Down With the Shine by Kate Karyus Quinn

various drawers, I end up with a small pile of fortune cookies and three bags of potato chips with nothing left in them but broken shards.
    As I crack open two of the fortune cookies, Smith saunters in. I brace myself to be bitched at again, but he simply stands there sheepishly with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. Dyl always said Smith’s anger came on fast and melted away almost as quickly, whereas she was the type to hold a grudge. I must be more like Smith than Dyl, ’cause as soon as I notice how wrecked and thoroughly exhausted he looks, I can feel my anger start to fade away. I don’t want him to know that I’m a total pushover, though, so I just stand there and chew on my stupid stale cookies.
    Smith falls into a chair and then looks up at me with his gorgeous eyes framed by thick long lashes. “What’s it say?”
    “Huh?” I reply as my heart misses a beat.
    “Your fortune. Things gonna start looking up?”
    “Oh.” I twist around to pluck the two fortunes off the counter, and hold both out to Smith. “Take them. I honestly don’t want to know.”
    His hand closes around mine and when I hurriedly snatch it away, Smith gives me a wicked smile. “Lennie, I thought you liked me.”
    “Sure I do, Smith. I mean, I’m a girl and not a single one of us can resist you, right?”
    The minute the words clear my lips, I know he thinks I’m referring to the whole thing with Teena and the smile goes out like I pulled a plug. For the second time since he walked into the kitchen every muscle in my body tenses, waiting for Smith to strike back. Instead, all he says is, “Well, you got my number.”
    “Smith,” I say, an apology on the tip of my tongue, even though I’m not sure he deserves it.
    “Let’s see what our fortunes have to say.” Smith talks right over me, and I remember that he doesn’t just refuse to hand out apologies, he also has a policy against receiving them. He holds out two hands curled into fists. “Pick a hand.”
    I work hard to resist the urge to touch him. “Left.”
    Smith opens his left hand and I watch as he reads the fortune. His lips quirk in a little smile and he looks up toshare it with me. “You have unusual equipment for success. Use it well.”
    “Shut up. It does not say that.” I grab the fortune from his hand. And holy shit, it really does say that. It says that exactly. I look at Smith, expecting to see him laughing at me, but instead he’s reading his own fortune. “What’s yours say?”
    Smith gives me a lopsided grin. “You gonna tell me to shut up again?”
    “Probably.”
    “Never underestimate the power of the human touch.”
    “Shit,” I say.
    “Yeah.” Smith drags a hand through his hair. “You think the universe is laughing at us, Lennie?”
    I scrub my eyes, which feel tired and sticky, even though it’s not even nine a.m. “I’d guess it’s laughing so hard it’s crying by now.”

OKAY
    S mith and I silently chew our way through the burritos he found at the back of the freezer, stretching out every bean-filled bite as long as possible. Neither of us needs to say that we don’t know what to do next. Or at all.
    Okay, I do have one idea. Go home. Tell my uncles everything. Beg them to help. Hope they have answers and a way to fix everything. Only problem there is I’m pretty certain right now they’re crossing my name out of the family bible, changing the locks, and putting all my stuff in boxes on the front lawn.
    It’s actually sort of a relief when my phone, still tucked into my back pocket, starts vibrating. As I pull it out, I make sure to curl my hand around the beaten-up old iPhone, not wanting Smith to recognize the grinningpink skeleton on the plastic cover.
    It’s possible he’d freak out.
    Dyl gave me this phone the week before she disappeared. She’d gotten an upgrade and knew I’d been dying for something other than my crappy old flip phone. So she gifted me her old one instead of trading it in. Never mind the