The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

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Previously: "Suspicious Sightings" 

There's a long pause. Then Steve says, "I'll talk to Spinks, find out what was going on with him and—" His expression tightens briefly. "Jack."

"You?" Will asks.

"Do you want to talk to him? So I'll talk to him," Steve continues when Will blanches. "You talk to Rebecca."

"Fine," Will grumbles. "I'd rather try to get it on with her than with— Hrk!"

Steve catches him up by the throat and belt, and hoists him into the air until his feet are kicking.

"I told you what I'd fucking do to you if you ever talked like that in front of me again," he says. His voice is tight and icy. "I can start right now. Fuck me, but I actually want to kick your ass. So I'm going to put you down, and then I want you to say it again."

Will is frothing when Steve drops him, and for a moment you think Patterson is going to kick his doppelganger in the balls. Instead, in a pinched and angry voice, he says, "I just meant it'd give me a chance to get it on with Rebecca. And if I'm going to get it on with someone I'd—"

"He wasn't aiming it you," you jump in before your replacement can repeat his blunder. "He was talking about the kind of person he wants to fuck. That's all."

"Then how about you get started," Steve coldly suggests to Will. The other's expression is sour as he climbs back into your old truck and drives off with an angry roar.

"You know," you tell Steve in a pleasant tone, "this sexual tension between you two is going to have get discharged before all this is over."

"Fuck you. Just because you look like me— That's not my body, so if I feel like fucking it up—"

"I wasn't talking about you, Jack. I was talking about Patterson. Don't you see what it's doing to him, looking at himself from the outside?"

Steve blinks. "What? You saying he's hot for himself?"

You cock your head. "Aren't you hot for yourself?" Without meaning to, exactly, you straighten so that your pecs puff out and your toned legs tense.

Steve's eyes narrow, then he looks away. "No. But you think Patterson—?"

"At least a little bit. But he doesn't know it, and won't let himself know it. He's a guy getting horny by looking at himself. What would Steve think of that?"

Steve sucks in his upper lip. "I see what you mean," he says after a reflective moment.

"Yeah, but he doesn't. So all he knows is that he's freaking out when he looks at you, and he doesn't know why. I mean, aside from the obvious reason he'd be freaking out."

"Huh." Steve rakes you up and down with his cold, gray eyes. "Are you that perceptive, Prescott? Or is that—? I mean, that wasn't me who picked Steve up by the scruff of the neck. That was—"

"I know who it was. And no, I don't think I don't got the idea from my brain. It must'a been yours." With some regret, you further admit, "It seems like something you'd say if you were standing where I am."

"Hm." Again, Steve looks you up and down, but now there's sadness in his expression.

* * * * *

The conference has left you with no responsibilities, save those Jack would feel responsibility for. At the top of that list is Laura MacGregor. In fact, you feel strongly enough that you text home to ask them to keep your dinner warm in the oven because a classmate is going through a crisis and you don't know when you'll be through helping her.

There's no point giving Laura any warning by texting ahead, so you go directly to her house. It's her mom who answers the doorbell. "I'll call her," she says with a warm smile when you ask if her daughter's at home. "Laura?" she hollers.

She must have seen your minivan out of her window, because there's no surprise on her face when she appears at the foot of the stairs. Instead, she looks warily between you and her mom, then brushes past you both, pulling you out onto the front porch while pulling the door shut behind her. That done, she hesitates just a moment before throwing her arms around you and burying her face in your shoulder. You tenderly hug her back, and say nothing.

Her eyes are watery when she finally raises her face to yours. "Thanks for coming over, Jack," she says. "I was so scared you wouldn't."

"You really thought I wouldn't?"

"I didn't know. You're so busy, you got so many friends, I didn't know if I—" She bites her lip.

"Jesus. You're going to hurt my feelings in a minute."

She pulls back and squints up at you, her mouth twisted into a querulous frown. Then she shrugs and rubs her face in your shoulder a couple of times.

