Another shrug. “I was there that morning you snuck home after spending the night over at Tucker’s. You can’t play all innocent with me.”
“Nothing happened!” I exclaim. “I fell asleep, is all. Sheesh, you’re worse than Mom. Not that my innocence or lack thereof is any of your business,” I continue quickly, “but Tucker and I, we couldn’t … you know.”
His forehead rumples up in confusion. “You couldn’t what?”
He never was the sharpest knife in the drawer. “You know,” I say again, with emphasis.
Comprehension dawns on his face. “Oh. Why?”
“If I got too … happy, I started to glow, and then Tucker kind of got sick. That whole glory-terrifies-humans thing. So.” I start rearranging the packets of crushed red pepper on the table. “That’s what you have to look forward to, I guess.”
Now he really does look weirded out. “O-kay.”
“That’s why it’s hard to have relationships with humans,” I say. “Anyway, that’s not what we need to discuss.” I swallow, suddenly nervous about how he’ll take this idea of mine. “I’ve been training with Dad.”
His eyes narrow, immediately cautious. “What do you mean, training?”
“He’s been training me to use a glory sword. Me and Christian both, actually. And I think you should come with us, next time.”
For a minute he stares at me with guarded eyes. Then he looks at his hands.
I keep babbling. “That sounds fun, right? I bet you’d do great.”
He scoffs. “Why would I want to learn how to use a sword?”
“To defend yourself.”
“Against who, an angel samurai? This is the twenty-first century. We have something called guns now.”
Jake comes out and puts a steaming pizza on the table. He looks grouchy. Jeffrey and I wait in silence as he sets plates in front of us.
“Is there anything else I can get you?” Jake asks sarcastically.
“No, thank you,” I say, and he stalks off, and I lean across the table and whisper, “To defend yourself against Black Wings.” I tell Jeffrey about my talk with Samjeeza in the cemetery, including the fact that Samjeeza specifically asked about him, the way I keep seeing Samjeeza as a crow around campus, the things Dad said about the seven, er, T-people and how if we’re going to fight anybody, it’s probably going to be them. “So Dad’s teaching me. And I know he’d want to teach you, too.”
“T-people?”
I stare at him pointedly until he says, “Oh.”
“So what do you think? Will you come? It could be like Angel Club, except without Angela, because she’s … busy.”
He shakes his head. “No, thanks.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not going to learn to fight. That’s just playing the game. It’s not for me.”
“Jeffrey, you’re like a champion fighter. You’re a linebacker. You’re the district mid-class wrestling champ. You’re—”
“Not anymore.” He stands up, gives me a look that says very clearly that he’s done talking about it. “Enjoy the pizza. I have to get back to work.”
10
DINNER AND A MOVIE
“You should go black,” Angela says.
I turn around, startled to see her standing behind me at the mirror. She points at the dress I’m holding in my left hand.
“The black,” she says again.
“Thanks.” I hang up the other dress. “Why does it not surprise me that you would choose black?” I tease. “Goth girl.”
She walks stiffly over to Wan Chen’s bed and sits, helps herself to a bottle of peppermint-scented lotion Wan Chen keeps next to the bed, and starts rubbing it into her feet. I try not to stare at her belly. Just in the last few days she’s kind of popped. With the dark, baggy clothes and the way she always hunches her shoulders lately, she’s still able to hide that she’s pregnant if she wants to. Not for long, though. Pretty soon there’s going to be a baby.