#being slowly added to chunk by chunk whenever i got paid

[kyriati]

I wonder if it's common knowledge that regular people have investments and are shareholders, and it's not ONLY the vague and mysterious Wealthy who have horses in this race

[purkinje-effect]

The Purkinje Effect, 16

Table of Contents

Hancock had paid Geek entirely in caps for the reconnaissance task, a first for the pink ex-vault dweller. He’d known the Commonwealth now used caps, but up until that point they’d always been a matter of supplementary funds for bartering. The two kicked around Goodneighbor for just over two days while Hancock ensured his house was in the best order it could be, and Geek... well, he started warming to being called that.

He bought himself a full set of sturdy leather armor which Daisy offered for sale, and reinforced the whole thing with a few extra layers of fabric inside, adding as many pockets as he could, wherever they’d be comfortable against his skin. Anything could be useful now in the wastes, he reasoned. Especially as the landscape shifted to grey the definition of edible. Besides, this way he could leave the duffel behind, and rely more upon himself. A few extra pockets inside his jumpsuit didn’t hurt, either.

You’re gonna want a gun, Geek remembered the mayor commenting before the two parted to wrap up business in the area. Even if y’don’t use it, you’re gonna want to bring one. And make sure you clean Daisy outta bobby pins. No tellin’ what trouble we’ll end up getting into. An odd laundry list, for sure, but he heeded the suggestions, and in addition to seven snippets of crimped wire, he also nabbed a .44 bull barrel pistol and two boxes of bullets. At the very least, they’d be emergency rations if they found themselves in a spot where food for him was scarce. He kept the bobby pins in a pocket he’d put in the side of his left boot, as far away from his absent appetite as he could manage. The fistful of caps he had left after upgrading his attire and arms went in his zippered thigh cargo pocket, to the same effect. The only thing he purchased for food rations was the lone carton of shortening Daisy had left. She adored that he was making such use of the Is It Food or Not? section of her shelves of stock. He hadn’t yet started reading the book she’d given him, but when she asked, he insisted he’d have the time for it while he and the mayor were away for a week or two.

When he and the mayor were to head out, Hancock did not port the crushed red velvet coat, or tricorner cap. Instead now wearing a tailored black leather road jacket and jeans, the hairless ghoul strode up to Geek, who’d been lingering with a bottle of whiskey in the Third Rail, waiting up on him. It was a dead time between performances, the dusty subway air filled only with the sounds of quiet chatter and a faint radio from the VIP lounge in the back.

“So we gonna get this show on the road?” the ghoul smirked, glancing furtively at him. Geek gave him a sly look and got up, taking the half-finished fifth with him.

“Let’s do it,” he affirmed, slurring a bit as the two ascended the stairs to exit the subway and skip town.

The pink Pinoy couldn’t much believe the mayor himself had eagerly agreed to travel with him. And he’d thought the historical attire had suited him well. The sweat was hard to hide as they walked north along the front face of the town.

“Two options,” Hancock remarked as they got to the first intersection, the one with the neon signs. “You feel like a lotta raiders, or a handful of Gunners?” He’d casually pulled out a hunting rifle from his jacket, eyeing the western route.

“I got through Haymarket Square all right, but seems you think risking the Gunner attention is warranted.”

“I tend to favor cutting in front of Mass Fusion whenever I leave out. Half the time, there’s not even anybody on guard. They’re too cocky about having occupied the plant. They haven’t even been bright enough to cut off our power supply lines from it, either.”

So they took that route, cutting left, then immediately right. The piles of sandbag walls still fortified the front entrance as before, as well as a few appropriated military green ballistics screens, vandalized in white with the grotesque skull the Gunners bore as their insignia. One pair of these screens blocked off the first left turn, but a high wall of sandbags as well as the gut of a rusted out car blockaded the next intersection. As Hancock had told, there was no one on duty out front of the nuclear facility as they passed through: merely an untended lantern and a miscellany of weather-rotted patio furniture.

