Page 105 of Why Cheese?
“I didn’t,” Brie yells.
“Yes, you did. It’s why I asked you who you said, and you said Roq. Ugh. I don’t want to talk about it.” Cheddy goes round and round in circles, shaking his head at the bitter thought. Then he collapses both of his arms around my waist and plucks me clean off the ground. “I’d rather dance!”
“Or drink,” Brie adds.
“Or both!” Cheddy shouts.
“He’s worried about you,” I say, no longer dancing but being juggled by two men, literally.
“No, he’s not,” Brie insists.
“He wants to protect you. To keep you safe.” My heart pulses through my whole body. I can feel every second ticking away until dawn. “He cares.”
“If he really cared, he’d have told us the truth,” Cheddy insists.
“You’re right.”
Both men freeze. I plummet farther than I expect, my feet almost rolling under me as I hit the ground. Both Brie and Cheddy hold me in place while they glare at the man pushing aside all of the dancers.
Roq meets them in the eye before he drops his head. “I should have told you.”
“You’re here,” I cry out. I thought I had to do this on my own and it wasn’t going very well. Then I tip my head, noticing Cam lingering just outside the circle. “Already? That was quick.”
“What are you implying?” Roq asks, but Cam snickers. He holds up two fingers to the bartender who’s already pouring without another word.
“Nothing, just…glad you’re here,” I say.
“You’re the only one,” Brie snarls. His hands fall off of me as if he’s about to cross them, then he suddenly latches on. “Let’s get out of here, Cheddy. The air’s too thick with lies.”
“I think it’s the dragon that belches smoke below the electronic bard,” Cheddy says.
Brie sighs rather than explain his metaphor. Holding me and reaching for Cheddy’s hand, Brie deliberately stares behind Roq. “Are you coming, Cam?”
After accepting his drink, Cam oozes into the mix. He carefully stirs the cocktail, then pops the cherry between his lips. “You should hear him out, Brie. For the groveling, at least.”
“Why? Why should I trust the man who turned me into cheese?”
At the worst possible moment, the music died. Brie’s shout of “cheese” echoes off of every wall like thunder. The lights lift, revealing the dangerous and mysterious club to have laminate floors and burnt orange walls. “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here,” a voice declares over the intercom.
One by one, the people shuffle for the door. Empty glasses drop to whatever space is available. Cam sighs and upends his drink in one quick shot
“You heard them. We need to leave,” Roq says.
“I’m not going with you,” Brie insists.
“It will be dawn soon.” Roq reaches a hand out as if to take Brie, but the man quickly dodges away.
“So what?”
“I cannot protect you if we’re all…turned.”
“Don’t you understand? I don’t need your damn protection. Neither does Cheddy nor Cam. We can make it on our own. We survived years without you. We can do it again.”
One by one all three men stand shoulder to shoulder squaring off against Roq. I realize far too late that I’m stuck in the middle. My leg flaps away, trying to get me an exit, but Cheddy takes my left shoulder, Cam my right, and Brie holds my waist.
“We don’t need you, Roq,” Brie says.
The impenetrable man, the bulwark who would brook no challenge of his word collapses in front of them. It’s so shocking how fast Roq crumbles they all gasp. With his head bent to his chest, Roq says, “I know.”
