Eat Crow (Cheap Thrills 6)

Chapter Four

Bexley

It was just a house. Houses existed everywhere.

So why couldn’t I just walk up to it? I had the keys in my hand and knew how to unlock a door—

“You doh,” a deep voice with what sounded like blocked sinuses said behind me, making me jump. “Dust pud the key in de lock and open dit.”

Turning, my jaw dropped when I saw Logan. His face was pink, but it was his eyes. Holy shit, they were swollen and bright red.

Instinctively I reached out to touch his face, then turned it to the side to look more closely at his eye. “What the hell happened to you?”

Pulling a tissue out of his pocket, he blew his nose loudly. “A kid wid pepper prays.”

“A kid with pepper spray?”

With his sinuses cleared slightly, it was slightly easier to understand him. “Yeah. Dey dot it wad a fog bomb, but pigged up da wrong oned.”

“Jesus,” I breathed, watching his eyes start watering again. “How many did they throw?”

“Dree, in a smalled room.”

“Three?” I winced when he nodded.

I’d been downwind when an old lady maced a guy she thought was trying to steal her purse, and that shit was no fun. Three of them in a small room? Damn!

“Have you seen a doctor?”

Taking pity on him with how hard he was squinting, I pulled my pink mirrored Ray-Bans out of the neck of my t-shirt and passed them to him. He didn’t even think about it, he just popped them on his face and sighed.

Not waiting for an answer to my previous question, I pulled my phone out. “Stand still. I want a photo of someone wearing them whose face matches the color of the lenses.”

Humor—it was what we used to have all the time, and I was hoping the awkwardness between us would go away if I brought it back. And, because I was slightly twisted, I really did want the photo, so I took it with him giving me the middle finger.

“Now that’s one for your Christmas cards this year,” I snickered, holding it up so he could see it too.

The grin he flashed would’ve made me sigh, even with the bad juju hanging over us, but the small line of snot making its way out of his nose made me cringe.

“You might wanna…” I pointed under my nose, staring at the patch that was growing.

Why wasn’t it dropping down? Surely gravity would do that?

Pulling out the tissue again, he wiped, but on the wrong side. “Danks.”

“No, the other side. Dear God, Logan, catch it before it goes in your damn mouth!”

The most puke-worthy thing happened then. He wiped the correct side, but a string attached itself to the tissue and followed it.

My stomach compressed at the sight, making a “hurgurt” noise come out of me at the same time as I covered my mouth.

Turning his back to me, he blew his nose loudly and then turned around again and shrugged. “Dorry. It’s liked my dinuses are workinged overdime.”

As gross as it was—and as someone with a weak constitution when it came to stuff like that, it was hell—it’d defused the emotions I was feeling at the prospect of knowing I was going into Pops’ house for the first time since he’d died.

“Are they going to be like that for long?”

“Only ‘til my deyes dop watering and my dose dops’d doing da snod ding.”