Games Boys Play by Zoe X. Rider Page B

smell right off the bat.
    “Was it all right?” Dylan asked. “Did I cross any lines?”
    Brian was still getting a grip on things. He looked toward the counter, where the phone sat, and over Dylan’s shoulder to the chair, discarded tape scattered around it like Christmas ribbons. The front door, where it had all started. He felt simultaneously wiped and caffeine jittery. “I can’t believe you did all this,” he said. “It was… Wow. It was fucking unbelievable.”
    “You want some water or something to drink?” Dylan was getting to his feet.
    “Yeah. Ice water. Thanks.”
    When he didn’t make any move to get up too, Dylan said, “Are you really okay?”
    “A little mind-blown. I’ll get over it.” He rubbed his wrists, staring at the chair he’d been unable to get up from, the tape on the floor. His eyes slipped closed, and he was back in the closet, him and Dylan cramped together in hiding, alone with the sound of their breaths. Just the two of them—crazy but perfect, Dylan in as much danger as he was. It was fucking perfect.
    Dylan dropped down in front of him again, holding forth a glass.
    He drank one swallow after another, the cold hurting but the thirst quenching too good to stop. As Brian wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, Dylan said, “More?”
    He shook his head. Held up an arm for an assist.
    Dylan pulled him to his feet. “Get some air?”
    He nodded.
    “Good, ’cause I could use a fucking smoke.”
    Following Dylan to the balcony, he said again, “I can’t believe you did all that.”
    Dylan set the lock bar aside. Fresh air tumbled in as he slid open the door. He already had an unlit cigarette between his teeth. Brian followed him outside, walked over to the balcony railing, looked down at the darkness.
    After a minute of listening to the soft hiss of paper burning, he said, “I wish you’d say something.” And then, instead, he said something. “That was crazy.” After another few seconds, he said it again. “That was just crazy.”
    “Crazy good or crazy bad?” Dylan asked.
    “Crazy fucking amazing.” Brian put his elbows on the railing and dropped his head into his hands, grasping at the hair at the front of his head, tugging it as if to reassure himself, through a little bit of pain, that he was in fact still real.
    “I’m kind of surprised I went all the way through with it, to tell you the truth.”
    “Yeah?”
    “It was like this grand plan in my head, but I kept thinking it would come down to it and I’d hold back. Standing outside the door the first time was hard. Really fucking hard. I had to work up the nerve to knock and kick the whole thing off.”
    Brian turned and leaned against the railing.
    “Once I came through the door and you didn’t crack up laughing, that was a big help. If you’d so much as snickered, I’d have bust out laughing. I was so nervous, and that would have been it. It would have been all over.” He took a quick hit off his cigarette, pushed twin streams of smoke through his nostrils. “I’m so glad you didn’t laugh.”
    Brian laughed now and turned back around.
    “So it was okay?” Dylan asked. “I’m serious. Be honest.”
    “It was amazing. But weren’t you bored out of your skull, just sitting around all that time?” He looked over his shoulder at Dylan.
    “Were you?”
    “No, but…” He laughed. He looked up at the sky. Only the brightest stars showed against the city’s light, but he knew the rest of them were up there. “I would have been bored in your shoes.”
    “I kept busy. Time flew anyway.”
    “How long did it go on?”
    “The first part about an hour fifteen—”
    “Is that all?”
    Dylan nodded. “Then when I went down to my car, almost fifteen. Then probably a little more than fifteen at the end, when I came back. Maybe a little less.” He took a long, slow drag, the cherry end glowing red. “But my biggest worry”—he crouched to tamp out the butt, then dropped it in the can Brian