Peppermint

Chapter 32 - Calm Snow

"Something wrong?" Mom asks. She, Firdaus, and AK all get up from their table at once and come closer to me.

"Not really," I say.

"Not really true," Firdaus says.

"Yeah, dude," AK chimes in. "You're crying a bit."

Gideon blushes harder than I do, as if embarrassed by how the hell he missed seeing that.

"'Cause I was thinking of Gabe again," I say. As always, that immediately gets everyone else to not pursue the subject any further. "Ahmad, where's Josh?" I ask. "I just wanna find him before someone else does."

"Or before someone finds us," Michael points out. "Ahmad, how well are you keeping them running around everywhere but here?"

"Tripping a ton of alarms on the furthest corners of this place from, uh, this place." Ahmad wipes a bit of sweat from his brow. "Of course, they're eventually gonna figure out they're getting the runaround."

"And then you flood the rooms they're looking in with sleeping gas?" I ask.

"They don't have that around here, that I know of," Ahmad says sadly. "But I like the way your Artemis Fowl fanboy brain thinks. Have I mentioned that?"

"Maybe you have."

"Like I said." Gideon pretends to lick the last of his coffee bar off his thumbs. "Kristoff don't follow San Francisco values, except where it counts. 'Cause he's an asshole and our fair city doesn't deserve him."

"Now who's being crude, huh?" Firdaus asks with a small laugh.

"It's not like we're not pissing Kristoff off any less by talking like we're here for bloody tea," I mutter.

"Don't drink tea," Ahmad says. "Not when Kristoff serves it."

Firdaus chuckles again. "He'd be the worst chaiwallah ever."

"No milk," Ahmad mutters.

"I don't drink tea with milk," I say.

"Bloody colonial," Ahmad retorts. "Never mind that you're almost dark enough to blend in, you wouldn't survive a day on the subcontinent."

Mom takes her opportunity to launch into Perfectly Embarrassing Parent mode. "My boy doesn't like milk, for some reason."

"You made me and Gabe drink two glasses a day and wouldn't let us drink water if we didn't," I point out.

"And I eventually outgrew that nonsense!"

"Yeah, a hell of a lot slower than we did." I wipe my eyes reflexively, but my fingers come away dry. Am I hardening up again? Maybe I should, given we might have to go into another major battle. Better not to let my emotions get the better of me, in that case.

"Where's Josh?" I ask again.

Michael rolls his eyes. "Dude, you're really ridiculously fixated on my little brother."

Ignoring him, I wait a second for Ahmad to give me an answer, but he has none. I guess he's busy sending Kristoff's goons around the facility. So instead, I turn to AK, whom I've just realized has been silent pretty much all this time.

"What's up?" I ask. "You regret agreeing to that body-surf shit?"

He wrinkles his nose at me. "No!" But as I look at him a little longer, he shrugs and says, "Actually, I am. A bit. Wouldn't you if you were in my shoes?"

"I wouldn't be, 'cause I'd have said no, no matter what."

"Well, that's just you. You're you and I'm me."