Miss Quick

Chapter Twenty-Three

"It's a surprise! You'll see." She found the shelf, opened it and it creaked open, the staircase unfolding in front of us. Music cascaded down from the room and I smiled.

Although the room was the same as always, there were changes. A cozy fire burned in the fireplace and several table lamps lit the corners of the room, like always. However, the beanbag chairs were shoved into a corner and black curtains covered the nonfunctional windows. A table near the opposite wall was stacked with chips, cookies, and liter bottles of soda, and a speaker system that had been recently set up was playing ambient, sunny music.

On the far wall a framed picture of Smith was hanging, equidistant from the wall and a picture of Jocelyn Channing. Neither picture was a professional headshot: the one of Smith showed him grinning with his arms around two people on either side of him who'd been cropped out. The one of Jocelyn showed her at a concert, the lead singer playing an acoustic guitar onstage behind her.

The last difference was the seven other people in the room, more than I'd ever seen before. Carlos was standing in the corner, looking slightly awkward, but then he met my eyes and quickly came to join me.

"Hey," I said.

 "Hi."

"I'm going to get some chips," Evi announced as she set the tote bag in the corner and was gone as soon as the words left her lips.

I looked up at Carlos and we smiled at each other again. "How's the party?" I asked.

"Okay."

I sigh. "It's  supposed to be happy, but those pictures on the wall are depressing."

He shrugs. "They deserve it."

"Yeah. Definitely." I look up at him and see him glancing around the room. "Want to talk to some people?"

"Yeah." So we did.

The party was nice, and we talked to everyone. I introduced Carlos to Becca and Laurie and Sadie, the latter of which seemed to really like him.

"Want to get some snacks?" I asked Carlos.

"Sure."

Sadie smiled and went to talk to Tara.

I poured some root beer into a cup. "I think she liked you."

He looked surprised. "Really?"

I nodded. "It's....not that unthinkable."

"Oh. No, it's just...I mean..." he coughed. It was the first time I'd seen him get flustered or stumble over words. I wished I hadn't introduced him to Sadie.

"Evelyn, what's in the bag?" Chaste shouted from across the room.

"Oh yeah. Ari, this is for you!"

I whipped around. "For me?"

"Yeah. I thought it would be appropriate." She reached into the bag and pulled out....a picture of Josh's head.

Taped to a dartboard.

Everyone in the room burst into laughter.

"Aww, Evi, you shouldn't have!" I grinned.

She turned and hung it on the wall. "Would you like to do the honors first?"

Normally, I'm awful at darts. But when I pulled my arm back and released a dart, I managed to get it to stick- right between Josh's eyes.

"Bullseye!" Evelyn cried and gave me a high five.

"Who's next?" I asked.

For a while, we threw darts at Josh's face. It was strangely satisfying, at least for me. At one point Carlos ripped the picture with a particularly vicious throw. "Oops," he muttered, looking not at all vicious as he stood back and ran a hand through his hair.