“See? What’d I tell ya,” Hancock remarked quietly, trying to make his mind up which way to go from there. The ghoul’s dark, scleric eyes were hiding something, but Geek couldn’t tell what it might be, though he figured any paranoia must have been the whiskey he still nursed. “Here, let’s go left.”

Doing so, Geek walked along with him, the bottle empty by that point. Out of habit, he deposited in the next rubbish bin he crossed. His face screwed up, and he proceeded to fake that he’d intended to rummage through it for anything useful. Effectively he traded out the glass for four tin cans, which he stomped flat and added to a chest pocket for later. Hancock simply stood nearby and observed, badly hiding his amusement at his inebriated travel partner.

“Left here again,” Hancock called out after a few blocks. He hoped Geek was drunk enough not to notice they were now headed south, when the meetup location Deacon had provided Geek had been northwest of Lexington. "You’re sure this isn’t as time sensitive as it sounds.”

Now at the paved walkway along the shore of the River Charles, they approached a corner with a number of cast iron lamp posts, and a bricked embankment. The rotted-out skyscrapers imposed them to the left, the shadow of the Route 2 overpass to the right. A low fog had started to set in over the waterway, creeping up along the cobbled pavement.

“He told me he’ll wait for me until the end of the week,” Geek insisted. “We don’t gotta run the whole way, I swear.”

“Left here,” Hancock guided once more, following the side street in past the lamp posts. They passed several skeletons of automobiles, no longer more than rust. With one that had once been a van to their right, an eighteen-wheeler just ahead of them, having trapped itself in the perpendicular dead end side street. Hancock stopped before the multi-storied blue business building, and sat in the patio chair directly outside it, pulling out a flask to observe Geek while he whet his lips with something.

“Y’need t’stop already?” Geek wondered, looking around slowly. “That, that’s ok.” He sat on the wooden bench opposite the building, and took out a flattened can to snip it into strips for a snack.

“It is almost cute that you have no idea where we are,” the ghoul grunted, stretching. “And here you said you’d exhausted all the places you knew where to look for answers. When you didn’t object to my detour, it was obvious to me you either hadn’t been this way before, or you really hadn’t scouted it out yet. So here we are. Boston’s Vault-Tec Regional HQ.”

As the significance soaked in, Geek looked up from his gloved hands in a daze.

“Ready up, though. I see people treat this place like a live grenade. Guess we’re going to find out why.”

Geek armed himself with both fists and they entered. The lobby had an elevator to the right, and a hallway to the left of the reception desk which seemed to have offices. Three feral ghouls jumped them not five feet into the building, lunging for their faces.

Hancock shot one right in the face and kicked it in the chest to make sure it crumpled backwards. Steadying his aim to take out a second one, he seethed, “Had to be ferals.” Then, he fired again.

Geek slammed the third ghoul in the jaw with his mallet-knuckleduster, which he’d affectionately endeared the title of Left Hook, and sent the warped and naked wretch to land near the first feral Hancock had downed. The two made a pile of the three, and Geek walked back behind the reception desk with a huff.

Most of the papers scattered around had disintegrated or plastered themselves to the surfaces where they’d rested, if they hadn’t fallen to the floor. Geek helped himself to the pumpkin candy bucket on the desk, producing from it gumdrops. He popped a few in his mouth and sucked on the tough sugar-coated chunks.

“I tend t’forget it happened right before Halloween.” He sniffed and started going through the receptionist desk drawers as well as those of the two desks back-to-back behind it, finding little actually on printed paper. A wad of ballpoint pens and a few file cabinet keys later, he nearly slipped on something in the floor. He bent down, and stood holding a yellow ball of Bakelite. “...Billiards balls?” There were several on the floor, on closer inspection. He kept all of them.

“What are you even plannin’ on doing with those?” Hancock mumbled in a dubious whimsy. “Next you’re gonna tell me you can fit your fist in your mouth.”

