipped to himself.
Tommy mistook that grin as encouragement, and leaned in a little closer. “Anyway, man. There’s some crap I need to talk to you about. About Grendel’s party.”
Mike felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. When he spoke, he didn’t do a very good job of hiding the resentment in his voice. “What?” he asked, not to get the information but to make sure he was hearing right. If this little mall-rat is actually trying to suck up to me... His fist clenched bone-white again, but not as a result of pain. To cause it.
“Well, see, it’s about Cathy.”
Again, rage, he thought whimsically, as he pictured Tommy’s head caving under the pressure of his balled hand.
“I think she should stop talkin’ about cryin’ rape on Grendel,” he began with a sigh. “I don’t know what went on there, but he’s dead and buried with Sara and all those other fools and now it seems like all the other little daddy’s girls with no life have started doin’ it too.”
Mike was about to draw back a hand and permanently implant it into Tommy’s skull, when he stopped himself dead in his tracks. “What are you talking about now?”
“I can’t stand this place,” Cathy mumbled as she sipped her Vanilla Coke and watched Principal Shnieder pass her for the fifth time in the last twenty minutes, each time discreetly looking at her company and her chest. “And could somebody please get that man a porno?”
The short, stocky man pretended to look down at his shoe for a moment, catching the sunlight in his big out-stretched ears and balding head. He wore a green tweed suit that made him look stuffy and uptight, his face just a little pink from the warmth of the garment on the sunny fall day.
“He is in serious need of masturbation,” Xander concurred, the words accompanied by a crunching sound as he popped potato chips into his mouth one after another. “His birthday is coming up, I hear. Maybe we should procure him some good lubricant.”
Cathy rolled her eyes, crumpling her nose a little as she turned to him, her straw dangling just outside her pink lips. Her tongue darted out once and touched it, letting the small suction effect grab hold of it. “What is men’s fixation with boobs?”
Xander frowned. “Even if I could explain that, it still doesn’t shed light onto our staff’s recent fixation with you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Let’s face it, girl, you’re kinda flat,” he nodded, trying to disguise his smile by shoving more chips in.
“I hate you,” she growled playfully, squinting her eyes so much that her long eyelashes batted against one another.
“You’re practically a carpenter’s dream over there. Personally, I think I’m much sexier than you.” He motioned to his own body in mock seduction.
She shook her head, tried to fight it, then finally gave up and simply burst into laughter. She hadn’t wanted to laugh right then. The way everyone was looking at her since trying to convince people that Grendel had raped her the night he died was merciless. There was so much in their eyes. Hatred, pity and always a little desire with the men, no matter who was looking at her.
Except Xander.
“Thank you,” she said honestly, her voice sounding like the sun. As if warm sunshine on your face could speak to you and tell you that it would empower and protect you. There was security in her voice, a place where he could make his home.
“For what?” he asked, cocking a brow at her.
“Making me laugh,” she explained, those pink lips curling into a smile. His hand lingered near hers so she took it, her fingers dancing gently across his. “You know, the only other time I’ve smiled since Sara died was when I found out you were okay.”
Xander closed his eyes at the mention of Sara, his eyes flickering toward the ground and away from her own.
“I’m sorry,” she sighed apologetically. She felt it too, but she knew what it must be doing to him. He did it, after all. For all they knew, he could do it again. He could kill her, she realized with a start, and jerked her hand away from his.
He felt her touch leave him, a numb sensation of loneliness overcoming him. It fizzled throughout his body, like a slow cold-shiver. “For what?” he asked curtly, trying to avoid the topic altogether. “What’s there to be sorry about?”
“Don’t do this,” she pleaded, feeling the tears start to come but forcing them back. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Shnieder walk past again. With her back turned,
