“More things are covered in ball sweat than you might imagine,” Niko says thoughtfully. “Ball sweat, actually, is all around us.”
“Okay, then, soaked in ball sweat,” Myla counters. “Brined like a Thanksgiving turkey in ball sweat. That was the situation we were dealing with.”
“Can we maybe not talk about ball sweat right before dinner?” August asks.
“Good point,” Myla concedes.
Niko looks up from a tomato plant at August, quizzical. “Hey, what’s up with you? Who hurt your feelings?”
Living with a psychic is a pain in the ass.
“It’s—ugh, it’s so stupid.”
Myla frowns. “Who do we need to frame for murder?”
“Nobody!” August says. “It’s—did you hear how the Q shut down for a few hours the other day? Well, I was on it, and there was this girl, and I thought we had, like, a moment.”
“Oh shit, really?” Myla says. She’s switched to peppers and is slicing them with a reckless enthusiasm that suggests she doesn’t care if a finger has to be reattached later. “Oh, that’s a Kate Winslet movie. Trapped in a survival scenario. Did you have to huddle naked for warmth? Are you bonded for life by trauma now?”
“It was like seventy degrees,” August says, “and no, actually, I thought we were having a moment, so I asked her out for a drink, and she turned me down, so I’m just gonna figure out a new commute and hopefully never see her again and forget this ever happened.”
“Turned you down, as in?” Myla asks.
“As in, she said no.”
“But in what way?” Niko asks.
“She said, ‘Sorry, but I can’t.’”
Myla tuts. “So, not that she’s not interested, but like … she can’t? That could mean anything.”
“Maybe she’s sober,” Niko suggests.
“Maybe she was busy,” Myla adds.
“Maybe she was on her way to dump her current girlfriend to be with you.”
“Maybe she’s, like, in some kind of complicated entanglement with an ex and she has to sort it out before she gets involved with someone.”
“Maybe she’s been cursed by a malevolent witch to never leave the subway, not even for dates with super cute girls who smell like lemons.”
“You told me that kind of thing can’t happen,” Wes says to Niko.
“Sure, no, it can’t,” Niko hedges.
“Thanks for noticing my lemon soap,” August mumbles.
“I bet your subway babe noticed it,” Myla says, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.
“Jesus,” August says. “No, there was definitely, like, a note of finality. It wasn’t ‘not right now.’ It was ‘not ever.’”
Myla sighs. “I don’t know. Maybe you wait and try again if you see her.”
It’s easy for Myla to say, with her perfectly highlighted cupid’s bow and self-satisfied confidence and hot boyfriend, but August has the sexual prowess of a goldfish and the emotional vocabulary to match. This was the second try. There’s no third.
“Babe, can you grab me those green onions out of the fridge?” Myla asks.
Niko, who has moved on to eyeballing his homemade Alcoholado collection with extreme scrutiny, says, “One second.”
“I got it,” August says, and she pulls herself up and pads over to the fridge.
The green onions are on an overcrowded shelf between a to-go box of pad thai and something Niko has been fermenting in a jar since August moved in. She hovers once she’s passed them off, examining the photos on the fridge door.
At the top: Myla with faded purple hair, orangey at ends, beaming in front of a mural. A blurry polaroid of Wes allowing Myla to smear cupcake icing down his nose. Niko, his hair a little longer, making faces at a display of radishes at an outdoor market.
Below, some older ones. A tiny Myla and her brother swaddled in towels next to a sign announcing the beach in Chinese, two parents draped in shawls and sunhats. And a photo of a child August can’t quite place: long hair topped with a pink bow, pouting in a Cinderella dress as Disney World glows in the background.
“Who’s this?” August asks.
Niko follows her finger and smiles softly. “Oh, that’s me.”
August looks at him, his sharp eyebrows and steady presence and slim cut jeans, and, well, she did wonder. She’s habitually observant, though she does try to never assume with things like this. But an aggressive kind of warmth rushes into her, and she smiles back. “Oh. Cool.”
That makes him laugh, hoarse and warm, and he pats August on the shoulder before wandering off to poke at the plant in the corner next to Judy. August swears that thing has grown a foot since she moved in. Sometimes she thinks it hums