Feversong (Fever #9)(62)
I was calm, energized, and ready for the day.
My feet had taken me to the place I needed to be. They usually did. Some might say they hadn’t the night I’d run from Mac and leapt into the Hall of All Days, but I didn’t see things like that, as if there were clearly defined right and wrong turns in life. There was what I’d done. And what I was going to do.
Right now it was time to add my brainpower to the mental energy being harnessed at Trinity College, and amp it up a few hundred thousand kilowatts.
I found Dancer alone in a long, narrow laboratory in the physics building, beneath a bank of windows through which intermittent shafts of sunlight spilled.
He was peering into a microscope, oblivious to my presence, so I paused in the door, watching him.
I used to watch him a lot when we were young, wait until he was engrossed in a videogame or a movie, and stare unabashedly. I’d thought he had the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen. I’d admired his hair, the way he sprawled like a cat soaking up sun, how he often smiled at an inner thought, sometimes laughed out loud.
His hair was a mass of dark tousled waves that told me he’d been thinking hard, running his hands through it incessantly. He had on tight, straight-legged faded jeans, black hiking boots, and a black tee-shirt with the words: I’M LIKE PI—REALLY LONG AND I GO ON FOREVER. There were two pencils stuck behind his left ear. I couldn’t see his right one but was willing to bet he had a couple stuck behind that one, too.
He stood, peering into the scope, and when he raised his hand to adjust it, the muscles in his shoulder bunched and smoothed out again. I narrowed my eyes, noticing how well-defined his arm was and that his skin was lightly tanned from stretching out in the sun on those rare days it shone. When did he develop that biceps? How did I miss how thick his forearms were, my geeky, hunky friend? When did his shoulders get so cut and how had I missed the swell of his traps? My gaze dropped in an objective inquiry to ascertain whether the rest of him matched. It did, and I was struck again by the notion that I’d simply not seen him when I was young. I’d found him attractive in a boy-genius way. I’d failed to notice he was a man.
“Hey,” I said, nipping that bud of thought before it blossomed further.
His head whipped up and he moved so fast he caught a beaker with his elbow and knocked it over. It tumbled from the counter, hit the floor and shattered before he could catch it.
He stared at me a long moment then said coolly, “So. You’re back. Again.”
I offered him a smile and said lightly, “Back like Jack. In like Flynn. Ready to brainstorm like—” I couldn’t think of a name that rhymed with brainstorm. “—Einstein on his best day?”
He didn’t smile back. He looked tired and there were dark circles under his eyes.
Grabbing a nearby broom, he yanked the dustpan from the handle and began sweeping up the broken glass. Without taking his gaze from the floor, he said, “It’s been thirty-five days, four hours, and—” He looked at his watch. “—sixteen minutes since you were last seen alive, in case you were wondering. But I doubt you were. Time doesn’t mean the same thing to you that it means to some of us. That’s how long you were gone this time, as near as I was able to calculate. You were last spotted leaving Chester’s the night of August eighth.”
If the way he was beating the floor into submission with his broom was anything to gauge his mood by, he was seriously mad at me.
I considered the past twenty-four hours. I’d had a job to do. I’d done it. “I’m sorry,” I said simply. And I meant it. That day, so many years ago, when he’d gotten mad at me for disappearing into the Silvers with Christian, I’d gotten mad right back.
But I’d learned a few things since then. Such as, it’s pure hell when you care about someone and suddenly they’re gone and you don’t know if you’ll ever see them again.
I moved into the room and waited for him to stop assaulting the floor with a cleaning implement.
He kept at his angry sweeping for a few moments without saying a word then finally stopped and looked up at me. His gaze was guarded, remote.
“I mean it,” I said softly. “I’m sorry. Time really didn’t move the same way where I was. It was critical I go back into the White Mansion. For me, it was only twenty-four hours.”
“How long before you went into the Silvers did you know you had to go?”
He was asking if there’d been enough time that I might have left him a note or gotten a message to him somehow. “As long as it took me to freeze-frame directly from Chester’s to the White Mansion. Critical means ‘at an immediate point of crisis.’?”
He propped the broom against the counter and gazed into my eyes, searching deep. I had no idea what he was looking for or what he decided he found but he finally relaxed through his shoulders and said softly, “Well, then. Damn glad you’re back, Mega.”
“Damn glad to be back, Dancer.”
And just like that there was no tension left in the room.
I loved that about him. He didn’t even need to know what I’d done. Only the parameters of it that affected the respect and consideration he felt was his due if I wanted to be his friend. I hated that he’d been worrying about me again. I hated the dark circles beneath his eyes, so I extended an olive branch, something I’d never done in the past. It made me uncomfortable but I would have been more uncomfortable not doing it. “If it’s at all possible, I promise to get word to you if I ever have to go into the Silvers again.”