The only response the ghoul received as Geek wandered off down the hallway was a nonchalant, over the shoulder “You can’t?”

Hancock exhaled hard out his nose with his mouth clamped shut, not sure whether Geek was joking, but he abruptly laughed it off and followed. The pink fool had come across what had been the company’s break room, outfitted with a refrigerator, seating, and several appliances, all no longer in commission. Over half the ceiling directly above it had caved in, the metallic prefab panel forming a slope one could scale to the next story. Geek already had gotten to the top of it by the time Hancock caught up, and was rummaging the various desks on the second floor.

“Do you know what we’re even lookin’ for?” the ghoul asked. “Not t’be pointed or anything, but it seems like this place is fulla nothin’ but junk.”

Geek looked up from the desk he’d been rifling through, caught with his mouth full of pens. He swallowed before responding.

“You don’t know either? That’s reassuring.”

“Mmh, oh hey, a terminal.” Hancock poked his head into a side office. “Watch your step right in front of it, but maybe--” Geek joined him in the small single office, where the ghoul had sat to browse the entries on the squat-screened box of prewar technology. “...Oh, hm. It’s got a password on it. No. ...No. There it is.” Once he’d cracked into it, the tip of his tongue slipped back into his mouth, and his brow furrowed increasingly. “...The employee that worked from this office had his suspicions Vault-Tec was going to experiment on its tenants. No shit.”

“What do you mean?” Geek sat down on the desk, next to him.

“Well, I’ve heard stories. Really haven’t done much Vault exploring of my own, and the one I do know anything about is 114. What happened with that one probably wasn’t any of Vault-Tec’s doin’. Money laundering kept it from getting completed, but a mob head named Skinny Malone’s got himself holed up in there right now. Might not be one hundred percent, but there’s not much defense quite like a vault door on your hideout.”

“...What kind of stories?”

“I’ve really only heard about Vault 95, but I’ve heard a helluva lot about it. And this guy’s suspicions were nail on the head.” The ghoul wagged a finger at the screen, then proceeded to read from it. “Here: ‘So we just shipped 15 cases of psycho and jet to Vault 95. Of course, that makes total sense... let's give these addicts more of what put them in this situation to begin with. Davidson says it's to force them to make the hard choice, chems or getting clean. I say it's to cause a bloodbath...’ It did exactly that. The vault didn’t die out, man--they killed each other. And here, it says they shipped liquid nitrogen to a Vault 111? ...Which vault was yours?”

“82. Why, did this employee have some kind of magic future sight about 82?” pink dreg’s face soured a bit, sobering up from the gravity of all this.

“Yeah, actually. He was incredulous noticin' the invoice for Vault 82 had half as many hydroponics rigs as were required for the population it was intended to support. ‘When I brought it to Davidson’s attention, he reassured me it was probably a typo, and if they need more, they’ll order it. He also told me that I’m not to question the Vault-Tec’s design insight again, or he’ll take disciplinary action against me. Telling me to my face that gross negligence like that is an oversight. He can’t fire me if I quit first.’”

Geek sat up and tried to process what Hancock had just read him, and his face screwed up tight a moment before he glared at him.

“...No, that ain’t right. There ain’t any hydro-whatsits in my vault. Either that idiot didn’t know what he was lookin’ at, or they never arrived.”

“He seemed convinced of it.” Hancock tried to shrug off the chill Geek gave him. “These entries talk about a guy named Walter in the warehouse downstairs. Maybe he’d have the invoices?”

“I’m not sure I’m gonna like what I find,” he admitted, standing up resignedly. “Let’s get this over with and get outta here.”

Once they got downstairs, he lagged behind a bit. The next sound was a large vase exploding against the wall next to the front door of the lobby.

“Got that outta your system?” the ghoul wondered vaguely, stiff where he stood. “Least give me warning next time.”

