Page 244 of What We Bury

Amy snorts, drawing Holden’s attention.

“Fuck, sorry, Amy. Didn’t see you there.”

She’s blushing as she looks everywhere but at Holden and his pan-cock. “No problem.”

He takes his coffee and drops into a seat near Knox. “How are you?” he asks politely.

“Well, I’m at a pancake party at seven-thirty in the morning where the pancakes are penises and breasts and one of the men is wearing boxers with a picture of a giant T-Rex shooting lasers from the dick bulge.” She glances over at me as I look down at my laser-eyed dinosaur and tell him not to take her comment personally because he’s doing a great job. “How do you think I’m doing?”

Holden chuckles. “Say no more. I understand completely.”

Amy laughs, which is the first real laugh she’s done since she walked in, and Holden’s mouth does the thing where it almost smiles and then catches itself. I add another two cocks to his plate.

Micah and Eli come in together. Micah is in sweats and bare feet. Eli is fully dressed.

He spots Amy at the counter and stops. I watch the calculation move across his face—the teacher and the killer doing the math in real time, landing on the one thing that’s worried him since the last time he was here.

“Amy.” He clears his throat. “Do you, uh, think we could skip mentioning any of this when school goes back?”

Amy looks at him. Then she reaches over and picks up one of the dick pancakes, bites the tip clean off, and chews, unhurried.

“In what world am I bringing up a gang bang at an elementary school, Eli?” She swallows. “I’d lose my job. Besides—it’s none of my business what people do in the bedroom. Ithas nothing to do with me unless I’m taking part. So we’re good. You’re good. Summer break is for letting loose and having fun. Love is love, no matter how many people are involved.” She points the bitten pancake at him. “I have no further comment.”

For a second Eli just looks at her, and something he’s been carrying for weeks quietly sets itself down.

“More people should think like that,” I say, flipping a fresh cake. “World’d be a way better place.”

“Thanks, Amy,” Eli says, relieved until he sees the rest of the pancakes. He closes his eyes for one full second. Opens them.

“Why?”

I beam, flipping my latest tit cake. “Because the morning called for it.”

“What the actual fuck?”

Micah is laughing into his hand. Amy has stopped trying to drink coffee because she keeps almost spitting it. Knox is eating his enormous pan-cock with methodical efficiency. Holden is staring at the ceiling.

“Eli,” Micah says, gentle. “Just eat the pancake.”

“Pan-cock,” I correct.

“Which one is mine?”

“That one,” I say, pointing.

Eli looks at it. It is—I’ll grant him—anatomically the most modest of the dick pancakes. I made his the smallest because Eli would have died,physically died, if I’d made his the largest. I have an instinct for these things. I made it tasteful.Implied,rather than rendered true to life.

“You made mine small,” he says, flatly.

“I made yourselegant.It’s anart piece.It’s asuggestion.Anyone can pipe a cock pancake. It takes a master to imply one.”

Holden chokes on his coffee.

Eli pours his coffee, unhurried. When he rounds the counter, he sets the mug down, looks at me, at the pancake. Looks at me again.

“For the record,” he says, “I’m a grower, not a shower. This is misrepresentation.”

Micah, who has been holding it together with admirable discipline,losesit—head down, shoulders shaking, one hand over his mouth like he’s trying to physically contain the sound. Holden is openly wheezing. Amy is dabbing at her eyes with a napkin.