I really needed to get my ass outta my chair and start chopping the cilantro mountain that was curling up under the kitchen lights.
"Will?" I asked across the table, swiping idly at my phone.
Will was drilling pilot holes into a whitewashed plank. "Zeph?"
I was about to ask if the kitchen was the appropriate place to drill the shit out of some wood, but the kitchen table looked pock-marked and battered, as if it had resigned itself to a life of Will sawing, drilling and storing power tools on it.
Jules, who was sitting next to Will, didn't look surprised, so I guessed that she was already used to Will doing grown-man business wherever the fuck he wanted.
"This one's amazing," Jules said, brandishing her phone in front of my face.
"He's human, I guess," I replied after a cursory glance at the grainy photo of some guy's torso.
"Zeph?" Will repeated.
"Why can't I find your profile on CaliSta?" I asked, swiping on through profile after profile, searching for Will's beard among the sea of dudes. Nothing had appeared in any of the keyword searches that I'd run on Will's surname or occupation.
Will didn't reply, and the high-pitched screech of the drill resumed.
"So, I take it you're not on CaliSta?" Jules shouted at Will over the noise.
The drill stopped.
Will started to blow drill-dust out of the holes that he'd made. Jules's stomach rumbled. I seriously needed to start cooking. I was starving, and I'd been snacking all day, so Will must have been ravenous.
"Everyone's on CaliSta," Jules said. "Well, I am. And I got Katelyn and Selena to sign up too."
Will began wiping the plank of wood with a cloth.
"You're missing out on so many cute gay guys," Jules said, holding her phone up as evidence.
Will carried on drilling.
Jules scrolled on. "Oh Nuestra Señora, Ted's on there! He's single again!"
Will ignored Jules's attempt to thrust her phone screen into his face, and kept on blowing dust off his precious plank of wood.
"Zeph, look at him! Ted's the hottest guy in Arenosa," she leaned over to me with her phone, "present company excepted, of course!"
The man smiling out of Jules's screen was from the beach café. The man that I'd run away from. Tall and heavily-tattooed. And still looking to me like every other generic humanoid fleshbag on CaliSta. Will began drilling with renewed vigor.
"Come on, Zeph. You look like you're staring at a photo of a cinderblock, not the hottest guy in Arenosa."
"Oh. So his name's Ted," I said, suddenly shivering on my chair in the warm kitchen.
"You met him?"
"He...he tried to buy me a coffee last week," I started. My phone slipped against my palms, suddenly covered with cold sweat.
"He tried to buy you coffee? Zeph, you're crazy to have turned down Ted!" Jules looked at me with wonder.
Racing heartbeat suddenly joined sweaty palms. Will stopped drilling.
"I can't believe you're not into him," Jules said. "His ex-girlfriend was a fashion model in Maria. She was so gorgeous."
"Well, he's lowered his standards if he's checking me out," I replied, hoping that would be the end of my interrogation.
YOU ARE READING
The Sigma Asset 🏳️🌈 (bxb)║AMBYS WINNER 2022
Mystery / Thriller**AMBYS 2022 WINNER** He'll never play piano again. That's what virtuoso pianist Zephyr has vowed to himself after escaping Sigma, the sprawling criminal organisation that once held him--and still holds his friends--captive in California's mega-city...