“...Yeah. Sorry.” Geek walked ahead of him and pushed the call button on the elevator, which still functioned according to the operating light of the display panel above it. When the door opened with a ding, he ushered Hancock inside.

“No,” Hancock replied dryly, “after you.” The doors shut, and the cab started on its descent. For a moment they stood in silence, arrested by myriad of gnawing. Without build or warning, Hancock produced a cigarette and planted it between Geek’s pursed lips. “You look like you could use this.”

The gesture elicited a heavy sigh, and Geek slouched against the wall of the cab to light it, falling slack.

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, sure.” The ghoul was about to offer a light, but Geek beat him to it. The elevator dinged a second time and the doors reopened, but the two lingered while the pink one collected himself a bit better.

The lights were still operating, to their fortune, but the small concrete warehouse, owing to its being a basement, had no windows, and only a loading dock door. It smelled like death and old plastic, and the two of them flinched. Geek took his smoke with him, puffing at it limply as the two browsed the shelves for loot. He stopped and took a long hit off of it and chuckled tiredly, picking up what had gotten his attention with the cigarette between his fingers.

“Hey, Hancock, check it out. A Vault-Tec lunchbox.” He opened it, producing a whimsical party-blower sound. In it was a souvenir magnet of the Vault-Tec insignia, which he swallowed promptly. “Ta-dah.” Before he knew what hit him, he was on the polished concrete floor.

In a whirl of claws and fists, Geek knelt on top of the ghoul and used the floor to add pressure to his punches as he beat the feral ghoul’s skull against it. He recognized he’d done in the feral and caught his breath, but quickly laid in a few more punches. Then, he got up to retrieve his cigarette off the floor just under the shelving where he’d stood and put it back between his lips. He grabbed the lunchbox, too, entitled to it.

“Remind me not t’make you mad,” Hancock joked awkwardly, having been sitting across the room on a palette of toilets watching. “The dock terminal’s up there.” He pointed up the stairs to the elevated landing where the loading dock door was.

Geek sat down in the desk chair when he got up there, already beyond emotionally done with the day. He nearly flung the keyboard when it booted up to another password screen.

“I know you probably gotta hangover right now, but you gotta chill, Geek. Did you try 4, 3, 2, 1?”

“Why would that even work?” Geek muttered sarcastically, trying it anyway. When it worked, he stared in shock. “How?”

“Prewar folks were just as bright as we present day folk, wouldn’t you say?”

Another long span of quiet between them as Geek pored over the files. Hancock briefly excused himself to the facilities located to the other side of the dock door. When he came back out, he found Geek sprawled across the desk with his face mashed into its top, arms hanging off the front. He didn’t sit up when he spoke, his words muffled by his arms and the desk.

“The invoices are all labeled that everything ordered for Vault 82 arrived on site. Where the fuck did they put them.”

“The invoices could’a been doctored,” Hancock offered. “I didn’t see a thing about the incomplete vault I mentioned, in that other employee’s journal entries.”

“No, I gotta gut feelin’ that guy from upstairs was right. You confirmed he got other things right. He might’a seen the stuff about the incomplete vault but didn’t have any evidence to back up his hunch yet. Anybody smart enough to leave a business like the one this place conducted, was smart enough to make sense of all the signs somethin’ was seriously ends-up around here. Still...”

“Come on, unglue yourself from that desk and let’s get movin’. We’ll figure it out. This is just proof we ain’t done sleuthin’. ...Are you really gonna take that with you?” The peanut gallery followed Geek out once a few more terminal commands had raised the dock door for them to exit.

“I hadn’t had one since I was a kid. Dunno what I’m gonna keep in it, but supposing it’s a decent enough souvenir for this little detour you set us on.”

“Food, Geek. Y’keep food in a lunch kit.”

“Right.”

[krissysbookshelf]

Enjoy An Exclusive Sneek Peek of: #famous by Jilly Gagnon!

