"You're a filthy traitor and I hate you forever." Then, because lies always burnt on his tongue, "Or at least until lunchtime."
"Sorry, man." Em, apparently, had no such issues with untruths. "But the shrink moved my appointment to Friday. I can't miss it, so . . . gotta pike on camping. Sorry."
Sigmund groaned, slumping down across the table. Nine forty-six a.m. and they were at the café across the road from the office, having coffees and skipping work. Sigmund's favorite pastime.
Em's favorite, meanwhile, was ruining people's days.
"God, I don't wanna gooooo! 'Specially not by myself. Em!" The table muffled Sigmund's pleas. When he looked up, Em was taking another bite of muffin, thick, dark eyebrows raised above thick, dark-rimmed glasses.
"Then don't go," she said, "if you hate the idea that much."
"Dad will kill me." Sigmund drew out the relevant verb. "You know how he loves all this corporate team-building stuff."
Next weekend, LB's IT department was holding its annual camping trip. Sigmund could probably think of things he'd less rather be spending a long weekend doing, but it would be a short list. Which is why, three months ago, Em had taken pity on his suffering and agreed to join him. That was before she'd decided to be a dirty piking traitor.
"Dude, you're a grown-ass man," Em said. "Daddy doesn't have to make your decisions for you anymore."
"Piss off," said Sigmund, without much enthusiasm. "I live in his house."
"So move out." This, at least, was an old argument.
"I can't, man. Housing is expensive—"
"Come move in with us. We've got a spare room."
"—and it's not like Dad's got anyone else. I don't want him to be all alone." Because that's how it was, how it'd always been, in Sigmund's memory. Just him and his dad. And maybe if Dad had found someone in the last twenty years, started dating or whatever, then Sigmund would've been long gone. But he hadn't. So neither had Sigmund.
Net result: Sigmund was going camping. Alone. Goddamnit.
Em sighed, picked at her muffin, and said, "Well . . . why don't you ask your new ranga mate?"
Sigmund blinked. "You mean Lain?"
"Yeah. I mean, you're off to the forest, right? So it'll basically be like coming home for him."
"Har, har," said Sigmund. He tried to imagine Lain cavorting, orangutan-style, through the trees. "I don't think he's really the camping type." He seemed more the lattes-and-fixies type. The Noguchi-coffee-table-and-skinny jeans type.
Em shrugged. "Just puttin' it out there. You say he's not an asshole, right? So ask him. What's the worst that could happen?"
Sigmund stared down into his half-empty cup like it held the answer to Em's question, not just the dregs of an entirely mediocre cappuccino. "Yeah," he said finally. "Maybe."
What's the worst that could happen?
—
When Sigmund got back to the cubicle, Lain was staring at something on his monitor, drumming his fingers on the desk. He looked up at Sigmund's approach, and gave a sharp-toothed smile.
"Hey, man," he said. "Do you know anything about this?" He pointed at the screen.
"About what?" Sigmund stepped around until he could see. A page from the company intranet. Advertising—
YOU ARE READING
Liesmith: Book 1 of the Wyrd
ParanormalLiesmith, follows unassuming every-nerd Sigmund Sussman as he struggles through IT tech support and rogue Norse gods alike. The end of the world has come knocking, and Sigmund's new boyfriend, the suspiciously ultra-hip Lain Laufeyjarson, is at the...