Yet a Stranger (The First Quarto #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,20

control?”

“A black girl,” Theo said. “She was unarmed, walking alone. A police officer shot her. With everything going on in St. Louis, the Michael Brown shooting, it’s—well, it’s stirred up a lot of powerful feelings.”

“Oh my God. It wasn’t Cart, was it?”

Theo stopped.

“I’m just asking if he’s ok,” Auggie said.

“You’re unbelievable.”

“He’s the only cop I know. It just—I just thought of it. I wasn’t trying to say he’d actually do something like that—”

Theo headed for the sidewalk.

“Theo, come on. It’s a million degrees outside, and you’re going to hurt your knee. I’ll drive you home and I won’t say anything and I’ll apologize as many times as you want.”

Orlando said something Theo couldn’t hear.

“Theo,” Auggie called, “don’t be stupid.”

Theo shook his head and kept going, and after a while he couldn’t hear Auggie anymore. He ran into the crowd of demonstrators, standing to one side as they marched. Men and women, mostly black but with a sprinkling of people from other races. Their banner said JUSTICE FOR DEJA. When the crowd had moved on, Theo started limping toward home again.

11

Monday was Labor Day, and a knock at the door woke Auggie. He stumbled out of bed and answered.

“Get your ass up, little bro,” Dylan said, shoving a blender bottle at him. “Lacrosse tryouts.”

“What?” Auggie rubbed his face, considered the blender bottle, and realized he was wearing nothing but a pair of boxers printed with unicorns. A guy whistled from the hallway, and Auggie groaned. “I don’t—”

“I’m not taking no for an answer,” Dylan said. “Shorts, t-shirt, and the best athletic shoes you’ve got. Let’s go!”

“Don’t I need—”

“Yeah, we’ll buy you the rest of the gear later. Move your ass, bro!”

The protein shake was awful. Tryouts were even worse. It wasn’t that Auggie was uncoordinated. And it wasn’t that he was out of shape. He could run, and he could pass—well, he didn’t humiliate himself anyway.

He was just too fucking small.

By the end of tryouts, the other guys had turned it into a joke, keeping score every time a guy body checked Auggie, laughing every time he was sent flying.

Auggie was picking himself up while a gang of guys walked away, slapping each other on the shoulders. One of them said, “Let’s see him make a jerkoff video out of that.”

Auggie started after them. He was surprised when someone caught his arm, spinning him around.

“Get the fuck off me,” Auggie said.

“Cool it,” Dylan said. His blond curls were dark with sweat and clinging to his forehead. His pinnie and shorts and hell, just about every inch of him, was covered in dirt from when he’d taken a bad fall earlier.

“That dickwad thinks—”

“What? He thinks you’re a joke? He thinks you’re an internet kid? A one-trick pony?”

Auggie ripped his arm free.

“What are you going to do?” Dylan said. “Go get your teeth knocked out? That’ll show him.”

“Fuck off.”

“You’re going to prove him right. You’re going to prove you just care about being the center of attention, having a million fans stroke your ego.”

The September sun was hot on Auggie’s neck. He wiped sweat from his eyes. “So what am I supposed to do?”

“Find your fucking center, little bro. And work your ass off in the gym this year, come back next year, and show that dildo what you can do.” Dylan studied his face, laughed, and wrapped a big hand around the back of Auggie’s neck. “Come on. We’ll get you some decent gear, we’ll get you set up at the gym, and we’re sure as hell going to get you meditating. Your chi is wack as hell.”

Three hundred and twenty-seven dollars later, Auggie had plenty of gear. He also was pretty sure he could hear Fer screaming all the way from California.

Tuesday morning, someone knocked on Auggie’s door.

Auggie was in boxer briefs, staring at two outfits on the bed: a tank top that showed a unicorn punching an elephant, paired with running shorts and high-tops; or a pink polo, blue chinos, and penny loafers. It was the first day of school because Monday had been Labor Day, and he was trying to figure out who he wanted to be.

The knock came again. Then Orlando’s voice: “Augs?”

Auggie groaned and opened the door a quarter inch.

“Good,” Orlando said, pushing into the room. “You’re up. We need—oh.”

It shouldn’t have been weird because they’d been roommates and Auggie had changed clothes plenty of times while Orlando was in the room. But when Orlando’s eyes moved up and down, taking in Auggie, Auggie crossed his arms