Page 10 of Veiled in Brick

“Yeah, it seems high. I’m fuckin’ broke; I’ll just cut my fingertips up on this screen ’till I die.” Liam placed his phone back in his pocket and moved to stand. “I have class in an hour; I should go back to my place and pack up.”

It wasn’t long after Liam and I had gotten to know each other better that I learned that he was studying to be an elementary school teacher. His studies kept him relatively busy, and when he wasn’t preoccupied with that, he was working manual labor jobs here and there, which was why when Claire and I had initially met him, he had referred to his career as freelancing. I gave him all kinds of hell when I found out, of course, because our first impression of him was that he was either a drug dealer or a moocher.

“What’s on the roster for today?” I asked.

A corner of his lip pulled up in a small smirk. “Buckle up; these class names are fun.”

I pointedly interlaced my fingers on my lap. “Throw ’em at me.”

He held up a single finger. “Creativity and the Young Child.”

“Sounds like a Harry Potter book,” I interjected. “Go on.”

His smirk widened as he pointed two fingers toward me. “And…wait for it…The Exceptional Child.”

“Wow,” I chuckled. “I didn’t think it could get any better.”

“Right?” Liam laughed quietly. “Anyway. I’m outta here.” He stuck out a hand and I slapped it, giving him the usual low-five that I do when he leaves. “I’ll text you later,” he remarked, gesturing towards the flowers. “Good luck with that.”

I heard him snickering to himself as he walked away, and I chucked a throw pillow in his direction.

I repeated my prior words in a yell, “Fuck off, Lee!”

He blocked it with his forearm with ease, his dimply grin beaming back at me as he pulled the door open.

“I got eyes everywhere, Zo’, ya gotta try harder than that!” He didn’t, however, have eyes everywhere. He stumbled a bit, avoiding Claire as she entered our apartment, and he muttered an apology along with his typical nickname for her. “Sorry, Frecks.”

“Eyes everywhere, sure,” Claire remarked as she began to waltz through the foyer.

Liam remained in the doorway, his expression laced with glee as he watched Claire’s slow steps pat their way across the cherry wood. She set her purse on one of the kitchen chairs, rifled through the worn blue bag for a moment to retrieve her phone, and spoke:

“So, how’d it go last ni—” Her baby blues widened on the flowers that reached her line of sight, and her jaw unhinged. She blinked once, hard, looked from the vase to me, to Liam who was now near giddy, and then back again. Her light red locks fanned out behind her at her rapid motions, and she shrieked, “The fuck are THOSE doing here?!

Liam threw his head back and let out a loud, “HA!” as he stepped right back inside and shut the door behind him.

I groaned. “I thought you had class, Lee.”

“Oh, for this, I can be late,” he replied with a Cheshire grin and returned to his seat on the couch beside me. I shoved his shoulder, and he said, “You’re, like, abusive, y’know.”

I scoffed at his comment as Claire began to amble her way over to the green chair that was adjacent to Liam. She limped heavily today, and I felt my face pinch together in concern.

“You good?”

“I’m fine,” she waved me off as she grabbed the edge of the seat to stabilize herself and sat gently. “It was warm yesterday, cold this morning—weather always fucks with it.”

Claire was referring to her bum left leg. The injury that she had gotten when her past came back to metaphorically bite her in the ass approximately six months ago had yet to heal properly.

“You could just use your stick like the doctor told you to—”

“I’m not using the fucking cane, Zoey,” she snapped. “It’s annoying. I’m not ninety years old.”

“You were stabbed almost clean through your thigh, Claire,” I reminded her. “The muscles aren’t going to just heal themselves.”

“I don’t. Like. The. Fucking. Cane.” She narrowed her eyes as she spoke.

“Okay, well, Liam was shot and his shoulder was shattered and he’s like…totally fine now since he did all his physical therapy and wore the sling and—”

“Then he gets a fucking gold star!” she exclaimed loudly.

---