Chapter 19 #3
"Thanks, I know." He clears his throat. "So. Drinks and small bites at The Cellar, tonight around eight. Kenzie and Kylie are playing."
Kenzie and Kylie are an acoustic duo, two girls in their midtwenties from here in Three Rivers. They've made a decent name for themselves in the bar music scene of the northwest portion of the peninsula, but they play at The Cellar every Saturday night.
"Nyx, you're not angling to hook up with one of them, are you?" I ask.
Nyx doesn’t answer for a moment, and when he does, I realize I've actually pissed him off, which is pretty hard to do. "Fuck you, Cole."
"Nyx—"
"No, fuck you. Maybe back in the day before Cadence, maybe Riley would've tapped someone that much younger than him.
Maybe, but I doubt it very strongly. He was a dog, but he still had standards, and no one more than six years younger than him was one of the inviolable ones.
Kenzie and Kylie are barely old enough to fucking drink and I'm closer to forty than thirty.
So no, asshole, I'm not angling to hook up with either of them.
They're talented young ladies and I enjoy their music, and that's it.
I mean, yeah, I can see that they're both hot as shit, but no. No way."
I sigh. "Cody, I'm sorry. I apologize. That was shitty of me to even ask. I should have known better."
He snickers. "Cody, is it? A real, genuine apology from the big man himself." He pronounces it jen-you-wine, emphasizing and drawing out each syllable.
"Nyx, Jesus. Don't be a dick."
"Oh, I get to be a dick, now, jackass. Just because they're plenty legal doesn’t mean I’m a dirty old man on the prowl for nubile twenty-two-year-olds.”
"Don’t say nubile, please."
"Don’t be jealous of my superior vocabulary, Sheriff."
"You barely graduated high school," I point out.
“Because I'm fucking dyslexic, you insensitive piece of fuck! I listen to audiobooks while I work. And no, fuck-nut, not See Spot Run shit. I just finished The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett."
"I don't know what that is."
"It's a historical fiction novel set in twelfth-century England. It's like a thousand pages. The audiobook is over forty hours long. Took me almost two weeks to finish it."
I blink into the silence. "Nyxie, buddy, I’ve known you our whole lives and yet you still find ways to surprise me."
"Because I'm more mysterious than Austin Powers, bitch."
"Austin Powers?" Lacey asks, laughing.
“Yeah, you know, International Man of Mystery. Grrr baby, very grrr."
"That's not animated," Lacey points out.
"No, but almost as good as. I just don't have any interest in boring adult shit.
Dramas and shooting and explosions and stupid fake not-funny comedies?
All that bullshit can go rot. Life is too hard, too short, too painful, and too serious to waste it on bad TV, and I prefer animated movies because they make me feel good inside. "
"And I love that about you, Nyxie,” Lacey says, her voice gentle. "Truly. You would always refuse to go out with us on Saturdays until after morning cartoons."
Nyx sighs. "Those were the days. Sitting in my Power Ranger underpants watching Batman, X-Men, Rocko's Modern Life, Animaniacs, and Cow and Chicken, and eating a whole fuckin' box of teeth-rotting sugar cereal."
"I was talking about high school," Lacey says.
"Me too," Nyx answers.
"You wore Power Ranger underwear in high school?" Lacey asks.
"Those are a special pair. I drove to fucking Traverse City to buy them in an adult size, new, still in the packaging, just so I could wear them to watch cartoons. And I only wore them then."
We both sit in silence for a beat or two.
"Nyx, bud, you said are a special pair."
"They are special. They were and they are. They always will be. I still have the original pair from when I was fuckin’…what, six? Seven? They're in my box of special shit. With the internet, I can just buy new ones from home, now, which is nice."
"You…" I rub my forehead. "You buy special Power Ranger underwear on the internet for the sole purpose of watching cartoons in them?"
"Yes." He sounds downright proud. "Every Saturday morning from seven to nine, I wear my Power Rangers Underoos and I watch cartoons."
"They don't air Saturday Morning cartoons anymore, though, I thought?" I say.
He's silent for a moment. "It's called streaming, doofus, maybe you've heard of it. Oh, right, you don’t have a TV in that rattling, creaky, drafty, haunted old farmhouse, you uncultured Philistine.
" He sighs, a long, quiet inhale and an even longer exhale.
"It's a ritual. I dunno. Cadence recently twigged me to the fact that I'm on the spectrum, which is really fucking with my head and my sense of who I am.
Point is, I think the Saturday morning cartoons thing is a ritual that gives me comfort and a sense of…
of…consistency, I guess. I dunno." A brief pause.
"Anyway. You guys are coming to The Cellar tonight.
No ifs ands or buts. You don't have to do it together if you don't want to—I can keep this cozy li'l scene between us if you're not ready to go public yet.
But I expect to see both of you tonight, or you'll face the wrath of a mildly perturbed Nyxie. "
“Oh, the horror," I deadpan.
"We'll be there," Lacey answers. "Thanks for the invite."
"I really do hope you two find your way together," Nyx says. "Seeing you two back together would really give me hope in this world." A bark of laughter. "But no pressure. Okaybye." He says the last all in one rush and then hangs up.
Lacey pats my chest. “Well, we'd better get back to work so we have time to get ready."