Yet a Stranger (The First Quarto #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,17
dinner,” Auggie said. “He’s going to be gone for hours, right, Orlando?”
“Well—”
“See?”
In the rearview mirror, Theo opened his mouth and then shut it again. The tendons in his neck looked strained. Finally, he said, “Yep. I see.”
Auggie refused to ask what that tone meant.
“It’s on the corner there,” Orlando said.
“Is it open?”
“Stop it,” Theo said.
“I just thought I’d poke my head in. You know, so I’ll feel a little more comfortable when I come next time. Do you think you could come with me, Orlando? So I don’t feel awkward?”
“Yeah, I mean, I guess.”
“Wouldn’t it be super weird if we ran into Theo and Cart? Do you ever go to the Pretty Pretty, Theo?”
Just the shrill answer of the Civic’s belts and fans.
“Maybe the four of us could go together.”
Auggie stopped and pretended to consider an open parking spot along the curb. He let his eyes drift up to the mirror.
Theo’s dark blue eyes always made Auggie think of wildflowers. They were wide now, and Auggie couldn’t tell if the emotion there was shock or pain or anger or a brew of all three.
“Stop it,” Theo said again, quietly.
The flush ran through Auggie’s whole body, sweat prickling across his chest, down his belly, up his neck. He shifted the car into gear and followed Orlando’s directions the rest of the way to the apartment. He couldn’t bring himself to look into the mirror again.
At Wayne and Cal’s building, they got out of the Civic, and Theo said, “Orlando, go find the spare and wait for us. Not you. You stay.”
Orlando shot a look and said, “Augs?”
“It’s fine.”
“Um, yeah. Right.”
When Orlando’s steps were ringing out on the metal stairs, Theo said, “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“Don’t do that. If you’ve got a problem with me, tell me. Don’t pretend to be fine and then go out of your way to upset me.”
“Why would I want to upset you?”
Theo scratched his beard. Hard scratches. “One more chance.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Did I do something wrong?”
“The other stuff I can let slide, Auggie. I said something dumb. I pissed you off. You came back at me. Fine. But this, this kind of thing. Just so you know, I don’t put up with it.”
Auggie opened his mouth, speechless, and held up his hands.
A truck blew past them, kicking up the cardboard sleeve from a Wendy’s five-pack of nuggets. It skittered across the asphalt.
“Ok,” Theo said, nodding. “So that’s how it’s going to be.”
“How what’s going to be?”
But Theo was already moving toward the stairs. Auggie waited, letting Theo get a head start, and tried not to be sick.
When they got to the apartment, Orlando had unlocked the door, and he was wiggling the knob. His expression was transparently relieved when he saw them. “Hey Augs, everything—”
“Yep,” Auggie said.
Theo didn’t even slow down; he just pushed past Orlando and headed toward the back of the apartment. Auggie followed with Orlando, and they found Theo in the second bedroom. It wasn’t much different from a lot of the rooms in the Sigma Sigma house, or from the rooms Auggie remembered from the dorm the year before. It had a twin bed with the sheets in a tangled mess, a dresser with chipped paint, a bong that looked like a baseball bat, socks and shirts and underwear in random piles on the floor. On the walls, posters of Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, and Maria Sharapova hung in an uneven line. At some point, at least one other poster had been displayed in that row, but now only a pair of tacks and a scrap of torn paper marked where it had been. Theo was already pulling out dresser drawers.
“This is Cal’s room?” Auggie asked.
“Yeah,” Orlando said.
“I’m searching in here,” Theo said as he pulled out another drawer and inspected the back and bottom. “You two go work somewhere else.”
“Ok,” Orlando said.
“We should probably all search in here,” Auggie said. “Since it’s Cal’s room, and we’re looking for Cal.”
“I don’t think so,” Theo said, yanking out another drawer so hard that the dresser rattled and the baseball-bat bong toppled over.
“Agree to disagree,” Auggie said, moving to the closet.
“Fine,” Theo said, tossing down the drawer. He pushed his hair behind his ears, took a deep breath, and said again, “Fine.” Then he walked out of the room.
When the sound of cabinet doors opening and closing came from the kitchen, Auggie said, “What’s his problem?”
Orlando just shook his head and began digging through the drawers Theo had