Rachel likes Kyle. Rachel snaps a photo of Kyle and posts it online. Kyle becomes insta-famous. And what starts out as an innocent photo turns into a whirlwind adventure that forces them both to question whether fame—and love—are worth the price…and changes both of their lives forever.  

LEARN MORE

Chapter One

RACHEL

TUESDAY, 4:15 P.M.

Loving your mom can lead to some seriously bad decisions.

I’d agreed to tag along on her quest for face creams mainly out of boredom. But the mall with my mother on a Tuesday afternoon—as though I suddenly believed in the calming effects of retail therapy? We’d been here maybe ten minutes and already I was regretting it.

We were almost at the makeup counter that was our raison de mall when she grabbed a black, fluttery top with laces winding up and down the front.

“Ooh, Rachel, isn’t this nice?” She held it out to me. It looked like batwings in a corset.

“Not my style.” I pushed the shirt away, turning to a rack of oversized sweatshirts in neon-bright colors. Where had she even found that thing?

“No, not for you, for me. I think it’s cool. Edgy. Don’t you?” She held the shirt at arm’s length. One chunk of frizzy hair fell from behind her ear onto her cheek. She always cut it too short; at that length, hair as electrical-socket nutso as ours would not be contained behind mere ears.

“Sure, Mom.” I’d be pretty shocked to see my mom commit to a shirt she had to lace herself into. Usually her style tended toward neutral-colored sacks, but if she really wanted to dress like a vampire, I wasn’t going to tell her no. Besides, it’s kind of awesome when parents try to be cool, like watching a baby sloth play the piano or something. Terrible on the execution, and therefore adorable.

“Hey, do you care if I go get something at the food court? I went straight to ceramics club after sixth period, so I didn’t have a chance to get a snack.” Things would move a lot faster if she didn’t have me to bounce awful fashion ideas off of.

She glanced at her watch. “Meet me back here in fifteen minutes. I don’t want to spend the whole evening at the mall.”

“Sure,” I said over my shoulder.

“And don’t be drinking one of those gallon-sized sodas,” she said. “They’re poison.”

Mom was always finding some new threat to my precious development. Too late: I’d topped out at five foot three years ago.

I felt my phone buzz against my hip bone as I passed by Banana Republic, its faceless, elongated mannequins watching disdainfully as I rounded the Wet Seal, following the faint scent of tasty greases.

(From MO-MO): Do you have a new draft of Twice Removed ready yet? I don’t think I’ll be able to look at it until the weekend, but we need to be on top of this.

(To MO-MO): No, I had ceramics today. I’ll work on it soon—we still have what, three months until the deadline?

(From MO-MO): There’s no point in putting it off.

Mo must be stressed about something; trying to micromanage someone else was always her go-to when she had too much on her plate. We were applying together to a summer playwriting program with Twice Removed, but the due date for applications was forever away, and I was doing more of the writing regardless—Mo was more into performing, which meant I usually just let her help with edits. There was no point in calling Mo on it though, unless you wanted to intensify her stress-crazies. The best thing was to divert her to whatever she really wanted to talk about, so you wouldn’t start arguing about not-really-the-point.

(To MO-MO): Don’t worry. I’ll send you something by the time you’re able to look at it. Why so busy?

(From MO-MO): Did I ever mention how much I hate Europeans?

(To MO-MO): That’s racist.

(From MO-MO): You can’t be racist against a continent.

(From MO-MO): Trying to absorb the entirety of their pointless history—which is all just wars and oppressing women, BTW—is making my head hurt. I am SO going to fail this test.

Doubtful. Monique never failed anything. We’d been best friends since we were in diapers, and I couldn’t remember her ever even getting a B. In third grade, she made two entire projects for the science fair in case one was better than the other.

(To MO-MO): That’s what you get for taking smart-kid classes EVEN FOR ELECTIVES.

(To MO-MO): Guess how hard my Art II test will be? Oh wait, we don’t have one.

