What Makes a Snowbaroo

Chapter Eight - Injector Gadget

Remember when I told you Dark Dimension was a land of extremes? With brutal winters that lasted for most of the year - and seasons - and left us with oodles of snow? Well, I lied. Dark Dimension also had one teeny slice of hot, humid, sunny weather near the outskirts, housing New York's only precious acres of saltwater, palm trees, and sun-bleached pavement. Alex, who had lived in California and Florida most of her life, was an obvious native to that part of town. It was called "Water's Ledge," and it was a self-contained community of cookie-cutter, stuccoed homes with a villa vibe. And one big field. Since I tried my hand at soccer, Isaac had been pestering me to get back out on the "pitch" and practice. Really adamant, and annoying. Alex didn't let it go either, because the coach in her wanted to see me on the field. Then one evening, a week or so after Alex took me for a drive in her Lexus, she gave me the ultimatum. Of course, it was disguised as another free ride.

"Grisly, I'll take you home, if you want." She peered over my desk, hands on the tabletop. Alex had this obsession with touching my desk, probably like those sports talismans that are a trope.

With anyone else, they'd make all sorts of cheap cracks at how Alex phrased that. But I'm not up on innuendos until it's too late, making me the fool and the oblivious one who never got it. She hadn't meant it that way, but Alex definitely let herself become that big sister figure that I had once felt her to be. Now, I was just weirdly crushing on her like I was back in middle school.

"Is it in your Lexus?" Ever since Amir had got done with it - well, except for the navigation system he and Alex were going nuts over - Alex had given her Decent a little respite from duty. I wasn't going to complain; the Decent had Alex's personality written all over it, but the Lexus was like Alex straight-up.

I still had to be reminded about what model name it was, and I was a pretty big nudge about it. I'd call up Amir on the regular, to ask about the Lexus lineup. He's really great sport, but obviously has better things to do than answer my umpteenth question about what the name of Alex's model was, so he types me up a little spreadsheet. Next to "IS 350" was typed "-> Alex's Car." Hey, I didn't want to look like a total idiot in front of Alex, a partial idiot was good enough.

"Yeah, it's parked out back. See you at 4:45 then?"

I stifled my grin and replied, "Sure!"

The keys to my Jealousy GT wagon, if anyone is curious, were not taken away from me. However, Wil was convinced that my daily driving of the modified vehicle would soon become potentially hazardous, which freaked me out. He told me to use it every so often but allow time in between. I wasn't taking any chances, and I also didn't want to offend him, so I simply just let it sit in my parents' driveway and got rides from Freddy, Alex, and Ben. Ben was tough to ride with, because while he was the best driver among us, he needed it deathly quiet and peaceful. Sometimes that could be nice, but on other occasions it was just sort of odd. I'd never go with Isaac, because he'd usually have Nathan in the front, and I'd have to sit in the back like a kid. And ever since Nathan had gotten cool and New Wave hip, I wasn't so sure how to be around him. He was still technically my boss, but he was lenient and self-sufficient enough to warrant Ben's oversight of my duties instead.

Four-forty-five rolled around like nobody's business; Nathan had been shmoozing college chicks all day but looking worse for the wear. Socializing and having girls be into him made him look grimmer than he usually did in that cape thing of his, and he expressed some phrases about the skin-deep and the ills of society, which I promptly forgot. I had my own issues with the world, but I couldn't really take Nathan seriously for using his own handsomeness as a sales tactic. Alex was beautiful too, but I never saw her flirting and shamelessly flaunting herself just to make a sale. Petty, I decided, was Nathan's move.