Re: Tandy/Billy/Atticus: the lake
Don’t even get him started on the Halloween birthday boy, okay? Forty-something grouch turned stubbled youth was basically irresponsible teen, relatively speaking. The math worked out, don’t question it, just shut up and sit down already.
Was he testy? Maybe. It could also be the fact that he was prepared for either or both of the guys to be worrying about him, which he told himself was irritating (but really was just sort of embarrassing). He and Atticus had left off post-convo about asking Janus for help, which meant that the Thing was hanging overhead like a fat moon. Werewolf or no, pun fully intended. And Tandy, they’d passed each other most mornings and evenings in the hallways, in the kitchen, Tandy rising and heading out when the sun was up, just as Billy was set to crash, and the chances of that being a deliberate tactic of avoidance were hovering around, like, eighty percent. But Billy was aware of it, which had to count for something, right?
It raised some serious questions about his logic in like, instigating this ferry and pizza playdate, but whatever. Tandy was perpetual nonchalance and that boded well for Billy; his shoulders lowered fractionally from where they’d hovered up around his ears with apprehension and he forced them even lower by straightening his spine up from a slouch.
“Hey,” he nodded back, and it was with further relief that he felt a small smile spreading against the side of his mouth and around the filter of his cigarette. He plucked it free of his lips between index and middle finger and held it aloft, exaggerated like an actor in an old movie who didn’t really smoke but just wanted to make it look dramatic. “Can’t we just balance it with some good habits, like the fact that I get plenty of exercise and eat leafy greens, and call it even?” He exhaled upward, away from Tandy, but then stuck his tongue out between his teeth. The smile became a little easier.
Billy looked back around at the lake as grunge chords echoed over the water, just barely preceding the ferry’s nose as it coasted up to the dock. He caught the rope with his free hand more out of reflex than anything else, levelling a dirty look that wasn’t particularly serious about it in Atticus’ direction. Unlike a lot of other rich kids, Billy didn’t know anything about boats - but he knew that the rope went around the metal thing that stuck up out of the edge of the dock. That much he could handle. Billy hefted his skateboard onto the boat and leaned it on its side so that it wouldn’t roll anywhere, then stepped onto the deck.
“I still say you need a captain’s hat,” he said matter-of-factly, gesturing with his smoke in the general direction of Atticus’ head. “Um, has Wikipedia told you about Chris Cornell yet?”