(From MO-MO): I hate you.

(From MO-MO): I take it back. Distract me. If my head explodes I at least want to die laughing.

I looked around for something I could send to Monique. We had this ongoing game where we’d send each other funny pictures on Flit (basically anything that got an out-loud reaction—from snort to guffaw—scored a point, honors system) and the mall was the perfect spot to play. Monique loved unintentional double entendres or grammar mistakes on store signs. I usually sent funny graffiti or dogs in clothes. There’s something about a dog wearing pants that never gets old.

I glanced around as I made my way across the mall to the food court, but nothing jumped out at me. And now that I was getting close enough to really smell all the different kinds of grease in the air, there was no way I’d be able to focus on the game. I was too hungry to hunt down a costumed Pomeranian. Food would have to come first. I spun around slowly, trying to figure out what I was in the mood for.

There was the depressingly beige buffet of breaded meat bits at China House (pass), sushi that was probably fresh off the boat a week ago at Japan EXPRESS (side of food poisoning, please?), Mrs. Butterbun’s Cookie Shoppe (even thinking about putting an inch of frosting on a cookie made my teeth hurt) . . .

That’s when I saw him.

Kyle Bonham.

Instinctively, I ducked my head over my phone and half turned away, so he wouldn’t think I was staring.

I was, obviously—you couldn’t help but stare at Kyle. He was about a thousand miles away from my type—so clean-cut he could be in an ad for drinking enough milk—and still I went fricking googly-eyed whenever I saw him. Extra embarrassing since I had fifth period with him every single day—it was only a matter of time until he caught me drooling.

He was standing behind the register at the Burger Barn, solemnly counting out change for a little girl who couldn’t be more than seven or eight. She had this dreamy, beaming look on her face, like she was so proud to be getting treated like a grown-up, or maybe like she was half in love with him.

You and me both, babe.

He placed a final coin in her palm and straightened up, his shaggy brown hair flopping over his forehead in perfect just-barely-curls. Somehow he looked even hotter here than he did at school. The burnt-orange Burger Barn T-shirt he was wearing made his eyes—a little too far apart on his face, which made them even more beautiful—look greener. He somehow managed to make his pointed paper uniform cap seem jaunty and alluring.

I looked down at myself. I was wearing a shapeless old oxford I’d stolen from my dad’s Goodwill pile. It was so long it made me look like a little kid playing dress-up, and it had clay all over the hem from where my apron hadn’t covered it up. Then of course there were the faded leggings, starting to go baggy at the knees, the Chuck Taylors that had gotten so scuffed over the summer I wasn’t even sure anymore what color they’d started as, and the sloppy side braid that did approximately nothing to contain the bursts of dark-brown frizz I call my hair.

Great look, Rach. No wonder Monique was always asking to give me makeovers. I was a fricking disaster.

Not that it mattered; I was not the kind of girl guys like Kyle Bonham—or really, any guy—paid much attention to. I’d managed to stay pretty much invisible for my entire high school career by hiding out in the art room. Especially to the painfully adorable lacrosse-star seniors who go out of their way to make even eight-year-olds feel special.

An older couple shuffled up to the register, staring perplexedly at the dozen or so variations on meat and cheese the Burger Barn packaged as “specials.” Kyle watched them blankly, looking like someone out of one of those catalogs where everyone is leaning against rustic wooden furniture just “being themselves.”

I should totally send a picture of him to Mo. After all, what could be a better distraction than a perfect-looking boy? Bonus: if I snapped a picture of Kyle I could look at it on my phone whenever. Yes, borderline pathetic, but it’s not like anyone would know but me.

I walked up behind the old woman, trying to look casual by keeping my phone down by my waist.

I tilted the phone up so Kyle’s face was in the frame. He was staring out over the rest of the food court while the older couple worked out their order. I couldn’t believe I was doing this; he was only a few feet away. Even with my flash and sound off, it would be so easy for him to realize what was going on.

