Page 8 of No Way Home
“I’m going to take this one,” a girl said confidently. “Number 167. Those toes are ten out of ten.” Her voice was soft and smooth, like velvet. And unlike most girls from Virginia, she didn’t have a southern accent.
I preened at the compliment. I did take my toe hygiene very seriously.
Fletch gave me a double thumbs-up.She sounds hot, he mouthed.
She did. But really, is that something you can tell from someone’s voice?
“Wait—look at 168,” she said, and my hopes belly flopped. “Maybe they’re friends. We could double.”
Oh good.
“Yes,” Fletch said to the curtain. “Great idea. We are friends.”
“See?” Velvet said excitedly.
“Oh, girl. No.” Velvet’s friend had an accent. “I’m ninety-eight percent sure that guy has leprosy. Ain’t nobody got time for a chronic bacterial infection.”
“You’re not going to play footsie with him,” Velvet said. “You’re going on a date.”
“Leprosy is transferred by respiratory droplets,” Foot Cop puffed. “You of all people should know that. I plan to win that money, and I have to kiss my date to do that. Kissing a Middle-earth troll is gonna be a no from me.”
I snickered. Fletch glowered at me.
Velvet was laughing so hard she had trouble saying, “I-It’s nothing that a couple of r-rounds of high-powered antibiotics won’t cure.”
“I don’t have leprosy,” Fletch said.
“Then what’s wrong with your feet?” Foot Cop snapped.
I made a slicing motion across my throat.Don’t do it,I mouthed.
But Fletch—a future lawyer—was truth on legs. “I have hairy feet, okay? So when I found out we were being judged on our plantar surfaces, I tore the hair out.”
One of the girls gasped.
“You’re a psychoanda hobbit?” Foot Cop balked. “It’s a definite no.”
Velvet wheezed. “Wh-what? W-why?”
“I can’t pass those genetics on to my babies,” Foot Cop shot back like it should be obvious. “If he doesn’t murder me on our wedding night, I’ll spend the rest of my life chained to a stove, cooking second breakfast, elevenses, and who knows what else. I am not waking up at the butt crack of dawn to make biscuits for a man who could braid the hair on his toes. I have dreams, okay? Now take your Pretty Boy and let me go before all the good ones are gone.”
Poor Fletch had never looked so dejected.
“Why do you think I’m a pretty boy?” I asked. “I could be the one who looks like a hobbit.”
“Did you hear that?” Foot Cop whispered. “How is his voice soft but rough at the same time?” Was it? I knew that’s how people described my uncle Ford’s voice. “Everything about him is pretty, I bet. His toes, his voice. What color are your eyes?” she asked me.
“Uh…” I stammered. “Is this a trick question?”
“They’re pretty,” Fletch answered, like it pained him to admit. “A light gray. And his hair is dark, almost black, so they really pop.”
I cocked an eyebrow at him.They really pop?
“They’regray…andhis hair isdark?” Foot Cop said like her friend had won the blind date lottery. “Hold up. Are you sure they aren’t just blue and you’re trying to make them sound cooler than they really are?”
“Nope,” Fletch said with a sigh. “Gray. Girls are always going crazy over them.”
“Girl,” Foot Cop said. “Snatch up your Henry Cavill lookalike before I do.”
