by T L Costa
Waiting’s hard. I think of the time Rick took me to the firing range. Shot his 9mm Glock. The way it felt in my hand. How Rick had me pause and control my breathing. Feel the lethal weight of the gun. Target only when perfectly calm. Perfectly focused. The grip of the gun. The feel of the controller. Breathe.
“Whiskey three, this is bravo one, strike package inbound. ETA thirty seconds, over.”
Laser set, laser ready, lasing. My heart pounds, thrumming in my ears. Damn I feel so alive. Weapon set, weapon ready, firing.
Wait… wait… wait… The drone view is a thing of beauty, with only a four-second lag on the satellite view. The building blows. Gray-brown smoke rising, then the sniper, he stays right where he is, a blurb of bland browns and khakis and now there’s a cloud and he’s gone, the building is gone. Soldiers, our soldiers, leave their location and take care of the man that jumped from the windows of the building as it blew and the one running from the shed.
The rush rises up from my heart and makes my fingers shake and my breath all wild like a laugh.
Whiskey three comes back on, over the headset, which is unusual, but then this whole mission was unusual. Must be changing, upgrading.
“Bravo one, thanks, you just saved our asses, out.” His voice is high and full of something that I never thought was possible to program into a computer… relief.
Is she going to answer? I hope she gave me the right number. B said to wait a few days before I called her. It’s been like a day and a half. That’s like a few, right? Or should it have only been the full two? What if I should have called yesterday?
She gave me the wrong number. It’s been like five rings already. I mean, she kissed me and all, you’d think she’d give me the right number, or was that before the kiss? What if the kiss sucked so bad that she changed her number?
“Hello?”
Her voice. Shit, now what do I say? “Hey.”
Silence. Fuck, this is hard. Ideas, ideas, quick I need ideas. I look at the poster hanging on my wall, Miss January. Well, that’s not going to help. “Have you been making changes to the game? I had this pretty tight mission and thought I’d let you know.”
“We’re always making upgrades, we do it daily.”
Quick, think of something else, something smart, thoughtful, Yale-like. “Um, I went to Pepe’s for pizza last night. You been?”
I sound like a fucking moron. Moron! You’d think there’d be a book, like dating for dumbasses or something.
“No, I hear it’s good, though.”
Well, alright. She hasn’t hung up yet, at least, that’s good. “It is. It’s like a New Haven landmark and all. Didn’t they take you on any tours of the town or something for college orientation?”
“They did, just not of pizza places.”
“That sucks.” I lay back on my bed, looking up at the ceiling. How come ceilings always look like they have sand mixed in with the paint like that? Wait. I stand up and grab my wallet off the desk. I look at the clock. It’s 4.30. “Are you done with classes today?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Text me your address, I’ll be there in half an hour,” I say.
“You have to be kidding me,” Ani says as I place the order. “We’re really going to eat three small pizzas? Just the two of us?”
“Hell yeah. This is one of the best pizza places on the planet. You have to try the margherita, the sausage and the clam.”
“Why three separate pizzas, though? Why not just get one with the three different toppings?”
“Because then the flavors mix together. Mess everything up. Has to be three different pies.” Damn, it smells good in here.
“How much pizza do you expect me to eat, exactly?”
“At least one slice of each pie here, then we go to Sally’s.” I take a sip of my root beer. Love root beer with pizza. “Think of it as like a pizza taste-test.”
“I don’t know if I’m going to make it. That’s a lot of food.” She’s wearing this pink sweater that makes her skin look too soft to even be real, and her brown hair is pulled back in a braid, the bleached strand left out and tucked behind her ear.
“Oh, you will. And then we’ll go out for cannolis.” The brick and candles and gleaming wood floors mix with the smell of pizza and garlic and the noise from tables full with college kids and business executives and families as they set the day behind them and sit down for dinner. I have to lean in close across the table to hear her when she speaks. It’s kind of nice.
“I think that there has to be some rule against carb-loading like this, it’s unnatural.”