But it would be worth it. In fact, this might be my best entry yet. Not like it was hard to find something better than a misplaced apostrophe, but this was gold-star emoji material.

As soon as he turned his head back toward the couple, I could take the picture quick and head over to the Pretzel Hut, like I’d realized I didn’t want anything Burger Barn had on the menu. At least, not on the food menu.

“Well I don’t know, Fred, I don’t think I want triple cheese. Can’t we get regular cheese?”

“Ma’am, if you like, I can substitute the cheese,” Kyle said, smiling easily at the older woman. She seemed startled that he was talking to her. Enough so that she shifted over into my frame right as I was clicking to take the picture.

Well, crap-sandwich. Great photo of old-lady shoulder, Rach.

I shifted my weight onto my left foot, easing over as imperceptibly as I could. Just move your arm, Grandma…

That’s when I saw her, sulking in the line for the Caribou kiosk about twenty feet past the entrance to the food court: Jessie Florenzano.

. . . and her mom, waving cheerily at me like I wasn’t the last person Jessie wanted to see, especially with her mom in tow. Jessie had been embarrassed by her even before our friendship imploded.

Jessie raised an eyebrow as though she could smell what I was doing. I dropped the phone down to my side and waved back. Jessie rolled her eyes and turned her back on me. I could see her whispering sharply to her mom, who smiled apologetically, then turned to Jessie, frowning. There were very few people I’d rather see less than Jessie, anywhere, ever, but I kind of loved that her mom still automatically acted friendly, four years after Jessie had sliced me out of her life.

I turned back. Grandma was laughing and nudging her husband’s arm.

“You know how I love pickles!”

Ew. Not the mental image I needed before eating.

Kyle smiled and tapped at the register. If I moved my arm a couple more inches… but not too far. He couldn’t know what was happening, and Jessie couldn’t guess; it would be way too mortifying. He tapped his fingers on the counter in a rat-a-tat rhythm as the old lady dug through her wallet.

He was perfectly lined up in the frame, the last traces of a smile lingering on his smooth cheeks.

I glanced over at Jessie. She was resolutely pretending I didn’t exist. There was never going to be a better time.

Click.

He looked toward me for a second. Crap, I was totally caught. I could feel my cheeks burning, betraying me. My breath caught somewhere around my sternum and stopped there, trapped.

  But then he smiled and turned back to the customer, taking her pile of ones and quarters.

I exhaled, trying not to grin. I cropped the photo, typing in Mo’s Flit handle so she’d see it. This was even better than a German shepherd with a tie.

“It’s Rachel, right?”

I looked up, startled. The old couple had moved away to wait for their order, and Kyle was staring at me expectantly. I checked over my shoulder to make sure he wasn’t talking to someone else. Like the Burger Barn only served Rachels or something? But I was the only person in line.

“Um, yeah.” I felt my face going hot again. “Rachel. That’s me.” Oh god, I sounded like the worst kind of stupid. Quickly, I clicked to make my screen go dark.

He pointed at himself.

“Kyle.”

I just stared, totally incapable of forming words.

“We’re in Creative Writing together? Fifth period?”

As though I hadn’t spent every day of the three weeks since school started thanking all the gods for that fact.

“Right,” I said, trying to sound like a girl who didn’t eye assault him daily. “You sit in the back, right?”

“Yeah! So Jenkins won’t call on me too much. I’m not as good as you are at that stuff.”

“I’m not that good,” I said automatically, looking down at the counter. Someone had made a ketchupy fingerprint to the right of the register. Like a cheeseburger crime scene. I couldn’t believe he knew who I was. The semester had barely started, and I wasn’t even his year. Not only that, he had an opinion about me. A nice one.

“No, you are. That story of yours that Jenkins read yesterday was… well it was really weird, but, like, in a cool way,” he said.

