Chapter 3
“I don’t hunt,” I said. “I erase.”
Nobody looked over.
“Are you ready to accept a collect call from your worst decision ever?”
Bobby was checking his coveralls. Keme was fixing his eye protection.
“Playtime’s over,” I said. “Welcome to the nightmare.” I tried to give it some added oomph by swinging the stock of my gun up against my shoulder, but somehow, I only managed to dislodge the coveralls, and I had to squawk, “Bobby, help, my pants are falling off.”
It was hard to tell through my scrambling efforts to save my dignity, but I thought he sighed as he came over to me.
The paintball facility was busier than I’d expected—although I should have figured that, like everything else in the area, it’d be overrun with tourists.
A range of families filled the gravel lot, and people of all ages appeared to be readying themselves for the next round (someone had said the words elimination-style, and Keme’s eyes had glowed like the Terminator’s).
Some of the paintballers, I could tell, were already way too serious.
A group of middle-aged men, for example, who’d arrived in their own tactical gear, with their own paintball guns, and were looking at some of the other groups with a mixture of scorn and aggression.
I was starting to wish I’d suggested laser tag instead, but a couple of weeks before, Keme had informed me that laser tag was for wusses.
(Because, of course, Keme preferred the game where you could actually get hurt by, say, a ball of paint flying at two hundred miles an hour.)
“You just made the wrong enemy,” I said, but the delivery was undermined by the fact that I was trying not to commit indecent exposure. “Time to meet regret.”
“Why did we have to bring him?” Keme asked.
“Rude,” I said as Bobby fixed my coveralls.
“Because it was his idea,” Bobby said. “And he wanted you to have a great birthday. And he’s paying for it.”
“Can’t he wait with the moms?”
“First of all,” I said, “how dare you? And second—” I did another wicked move with the gun and said, “You used to have options. Now you only have me.”
Keme gave Bobby a withering look.
“In my defense,” Bobby said, “he’s a wonderful, sensitive, kind, and compassionate human being. And he’s extremely good-looking.”
“He’s a nerd.”
“I am not!” I said. “And I spent a lot of time coming up with my action-hero one-liners!”
Bobby bussed my cheek and said, “But he’s my nerd.” Before I could protest, he tugged on the coveralls. “Come on, babe, we’re about to start.”
I liked that babe a dangerous amount (and the kiss hadn’t hurt either), so—for the time being—I decided to let the nerd comment go as Bobby and Keme led the way to the staging area.
It turned out, though, that Keme wasn’t quite ready to move on.
With a dark glare for me, he said, “Are you any good?”
“At paintball? Obviously. I mean, I’ve never actually played paintball before, but I assume—”
“Bobby!”
“Just stay behind us,” Bobby suggested.
I gaped at him. “I cannot believe the treachery—”
“You’d better not make us lose,” Keme said.
“I’m not going to make you lose. I’m an asset—”
I cut off with a yelp as a paintball exploded against my thigh. Bright pink paint coated my leg. Keme grinned.
If you’ve never played paintball before, spoiler alert: getting shot hurts.
“Keme!”
“It’s my birthday,” he said.
“You can’t—” I tried. And then “Bobby—” And finally “We’re on the same team!”
“I know.” Keme shrugged. “But it was fun.”
“Come on,” Bobby said. “Let’s get you cleaned up before the round starts.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
“He shot me.”
“I know. It was hilarious.”
I stopped abruptly.
Bobby said carefully, “Uh, hilarious how inappropriate that was.”
“You’re on thin ice, mister.”
He looked like he was trying not to smile as he grabbed a rag and a spray bottle and began cleaning me up. In a low voice, he said, “He’s not used to people being so kind to him, Dash. He doesn’t always know how to act.”
“You’re kind to him. He’s always nice to you. He loves you.”
“We’re friends. But we’ve always got safely macho ways to channel our feelings so we never have to talk about them or deal with them or even acknowledge that we have them.
“Oh my God, you sound like a straight.”
“Plus, he is still a teenager, which means he’s also hormonal, moody, and sometimes an all-around brat.” Grinning, he gave me another swipe with the rag and looked me in the eye. “He’s obsessed with you, and he’s still figuring out how to show it.”
“Maybe you could suggest not shooting me point-blank.”
“I’ll see if I can work it into the conversation.”
“Maybe you could tell him not to pull my hair, either.”
“Oh my God, the best is when you’re not expecting it—” Bobby cut himself off, and he sounded like he was struggling for an appropriately grave tone when he said, “I’ll let him know.”
“And he should give me more hugs. And tell me in complete sentences how meaningful I am in his life. And maybe call me his brother, or just ‘Bro,’ or ‘Big Bro.’”
“Okay,” Bobby said with another of those sighs. “Here we go.”
Here’s another spoiler if you’ve never played paintball: the elimination-style games are freewheeling chaos. I mean, pure pandemonium. So much shouting and running and hiding behind trees. And zero snacks.
Somehow, Bobby, Keme, and I ended up crouched in a depression in the ground that the two of them kept calling a bunker.
The sides were loose gravel, and more than once, my sneakers slipped and almost sent me into a tumble.
Bobby and Keme were conferring—making a plan—and it was unreal how serious they sounded.
I figured if the time came when they started buying their own gear, like the guys I’d seen in the parking lot, I was going to have to stage an intervention.
“All right,” Bobby said, “Dash, you go east. Keme, you go west. I’m going to sprint—”
“Which way is east?” I asked.
“Oh my God,” Keme said—and not under his breath.
“Go that way, babe.” Bobby pointed. “Get behind that oak and try to keep their attention.”
“Which one is the oak?” I said. “Kidding.” But just for clarity, I asked, “It’s the big one, right?”
Bobby looked like he was counting down from five before he finally managed to say, “Ready? Go.”
And then everything went wrong.
Bobby launched himself up from the bunker.
Keme turned to run west (turns out, it’s the opposite of east—kidding! I already knew that!). But the worn soles of Keme’s sneakers lost their purchase on the gravel, and Keme went bum-over-banger (is that an expression?).
And, in the process, he shot Bobby in the rump.
Shock (and the pain of being shot in the patoot) must have stopped Bobby’s sprint. He paused at the edge of the bunker, paint dripping off his very, uh, pert cheeks. His back was still to us.
I glanced at Keme, who lay on his back. His cheeks were already starting to redden. He looked at me. And then he looked away.
Sometimes, I don’t know why I do the things I do.
I shot Bobby in the bum. And then I said, as loudly as I could, “Oops.”
If it was possible, Bobby’s whole body seemed to tense even more. Then slowly—very slowly—Bobby started to turn around.
And in the final seconds before I was murdered, Keme mouthed, Thanks.