Even as grade-minded as I am, I can honestly say that I have never been to school on a Saturday. But there is something strange and kinda cool about it. Almost like a secret club or something. We head around the side of the building to get to the back door of the art room. Clay hands me the boba he picked up on our way out of Cuppy's. He asked if I wanted one, but I had already made myself look like a coffee shop heifer, so I declined.
Instinctively, I take a sip of the cold tea. Taro flavor–great choice. Abe and I have no boundaries when it comes to sharing things, but I momentarily forget I'm not with Abe.
"Hey," Clay says, pretending to be mad.
As I munch on a tapioca ball, I laugh realizing what I have done.
"It was the boba handling fee." I play it off.
Clay: Half smile. Me: Full heart pounds.
"Understandable. But remember tea tariffs led to rebellions."
Such. A. Nerd.
But more heart pounding. Like whoa.
With a beep, his student card unlocks the security scanner. I shake off any of the festering theories of whom he made a shady business deal with to get weekend school access. Looks like he is telling the truth. Clay motions me in as he holds the door. I oblige, playfully nudging his solid left pec with my shoulder as I pass.
My artist buddy sets up shop in the pottery and sculpting annex off the main section of the art room. Right away, he picks up some kind of needle-looking tool and adds some hashes to the back of the minotaur. I am amazed to see how much progress he has made since I saw his work last. I think back to our last meeting here weeks ago and compare it to his sculpture. He seemed so cold and uninterested then. Much like the raw mound of earth that he had just started making a figure out of. Now, it's a different story. His piece has detail and depth. Anyone could tell what his goal is now. And, likewise, there is no denying that I have made a friend in Clay. His saving me from a lonely afternoon is perfect evidence of that.
But as I watch him, I wonder if his insides get jumpy and his palms get sweaty too when we interact. If he sees me and wants to talk to me, or more, take me in his arms. Coincidentally, he leans over the table to focus on where its tail meets the minotaur's bottom, and I can't take my eyes off Clay's bottom.
"Wow. Almost thirty minutes and you haven't said a word," he pokes without looking up from his craft.
I can't even act insulted. We both know I never stop talking.
"I am enjoying the view."
Shit. Could that have sounded any creepier?
"Oh?" It's less question and more accusation.
"I mean," I quickly try to save myself, "it's not every day I get to see a piece of art emerge so spectacularly from an artist's vision."
"So, you were talking about the sculpture?" He looks over his shoulder at me and winks.
Fucking hell.
"Your dad," I spurt.
This causes him to stop completely and turn to me. "Come again?"
Whatever color red is darker than a beet is the shade I know my face turns.
"You said you lived with your mom. Where is your dad? But now I am also realizing it could be a super personal question, and I feel like an asshole for asking."
"Yup, a real pendejo."
His soft chuckle and return to work let's me know that I didn't insult him.
"My mom kicked him out a few years ago. Haven't seen him since. Got addicted to Cloud 10 and started doing some legit terrible shit to the people who loved him. Went to rehab twice but couldn't stick with staying clean."
This answer sends me reeling. The drug that my own father helped create destroyed Clay's family. I feel sick with guilt. I know I had nothing to do with it, yet I feel I'm part of the problem by association.
"You okay, Brass? Quietness is weird coming from you." Clay's attention is fully on me now.
"Yeah, yeah." I push my feelings off, hoping my fake smile passes Clay's inspection. "It breaks my heart how Cloud 10 has messed up so many people–directly or indirectly. My family has a bit of a complicated connection with it also."
"Well, let's find a way to end it." Clay is dead-ass serious.
His avidness makes me laugh.
"We are just two normal people." Lame, but true.
"So," he responds. "Every person throughout history who did something to make change started as a normal person. I'm sure the first tea dumpers were just some drunk colonists daring each other to throw England's supply into the bay to see who could be a bigger bro."
He's not wrong. My mind flashes to Tiptoe, Slammer, and Malware and their operation. It's just three of them, but they haven't backed down.
Before I can suggest to him that I may know some people who could help, our conversation is interrupted by people talking in the hallway.
"Who is that?" I ask, but Clay puts his finger over his lips and crosses to the door.
An unsettling feeling spills over me as I follow him through the main room and out into the eerie hallway. Only a few backup lights are on since school isn't in session. Up ahead, at the crossroads of our hall and the intersecting one, we see beams of light dancing about.
"I don't know. Keep looking," a voice from the other passage says.
He leans against the wall and slowly creeps toward the talking in the adjacent hall. Instead of standing here like a mannequin, sipping on Clay's boba, I take up a spot right behind him. Maybe a bit too close, but Clay doesn't seem to care. Without looking back, his hand finds my chest and presses me snugly against the wall as we slide in tandem down the dark corridor like characters in a ninja movie. The warmth of his palm and the secure pressure it is supplying is immensely comforting.
Clay halts at the corner of the hallways and peeks around the bend. He grabs my shirt and pulls me to him so I can see what is going on also. I have trouble ignoring how close we are.
I have gone from zero human contact to being plastered body-to-body against two hotties in the course of a few days. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that universe was trying to tell me something.
Clay doesn't let me check in on our shady visitors long before moving me back to the position beside him. It doesn't matter though; a few moments of reconnaissance is all I needed to lose my damn mind. I recognized the three instantly due to them being the three youngest members of The Fleet: Top Hat, Smoke Bomb, and, of course, Abe.
"Open sesame," Top Hat chants. A chorus of squeaks echoes down the hall as the doors to a row of lockers open. "I don't see anything incriminating in this row of lockers."
"Same here, team," Smoke Bomb's pleasant voice sounds off.
"Dammit. Our source says that the vigilante trio goes to school here," Abe replies.
Using my context clues, I put it all together in my head. Abe is the lead on this because he already knows the school. Smoke Bomb probably got them into the building without being noticed by using her smoke screen teleport. And Top Hat is using his animation power to control the lockers. Thankfully, he can only control inanimate objects or anyone could find themselves stuck as one of Sorcerer Mickey's enchanted brooms.
"Okay, there is one last set of lockers we haven't tried yet. They are around the corner on your left," Abe says as his flashlight beam grows close.
Yup, that is the same left turn Clay and I are presently spying from.
Clay turns on his heels and more or less scoops me up. He quietly slides us into the first door we come to. With a thud, the backs of my knees bang into something, and I sit down hard on the flat surface behind me. Almost comically, this catches Clay off guard and he lands in my lap. I suppress a laugh as he turns to me and my nose hits his chin. He remains there just long enough for a stirring to start in me.
Thankfully, he uses my shoulder for support and uprights himself. In the dark, Clay takes my hand in his. He pulls me to the side of the door as he slowly turns the deadbolt into the locked position with his free hand. We stand motionless against the wall.
God, don't let them hear thumping heart, I pray.