Twenty Six #2
“How did you get all this?” Arielle asks when the groceries are put away.
“Believe it or not, that Dark Static guy left some food and water in a kind-of-hidden storage unit,” replies Brynn.
“Either he didn’t have the heart to destroy all of it, or he wanted Capital City to turn into a social experiment.
They’re rations, but we shouldn’t have to go back for a while.
Some of this is for your family too,” she says to Damian.
Brynn then hugs Arielle and me and tells us she’ll fix some food and we can all play a board game to feel better.
Fox, Jamie, and Damian turn on the TV to study the news.
Playing a board game is the last thing I want to do right now, so I find my way to the Levines’ basement.
I need space to think. I would go on a walk to mull the matter over, but I can’t risk Phil’s spies seeing me.
Fox and Damian could be good to bounce ideas off of, but Arielle should fill them in first.
Couches line the basement, and the legendary pool table remains in the middle. There’s one window in the basement that you can see out of, but no one looking in can see you. I sit below it and gaze at the bottom of the Levines’ lawn.
The past 24 hours replay in my mind with slow frames. D.S.’s fingers on my hand, Fox’s fingers in my hair. Orange flames devouring a crumpled house like it was paper. My nerves stand at attention, one signal away from a panic attack.
Footsteps plod down the stairs. “We’re playing Monopoly,” says Fox, “in case you want to join. Although I seem to remember you shedding some tears whenever we played that game.” Fox stops when he reaches the bottom stair and sees my face.
“Or…” he says. “Wanna that settle that pool game once and for all?”
It would be you and Fox. No one else. No drama, no facing Arielle or Damian Scott Jr. Just you and— I exhale. “Bring it on, Levine.”
Fox reaches for my hand, pulling me off the couch. “We’re matching today, Roberts. We both went for the ‘comfy’ look.” I examine his clothes, a white shirt and sweatpants. His sweatpants don’t make him seem lazy, and his shirt makes him even longer and leaner.
He hands me a pool stick. With flair, he places a triangle on the billiard table, setting up our game. “Wanna go first?”
“Nah,” I say. “You need the advantage.”
“Shots fired.” Fox leans over the green felt to make his play. Two balls shoot into opposite corners. “Stripes.”
I line up my shot. Two of the solid-colored balls knock into the same pocket. I blow off the end of my pool stick.
Fox’s turn. He shoots and a striped ball knocks one of mine into a corner pocket. He rubs his neck. “Alright, time for me to try.” His shirt clings to his back as he leans against the table. I look away. Being with Fox right now is not good for me.
The room simmers with feelings I shouldn’t be having until Fox pulls me out of them. “Everything splash-tastic, Mads?
I can’t face him, so I stare at the pool table. “Just thinking about all the girls you’ve played pool with down here.”
“What girls?” he asks, like I should know what I’m implying isn’t true. “You’re the only girl I’ve liked enough to battle to the death in a game of pool.” His expression flickers between confusion and disbelief.
“I take it back then. Sorry.” I take my turn, my ball shooting into the opposite corner of the table from where I had intended it to—the price of being ashamed, yet relieved.
“Yeah, and you wish you could take back that play.” Triumph settles on his lips. “Allow me to show you how it’s done.”
Fox ends up winning that game of pool, but then I win the next one. We’re in the middle of the third game, our tie-breaker-to-end-all-tie-breakers-that-was-supposed-to-end-all-tie-breakers when he asks, “What about you? Is there a gentleman in your life, Madeline?”
“Why?” The lights in the room suddenly feel brighter, almost dangerously bright.
“You’re moving like something’s weighing you down. It could be everything from last night, but you asked me about my romantic life, so perhaps something’s going on in your own.” His voice continues softly, “Something you’d like to talk about?”
“You say that like you want to hear it.”
He eases closer. “As I am currently winning this tie-breaker-to-end all-tie-breakers, this can only be a fair fight if you give our game the attention it deserves. I just want to beat you fair and square, Maddy.”
There he is. That’s the Fox Levine I know.
“Fine.” I twist the pool stick in my hand, amazed that I’d agreed to tell him. “But if you screw this up, I will never talk to you again.”