"There," she says as she straightens up and steps back. "That's better. I promise I won't ask you about your love life if you don't ask me about mine."

"I have a love life?" you dryly inquire.

She punches you lightly. "You could. I shouldn't have been trying to save you from ... someone."

"I don't think I'm interested in Tummler."

"No?" Her mouth pinches up into a mischievous smirk. "Who then?"

"You said you wouldn't ask me about my love life. But you did, so I guess I get to ask yours." You touch her nose. "Who?"

She blushes. "Never mind."

"You didn't give up on Will, did you?"

"I said, never mind!"

You study her. If she is still chasing after your old self, Patterson hasn't told you about it. And if she isn't— Well, you don't know whether to be relieved for her sake or jealous for your own.

"Well." You fumble for her hand. "I actually have to go home, I have to eat in tonight. But," you hurriedly add as Laura's eyes widen into a shocked frown, "I'm looking for someone to hold my hand when I do my math later."

"I'd rather hold something else of yours," she sniggers.

You feel your brow lower, but Laura sniggers again. "You know I had to say it, Jack! Where do you wanna meet?"

"I dunno. Maybe I just changed my mind."

"You can't bullshit me, Jack!"

"Alright, you're right, I can't. Do you want it to be just us, or can I—?"

"Just us!"

"Okay. Pick you up around seven-thirty."

"Only if you can't get here earlier!"

"I'll get here as soon as I can." You brush her nose again, and turn to saunter back to the minivan before she can spot the erection she's giving you.

Jesus, Jack, you fume as you yank open the car door and slide in. How come all the girls flirt so hard with a guy who doesn't want to flirt back? Ruefully, you can guess the answer. It's because he's safe to flirt with.

* * * * *

The study session with Laura goes off fine and you get through your homework reasonably quickly, probably because you've just got each other for a distraction. So even with each of you hopping on and off your phones while checking texts and social media, you part for the night before nine o'clock. There are no more allusions to Brendan Tummler or the way Laura embarrassed herself, and she gives you a big hug on the way out.

At home, you're getting ready for bed when a DM comes in from Jack's sock-puppet account: Can u text Nathan Cruz n ask if Christian's been spreading rumors about you meeting with Preston for coffee? You stare at the request, then ask, Ok why? He replies, Tell u if n when it works. With a shrug, you fire the text off to Nathan, even though Jack thinks that Nathan—who is an AP student, a member of the swim team, and the first chair violinist in the school orchestra—is an arrogant asshole. If it wasn't presumably for a good cause—and because Jack himself made the request—you'd have refused, because Nathan can almost certainly be counted upon to make a gleeful stink about your question, even if his answer is "No."

When Nathan's answer comes the next morning—Nope why u ask?; you reply, Nothing never mind—you forward his answer to Jack along with a your own query in the form of question marks. But he ignores them.

You don't hear anything from Will, though, until lunchtime, when he barges into the library during his lunch hour and dumps himself into a chair at the table where you and Parker and the girls are gossiping. "Rebecca Sykes is a cunt," he growls, a declaration that elicits a shocked a silence from everyone else. "What makes you say that?" Parker carefully asks.

"'Cos she is. I asked her out and she told me to stuff myself."

Another shocked silence. "Well, that was rude," Wendy says.

"Oh, fuck this," Will exclaims, and storms off. He's got his phone out, though, so you're not surprised by the text that pops up on your phone a few seconds after he's out the door. Come see me, it says. You excuse yourself from the others.

He is still in a temper, but is businesslike when you catch up to him at the T-junction near the library doors. "I can't get anything from Rebecca if she won't talk to me," he says. "Shit," he adds, "I figured I'd have a chance with her even looking like this."

Sounds like you'll have to do the talking to her, to find out what she and "Jack" talked about Sunday night. Or you could get one of Jack's many girlfriends to do the interview.

Next: "Pickalittle Talkalittle" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"