Page 20 of Exiled
He shrugs. “How can I not? I don’t know how to deal with this shit, Isabel. It’d be all too easy to feel sorry for myself, to let myself get all depressed and mope around like a sad sack of shit. But I refuse to let myself do that. Am I suppressing some ofmy more negative emotions? Probably. Am I overcompensating with humor? Again, probably. But how else am I supposed to cope, Isabel?” He shoots me a glance. “Have you ever heard the phrase ‘laugh or go crazy’?”
“No, but there’s an in-between, isn’t there?”
“Not really. I’m not making light of this. I just... I have to cope somehow, babe. Humor is how I’m doing it.” He sighs. “If I don’t, I’ll mope and be depressed and get all ragey. It’ll be terrible. So just... humor my inappropriate humor. Okay?”
I nuzzle against him. “Okay. Just... try to let me help you. Please?”
“I’ll do my best. That’s all I can promise.” He taps my nose with his forefinger. “Now, let me hear thearrgghhagain. Even louder this time, and with feeling.”
I sigh, a dramatic, long-suffering sound. “Fine.” Like he did, I clear my throat.“AAARRRGGGHHH!”Loud as I can.
And that’s when we hear a throat clear behind us. “Um... hey, Logan. Did I miss the pirate convention?”
He turns. “There yaaarrgghh! Right on time.”
Beth is silent for a very long time. “Logan? What—what happened?”
Unlike many people, Beth’s voice and physical appearance match perfectly. High, sweet voice, like a slightly overeager schoolteacher, perhaps; short, slender, not exactly beautiful, but attractive. Bobbed blond hair. Unassuming. It’s easy to skip right over Beth in a crowd.
He waves in dismissal. “Nothing to worry about. I’m fine.”
“That looks pretty serious.” Beth seems close to tears.
“I’m fine.”
“What happened?”
He hesitates. “I—got mugged. The gun went off. Missed my brain via my eyeball. And now I’m a pirate. Gonna get a patch and everything.”
“How can you be telling jokes at a time like this, Logan?” Beth hasn’t moved from the entryway, a box of contractor garbage bags in hand.
“This is starting to feel like déjà vu.” He groans. “When things are at their hardest and most painful is the best time to tell jokes, Beth.”
Beth is just blinking. Staring. “You lost your eye?”
Logan shrugs. “Well, I haven’t seen underneath the bandage, but that’s what they told me at the hospital, yes.” He grabs the box of garbage bags from Beth. “So. We’ll just bag up and toss all the ruined clothing and clean up the remnants of my door. Also have to order a new TV and have the broken one removed. I will also need an eyepatch supplier. I don’t even know where to get them. Is there, like, an eyepatch store? I’ll want cool ones, not just plain boring black ones. You can probably get them online, I’m guessing.”
“See, I’m not sure if you’re joking or not.” A pause. “About the eyepatches, I mean.”
“Not at all. I knew a guy in Blackwater who was missing an eye. He was support staff. Super cool guy. A real tough motherfucker. Like, the real deal. Scary as hell. So, if he was in the office, doing everyday sort of work, he left his eye socket empty, didn’t cover it, no prosthetic. It was... creepy, I don’t mind admitting. Just disconcerting. You couldn’t help but stare, you know? That was just how Eric was, though. Didn’t give one single shit what anyone thought. If he had to dress up at all, he’d wear a patch. He just had this one. He had a guy in our unit that was a pretty fantastic artist draw an amazingly lifelike eye on the patch, so it was evenmoredisconcerting than without it, in a way. And I always thought, if I were to ever lose an eye, I’d get all sorts of cool shit to cover it. Like, steampunk, or Goth, funny designs, holiday patches, all that. A collection, as it were.And now that I’ve actually gone and lost my eye, that’s what’s happening. So, yeah, totally serious. Get me options.”
“Sure thing, boss.” She seems to be at a loss for words, so she takes the box of bags back and moves into Logan’s room.
Plastic crinkles as clothes are stuffed into the bags, out of sight. Logan takes my hand and leads me into the living room. Collapses backward onto the couch, taking me with him. I squeal with laughter as he falls, his arms wrapped around me, taking me down to the couch. Twists with me, so I’m between the back of the couch and his big hard body, my cheek on his chest, his hands possessively cupping my backside.
I can take it for a few moments, and then I get antsy. “Logan. Let go. We should help Beth. Or, I should, at least.”
“Nope.”
“Logan—”
“I’m paying her time and half for this. And she works best alone. Time to rest.”
He’s got me pinned. And it’s warm here. Comfy. I’m content, drifting. It’s impossible not to let myself float away, to pretend, once more, that Logan is all that exists. That this time with him is all there is.
I drowse, doze.
Sink under the warm buzzing swell of sleep, in Logan’s arms.