Fox touches my shoulder, steering me to the couches. “You know I aim to misbehave. But I’ll do so responsibly, just this once.”
I sit carefully, and Fox perches on the couch next to me.
Given his limited probing into D.S. yesterday, I’m not sure if Fox can handle hearing about Dark Static.
Still, it would be nice to unload on someone, especially since Arielle and I will need to work with Dark Static soon.
I also want to know what Fox thinks about the events of the last 24 hours.
“Um. Dark Static visited me last night,” I begin, slowly raising my gaze.
Fox’s brows rocket up his forehead. If he’d been sipping a glass of water, he would have choked, and I would have had to call an ambulance.
“Okay.” He coughs. “Drop another bomb on me, why don’t you?”
“Well…” And it pours out. All of it. I tell Fox almost everything. Everything, except about my powers, or Phil’s. When I finish, he dips his head, thinking.
“So now what?” he asks, homing in on the part that’s eating me.
My hands wring in my lap. “You know when you meet someone and there’s this instant connection and you just want to keep talking to them? It felt like that with him. A lot. Now, he’s gone, and I don’t want to like him anymore, but I need to understand. I hate feeling like this.”
Fox leans forward as tears coat my voice.
His quiet gaze fixes on a wall across the room.
He rests his chin on his fist, his elbow on his knee, and his thoughts must be miles, or planets, away.
It’s not the reaction I hoped for, after spilling my guts out, but he hasn’t run upstairs or to Phil or to the police.
He asks, “Did you love him?”
The room goes profoundly still. Any movement could cause the wall between us to detonate once and for all.
“I never really got to know him.” That’s the truth. Part of it. The other part is that, maybe, I was starting to.
Fox loosens his jaw. “Sounds like a real loser.”
“Thanks for listening. That was probably, um, shocking.”
He folds his hands behind his head. “Every Super has a weakness, right? His could be that he’s unlucky. Like, he probably didn’t guess that immediately after he kissed you, he’d have to kill you.”
“Now you tell me a secret,” I command.
“Excuse me, Madeline.”
“I just poured my heart out to you.”
Fox folds an ankle over his opposite knee. “Fine. Hmm, Maddy wants a secret, which one shall it be?”
I gape mockingly. “How many do you have?”
He pauses for longer than necessary, stirring up suspense. “Did you know that I actually hate water? I hate swimming more than anything because I cannot stand being in the water.”
“Duh, you used to cry at swim practice when they made you go under water. You grew out of that though.”
Fox puts his hands up defensively. “Did not, I swear. I always get headaches at practice from being in the pool. I come late sometimes, just to avoid being in it. That’s why I swim so fast, to get it over with.”
“That’s you swimming fast?”
“Hey.” Fox swats me. “Telling a secret here. Water is like my own personal weakness, which is why I go to practice at all.”
Quietness ebbs through the room as I realize he’s serious.
“Thanks for sharing,” I say. A new energy seeps into my legs, forcing me to stand.
“You too, Maddragon.” Fox winds his arm around my waist and helps me walk back to the pool table. “Your first kiss was from an evil Super, huh?”
“We don’t know he’s evil, or weren’t you paying attention?”
“Oh, I was paying attention alright.”
I punch Fox right in the rib cage, but only at about half-strength, which is significant because I consider myself pretty strong.
“Was that supposed to hurt?” he asks, laughing.
Fox stands against the table so we’re close. The heat radiating off him finds my face, and my skin tingles under his hand.
Is this some kind of trap? Is Fox messing with my feelings? I meet his gaze, and the way he looks at me carves a hole into my core, filling it with hope. I breathe in the closeness, the familiarity.
I touch his chest, where his cotton shirt stretches. His heartbeat quickens when he brushes a finger beneath my chin. He searches for something in my eyes, a signal for what I want. If I want him.
I don’t get to answer.
In the second before I can make some space between us, Arielle bolts down the stairs. “Madeline,” she says, not acknowledging the way Fox and I are standing. “Madeline, Phil kidnapped Dad. He has him. Dad’s gone.”