Page 69 of Cut Off
“Copy that, Blastman,” I say into the rearview mirror, because I’m a professional. “ETA to Kingston Lake is three minutes. Want to brief me on today’s powers, or is it classified?”
He considers this with gravity. “Speed. Animal communication. Talking to ghosts. And time travel, but only short distances. Like a day.”
“Only a day?”
“More than a day gives you a headache.”
“Of course it does.” I make a mental note to write that down for the play, because Eli’s drama teacher needs tounderstand the rules of Blastman, and Eli will absolutely quiz her on them. “What about flight?”
“That’s Superman. Blastman doesn’t fly. He runs and time-travels. There’s a difference.”
“My bad.”
“It’s okay.” He’s wearing the costume—a red hoodie with a jagged silver lightning bolt that’s definitely not gold like the Flash’s—that I helped him paint last night using a stencil and three swears I hope he didn’t catch. The hood is up and will not be coming down.
Method acting, after all.
The fact that we’re going to Kingston Lake is a small miracle. Blastman, like Eli, has very specific feelings about bodies of water, none of which involve getting in one. We sold it to him as a wildlife reconnaissance mission. We will walk the property. We will not approach the water. We will meet, and I quote, “real animals in their natural habitat,” which is true. Sort of. He doesn’t know that the owner of the property, Maisie Kingston, Brooks Kingston’s grandmother, has all the wildlife domesticated and fully open to safe treats.
Mostly we’re going because Sydney’s been begging to meet Eli since he’s been at Jonah’s, and because Maisie Kingston, the unofficial mayor of everything within shouting distance of her front porch, has decreed that today is tea day. When Maisie decrees, you put the kettle on. I learned that one the easy way.
Hey, I like tea. The liquid and the gossip.
Unless it turns to Jonah and me, and the countertop episode that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since it happened.
The thing that now makes my skin warm when I just look at Jonah, which has to be a bad thing.
Speaking of Jonah…
He’s at the rink. Drills. Suicides. Whatever men in pads do when their nine-year-old has told them they need to improve their game. I have a video of him doing crossovers on my phone that I have absolutely not watched four times since this morning.
I pull through the Kingston gate, gravel popping under the tires. Sydney’s already on the porch of the cabin, blond ponytail swinging, hand up in a wave like she’s been standing there since dawn. Knowing Syd, she has.
“That’s her,” I tell Blastman. “Aunt Sydney. She’s a sportscaster. She talks fast, and she likes you already.”
“How does she like me already? She hasn’t met me.”
“It’s an aunt thing. Genetic.”
He digests this and pulls his hood lower.
Sydney crosses to the car the second I park, and I watch her do the calibration—where her face arranges itself into something casual and unbothered before Eli climbs out. It is one of the more loving things I’ve ever watched a person do. She’s rehearsed this. She’s talked herself through this. And when Blastman opens the door and stands in his hoodie and his lightning bolt, looking at her with skepticism, she just tips her chin and says, “Hey, Blastman. I’ve been wanting to consult on the animal communication thing—I’ve got intel.”
I could kiss her on the mouth. I don’t. I just shut my door and watch.
Eli’s hood relaxes. “What kind of intel?”
“A pair of beavers live on this property who I’m ninety percent sure can be reasoned with. I think you could probably talk to them. I’ve been trying for years, but I don’t have the powers.”
A lie. Syd, Maisie, and Brooks consider those beavers family.
“What are theirnames?”
“Floyd and Fiona.”
“Those are good beaver names.”
“Right? Maisie named them. She has opinions about beaver names.”
