Misdirection (Borealis: Without a Compass, #2)

by Gregory Ashe

“That’s elbow-macaroni Emery Hazard,” Shaw said. “He’s my best friend.” North pinched the bridge of his nose. “Not the elbow-macaroni version. He’s not a real person. I know that.” “Now,” North muttered. “After fifteen conversations.” “I mean the real Emery Hazard. He’s basically my best friend in the whole universe. He’s got a boyfriend who’s really sweet, and his name is John-Henry, and I was going to make an oatmeal-cream-pie John-Henry because, well, Emery is so stiff and prickly, and John-Henry is so sweet and gooey, but North told me I couldn’t. North is always telling me what I can and can’t do. But I just go along with it. I thought it’d be really nice to give elbow-macaroni Emery Hazard a boyfriend, but North said no, and I always do what North tells me to—” “For fuck’s sake, you said you were going to, quote, ‘cream-pie John-Henry,’ and when I said absolutely not, because God help me if I understood what you actually meant, you sulked for three days and then made the damn oatmeal cream pie anyway. And then you ate it.”

“Shaw is a devious, conniving, treacherous, weaselly little shit, actually. But you have to give him time to prepare; he can’t do it off the cuff.” “I wouldn’t say I’m—” “Yes. You are.”

“Just keep walking,” North told Countee. “You’ve got to maintain escape velocity with Shaw. I didn’t, and look what happened.”

“Then fuck on out of here and let your friend get me off.” He cast a look at Shaw. “He’s gorgeous.” “No.” “North!” Shaw protested. He shut his mouth again when North looked at him, but then he managed to add, “That’s really rude.” “I’m not saying you’re not gorgeous, dumbass. I’m saying you’re not going to give a teenager a fast-five in a trainer’s room. Jesus Christ.” To Louis, he added, “Do you see what I have to put up with?”

“Go put some fucking clothes on,” North said. “Do your fucking algebra homework. Pick up your fucking room. How’s that for a start?” “Yeah, we can play it like that. What if I don’t pick up my room, Daddy? What if I’m bad?” “You don’t even want to know,” Shaw said. “One time he told me I had to pick up my room even after I’d been really nice to him after he destroyed this model I was working on, and then I was about to beat the world record on Duck Hunt, the old NES one, and he ripped the cord out of the Nintendo and turned off the TV. Because I hadn’t picked up my room.” “I didn’t ruin a model you were working on,” North said. “I reached under the bed for my socks and accidentally put my hand into that fucking nightmare banana-cream-pie skyscraper—” To Louis, he interjected, “it’s exactly what it sounds like—that you’d left under there for two weeks. And I turned off the fucking game because you started sobbing every time you shot one of those damn ducks.” “But the dog was so cute! I had to!”

At sunset, he found North sitting on the steps outside the station. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with Ronnie,” he said when he saw Shaw. “But no dice. I wanted to give that murderous little troll warning before I tracked him down and killed him.” “Remember when we were at Rufus’s party and I was telling everyone how you and I had looked at sex swings together, and you got really red and later you said sometimes certain conversations are better in some places than others?” “It wasn’t a party. It was his mother’s wake.” “Maybe you shouldn’t be talking about murdering Ronnie outside the police station.”

“That must have been very empowering,” Shaw said. “People look for empowerment and validation from all sorts of external sources, but the only thing that will be truly empowering is when you realize that the power to achieve your dreams was inside you all along. For example, I never thought I could cook, but then just the other day, I told myself, ‘Shaw, the power to cook has been inside you all along,’ and then I made North tuna surprise casserole, and I totally nailed it.” Kishor turned to North. “Is he being serious right now?” “You’d be surprised too,” North said, “if you took a bite of the driest, nastiest, burnt-and-raw-at-the-same-time tuna surprise casserole forced on you and bit down on a toy soldier.” “That was the surprise,” Shaw shouted with excitement. “Like king cake!”

A wet laugh burbled up from Flip; this one sounded much closer to genuine amusement. He wiped his eyes and cast a long look at them before his gaze cut away again. “You guys are, like, boyfriends?” “Yes,” North said. “Unfortunately.” “No,” Shaw said at the same time. “Excuse me?” “Well, you never asked me. You just showed up with the champagne and fucked me one day. Actually, first you shot a load all over my floor. And I had to clean it up, North.” Face hot, North said, “What the actual fuck, Shaw? We’d known each other for eight years. I didn’t just show up on a stranger’s door, buttfuck him, and then start pretending he was my boyfriend.” “No,” Shaw said patiently, “you shot a load on my floor first. And you didn’t wipe it up. That’s really bad manners. Especially without asking.”