“You’re only saying that because you haven’t tried it yet.” My knees hit the leg of the table, I shift them around and the waitress shoots me a dirty look for blocking the tiny path between the tables. “Tonight is going to change the way you see pizza for the rest of your life.”
“We’ll see.” She shakes her head and her ears flush pink. I like her ears. Not too big. Pretty.
“You have nice ears.” Oh shit. I didn’t just say that out loud, did I?
“Um, thanks?”
“Can’t believe I just said that. It’s just they have this shape. Nice shape. Pink.” Crap. I suck at this. Shoving the straw from the root beer into my mouth, I look at the table. Not at her. God, she’s gonna get up and leave. I’m such an idiot. Change the subject. Change it quick. “So, why do you call Rick Mr Anderson?”
She raises an eyebrow. She answers, “Because he’s my boss.”
“It’s weird.” Great. Now I just said something she did was weird. This so isn’t going like I wanted it to. “And where did you get the phrase ‘goofy grape’ for the sim? I had to Google that – it’s like Vietnam-era or whatever. You might want to update that term before the sim goes into use.”
“What are you talking about?”
“In the sim… never mind.” Great. Now I’ve broken two rules. One, never insult a girl you want to impress, and two, talking about the program. Why is taking a girl out for pizza so freaking hard? Talk about her. Bring it back to her. “Your dad was in Afghanistan?”
“Yeah, with the Army.”
“Why’d he join? Was he like career or something?”
“No, he was laid off and couldn’t find another job. The Army would pay him, pay for more school when he came home, so he joined.” She pushes her glass around with her fingers. Her eyes on her napkin. Not on me. OK. Change the subject.
“So, you miss LA?” I ask.
“I miss the weather, definitely. And my sister, she’s at UCLA.”
“What’s she studying?”
“I don’t know if she’s studying anything, really. I think Julie sees college as a way to kill time before some big producer finds her and decides to make her a star.”
I laugh and she smiles and my heart sort of jumps. “So what’s next for World of Fire? You’re gonna make more, right?”
“I want to, but the storyline is kind of getting away from me. I don’t really know where I want it to go.”
“Tell me,” I say.
“Well, I have Janra rescue Philus at the end. So what’s next? I mean, she extinguished the fire, right?”
“Well, yeah, so have her have to battle her way through a world of ice or something.”
She coughs on her soda. “You think it would be that easy?”
“Why not? It’s your world.” By the time the small pizza is placed on the table in front of us, we’ve kind of outlined a rough plot for the next three World of Fire games. I actually like talking to her. My mouth waters. Ani’s face wrinkles as she eyeballs the globs of mashed potatoes on the pizza. But she slides a slice of pizza off of the pan and onto her plate. She cuts off a bite-sized piece. Gives me a wary look. She’s so cute. “I don’t know about this,” she says.
“Trust me.”
She puts the piece of pizza in her mouth, eyes slowly closing as she chews. Her face softens, glows, even, with surprise, and when she opens her eyes again, she’s beaming. “Oh my
God, that pizza is unbelievable.”
She stuffs another piece in her mouth and I grab a slice. “And we’re just getting started.”
Ani
How did we get from eating all that pizza to running around in Wooster Square? I feel the touch of his hand as he tags me and bolts over a bench. “C’mon,” he calls to me.
Oh, right, the espresso he insisted that we have with the cannolis at that last café. What does that make it, then, four restaurants, total? My stomach might just pop. I run to chase after him, he’s just a flash of movement beneath the lights of the park, but my side cramps up. “Ouch. Tyler, we have to stop. I think I’m going to throw up.” That would be so like me, though. Vomit on my first real date? Julie would never let me live it down.
“Not a chance. Well, maybe a small chance.” Another flash and he’s got his arms wrapped around me from behind. I stiffen, then let myself relax, let the lingering scents of wood smoke and pizza soften my shoulders, let him hug me. We stand in the middle of the square, the sound of cars and the people walking home from evening mass at the church washing away as we stand beneath the moonlight. His lips brush the side of my forehead. “So, which was your favorite? Sally’s or Pepe’s?”
