“No shit.”
“No crap,”
I confirmed.
He started
laughing, slowly, but it built to something uncontrollable.
“What?” I
managed, barely holding my own laughter back.
“You said
crap. What are you, twelve?”
“Hey, I
just don’t like to swear, okay?”
“Whatever,
you’re a pu—hic—a pushy kind of guy. Ha! See what I did there?”
“Yeah, you
got the smarts,” I said, pouring him a new drink. “So you did that sh—tuff,
like they could do?”
“Some, I
guess. ‘s weird. I feel what they’re talking about, but I just, you know, don’t
wannit. Got a job and a life. So they can go fuck themselves.”
“Yeah,
they’re real jerks. Dated Kate for a bit.” I clunked a couple more ice cubes in
my glass.
“Really?
You hit that?”
“Nah,
chickened out. She’s too freaky.”
“I hear
dat. She fine, though, no doubt. Natalie, too. No fatties, here.”
I nodded,
suppressing the urge to hit him.
He’s
got the jerk part, down.
“It’s the mebatolism. Real fast.”
“No shit?”
“No
shtuff,” I grinned.
He grinned,
too, and we clinked glasses, drinking some more.
“The powers
are pretty cool,” I said.
“Yeah, I
guess. But don’t care.”
I nodded.
“So, made plans for when you go pop?”
“The fuck
you talking about?”
I mimed an
explosion coming out his head. “Kasplode, brain guts and crispy body. Real
gross.”
“You’re
drunk.”
“Yup, but
you’re a time bomb. Din’t tell ya that part, huh? Unless you learn to control
yer powers, you go boom.”
He frowned.
“Yer shittin’ me.”
“Nope. Not
even a little. See, Kate let me look at their sooper sekrit stuff on the web.
Got it all up here,” I pointed to my head. “you will ‘splode or heart attack or
sumthin unless you figger it out. Boom. No more you.”
“Well,
shit.”
I nodded.