“Oh. Um, thanks.” All my words were melting, puddling around my feet in a big sloppy jumble, too liquid-slippery for me to get a grip on. The story had been about a computer that got a weird virus that convinced the machine it was actually the ghost of Queen Elizabeth I. He’d already summed it up: It was weird. I was weird. I could feel my armpits stinging with sweat.

“Anyway, what can I get you, Rachel from writing class?” he said.

You, shirtless, on a stallion?

“Um… what do you mean?”

“To eat?” He frowned. It made his nose wrinkle upward, like it was tethered to his forehead. I was so flustered about him knowing my name that I’d forgotten where we were—in line, at his job. He was being nice because he worked service. For god’s sake, he flirted with the elderly. Even more blood rushed into my cheeks. If you poked them with a pin they’d probably burst everywhere. Like that scene in The Shining all over the Apple Prairie Mall food court.

“Oh, duh. Sorry, my blood sugar must be really low,” I said. That’s always Monique’s excuse when she gets ditzy or snippy. “I was thinking, um, french fries?”

“Small?”

“No, large,” I said quickly. I was starving. He grinned a little, which reminded me that the girls Kyle Bonham hung out with did not eat large fries. They’d probably cumulatively eaten half an order of fries in the last ten years, which was why they looked like miniature supermodels and I looked like the funny friend. “I like how the large container makes my hands look extra tiny and stunted. It helps me get perspective on life,” I added.

Oh dear god, someone take this shovel away from me so I can stop digging my own fricking grave.

He laughed though, shaking his head slightly. “You’re funny. Okay. One large fry is gonna be four thirty-six.”

I dug in my purse for the money. He counted out my change and went to grab the fries. I could feel my heart rate slowing back to “not having a coronary” speeds.

“There you go,” he said. “I think this is the right size for your hands,” he added, grabbing one of my tiny fingers and playfully lifting the whole arm up in the air.

His touch was like an electric shock tingling up my entire arm. I almost snatched it back; guys don’t usually go around grabbing my hands. Only guys like Kyle—guys who win state sports titles and homecoming king crowns—have the balls to do stuff like that in the first place. I hoped I hadn’t nervous sweated enough to pit out my shirt.

But somehow I managed to keep it together long enough for him to squint back and forth between my hand and the fry box, measuring the two against each other before finally nodding as though I’d passed muster.

“Yup, looks like a fit,” he said.

He dropped my hand. I tried to breathe again.

“HA.” I forced a laugh. Poorly. “I should go. I have to meet up with my mom.” Awesome, Rachel, add to your intrigue by reminding him you hang out with your mother.

“Enjoy the fries, Rachel from writing,” he said, grinning. “See you tomorrow.”

“Sure.” I gulped, nodding too many times, too fast. “See you around.”

I walked away as slowly as I could force myself to, which was just this side of a sprint.

Breathing hard, I plopped onto a bench near the fountain. That had been disastrous.

But at least I’d gotten my picture. That had been the point, right? To flit something goofy to Monique? I finished typing her handle, then—because of course I’m oh-so-witty the minute actual guys have disappeared—I typed in a hashtag.

Send.

Immediately, I felt a little twinge. What if he saw it? He’d know it was me.

But that wouldn’t happen. Kyle didn’t follow me—maybe ten people did. I flitted all the pictures in the game to Monique, I’d been doing it for months; no one had ever noticed them before. I think the most attention any of the pictures ever got was a single non-Mo luv, and that squirrel vest had been AWESOME. Why would anyone suddenly care about this one?

My phone pinged with the sound that meant I had a reflit.

I opened my feed to see what Mo had said.

@attackoftherach_face tonight’s brain food.

The picture I’d flitted was below. That sweet, goofy half grin lingering around his lips was too adorable. So much so that it had made me feel sassy enough to flit:

@Mo_than_you_know I’m digging what they’re serving up at Burger Barn today. #idlikefrieswithTHAT

God, I am such an idiot.

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