“I can’t decide.”
“What do you mean you can’t decide? Everyone in the area has to have an opinion. Stamp it on your driver’s license and everything.” He smiles and it’s as if he’s lit from within.
“I mean I can’t decide. We might need a do-over.”
He pulls me closer. “Guess we’ll have to do it over, then. Maybe tomorrow?”
“Guess so.” I rest the back of my head against his shoulder. He wants to see me again. Tomorrow. My heart races. “It’s late, where did we leave the car?”
“Forget the car. I don’t want to go back yet,” he says.
Leaves falling from the cherry trees of the park catch in our hair and I turn, reaching my hands up around his neck. I stand on the tip of my toes and I kiss him, honeyed sparks shooting straight through to the tips of my fingers, lost completely to everything else in the world.
CHAPTER 14
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10
TYLER
“Mom would freak out if she knew I went to class without any makeup,” Ani says. I love hearing her voice. Love it. It’s even better when she’s actually next to me. When I can feel her breath on my skin. Look her in the eyes.
But I’ll videochat if I have to.
“Your mom sounds like she has issues. What the hell do you need makeup for?” I put the laptop on the kitchen island as I grab the milk out of the fridge. So hungry. Need some cereal or something. “What time is your class again?”
“I should head over to class now, actually. Talk to you later, OK?”
“Yeah, bye.” I close the fridge and end the connection. Is that Mom’s car? I walk over to the window. Mom’s talking with Rick. On the driveway.
I open the door, balancing a bowl of cereal in one hand. “Hey, guys.”
It takes a fraction of a second for Rick’s smile to take over his face. He wasn’t expecting me to be home. Mom’s trunk is open and she places a bag in Rick’s arms. She says, “Tyler. I thought you’d be out with that girl.”
Oh no. Don’t say Ani, please don’t remember, I only mentioned it once. Rick will be pissed if I broke his rule. Might take away the sim. Can’t take away the sim. I need it. Please forget.
Mom stares over at the neighbor’s lawn. They’re running their sprinklers. In October. Not sure why they’d do that. I can feel the weight of Rick’s gaze on my face. Physically feel it as Mom says, “What was her name again, honey? Samantha?”
Samantha was the name of a girl Brandon dated like four years ago. “Yeah,” I say. “Samantha.” Relief so strong it almost hurts. But, “What are you doing home, Mom, it’s only like 4 o’clock.”
And what is Rick doing here with her? Did he know I’d be home? Rick’s arms are full of grocery bags, and he brushes past me into the house. If he was secretly into my mom, he would at least blush or some shit, right? He can’t be into her. They were on the driveway. Must have just run into each other. My hands clench.
“Samantha, Tyler? That’s great,” he says with a grin.
Mom rustles around in the trunk with the bags.
I say, “Forget Samantha, what are you doing here?”
“Your mom called me” – he walks into the kitchen and puts the bags down on the counter – “she’s worried about you dropping out. She asked me to meet her for coffee so we could talk about your options going forward.”
Are his cheeks red? Are they fucking red? “Coffee?”
He lowers his voice. “I’ve been your mentor for two years, Tyler, I’ve been telling her for just about as long that I’m here for her, too. She’s concerned about your future. Thinks she’s failing you as a mother. It’s a good thing that she’s starting to reach out, starting to talk to someone about what’s eating at her.”
I look into the bag Rick carried in. It’s full. Full of boxes of citrus fruit snacks. Brandon’s favorite. I hate them. She hates them. We have a cabinet full of them already. Waiting for him to get better. Waiting for him to come home.
“This is the first time she’s called you?” I ask as Mom walks through the door. She looks tired. She drops the bags in the front hall and goes back out to the car to grab some more.
“Yes, but I hope it’s not the last. Does she have any friends, Ty, anyone she talks to?” I shake my head no. “She’s frightened and depressed and feels like she’s all alone. I’m glad she’s finally reaching out.”
“Yeah” – I hear the hope in his voice. If Mom could get better, if she could smile, like really smile again – “me, too.”
We walk outside together, to help Mom carry in the rest of the bags.
CHAPTER 15
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12
ANI
I shouldn’t be doing this, should I? Still, my homework is done and that paper for Spanish isn’t due until Monday so I can stop by… right? No. Probably looks too desperate. We’ve been talking every day but he has the sim to fly and homework to do so maybe I should just get off the bus here and turn around and go back to campus.
He doesn’t strike me as particularly studious, though. Watching as the gray bus wheels along route ten, my heart jumps up just a little as I pull the string.
The bus stop isn’t far from his house, and the walk down the tree-lined street is pleasant. Smells of burning leaves and the noise from an army of leaf blowers greet me as I go. The air is slightly damp, like it’s threatening rain, and I find his house, walk up the broken concrete path to the door. This is fine, I’m almost certain that Mr Anderson can check my email, and it’s not like I’ve been hiding my communication with Tyler. I didn’t set up a Hushmail account or anything. If he hasn’t said anything about it yet, then it must be OK. I haven’t been feeding Tyler any code, haven’t been helping with the sim. I’m not really brave enough to talk to Mr Anderson about it or anything, but maybe as long as I don’t help Tyler with the sim then our relationship falls into a sort of Haranco don’t ask, don’t tell policy. Maybe. Probably.
I take a deep breath and tell myself that everything will be fine. I can’t come all the way out here and not ring the doorbell. I ring the bell and wait.
There’s no answer. OK, this is bad, is this bad? My fingers move over the button again, feeling its chalky texture and pausing, waiting.
He opens the door and his face with those high cheekbones and bronzed skin registers shock. Oh, no, what does that mean? But then the look of surprise fades into the shy smile that I can’t seem to stop thinking about. “Ani.” His smile widens as he checks out my outfit. I hope he likes it: I borrowed Christy’s really tight jeans and went to Victoria’s this afternoon to get one of those push-ups that dig into your shoulders so that they can lift your boobs into the stratosphere. His smile gets even wider as his eyes return to meet mine. “Wanna come in?”
“Yeah, t
hanks.” He moves aside and makes room for me as I go. My foot hits an old boot lying on the ground and I fall right into him. Grabbing at him to keep myself steady, he winces in pain before I’m caught by his arms. My God, those biceps. I tremble as he steadies me.
“You OK?” he asks. My heart jumps. He’s so big and so cute and I can’t believe that I just fell and he must think I’m a total idiot. I nod, eyes staying steady on his full, soft lips.
“Why me, Tyler? I mean, out of all the girls that you’ve met, why me?” I ask before I even know what I’m saying.
He looks down at my shoulder, eyes lingering there, like he’s trying to find an answer hiding somewhere in the strands of my hair. “My world, Ani, it’s so… dark, sometimes.” He looks me in the eyes. “And whenever you’re around, you light everything up. You make everything seem less… hopeless.”
I grab him, digging my hands into the flesh of his muscled back, and kiss him.
He shuts the door.
Tyler
The machine. Something, a woman’s voice is saying something on the answering machine. Voice turned all tinny echoing through the empty house. Don’t want to hear. Don’t want to know. Want to stay right here.
Ani pulls back, looks up at me with those heavy lids and that look that just screams totally sexy. “Are you gonna answer that?” she asks. Voice low, slick, hot.
Kiss her, kiss her again and again and again. Heart flying, head spinning and hands trembling, I shake my head no.
She still has her shirt on but the sleeve is halfway down her shoulder. Nice shoulder, round and tanned and firm. My head moves towards it and I kiss her shoulder, her neck, my hands roam over her body and I tug at her shirt to move it up, move it off.
She arches her back and I kiss lower, moving my hands over her tits. Damn. How do I get this bra off, anyway? I kiss them right through the shirt and she moans and I think I might literally die.
