Liam sat in his chair with his chin resting on his hand and his eyes at about half mast.

The lecturer at the front of the room was saying something. Words were coming out of his mouth in a continuous stream and landing somewhere in the general direction of Liam’s ears and doing absolutely nothing after that. The whiteboard had writing on it. Liam was aware of this fact without being able to tell anyone what the writing said.

Kelvin leaned over from the seat beside him. "Bro."

Liam didn’t move.

"Bro."

"I hear you."

"You’re looking dead just like yesterday you bastard."

"I’m aware."

Kelvin studied him for a moment.

Then his expression changed, the particular shift it made when he thought he had figured something out. "Wait." He leaned closer. "Don’t tell me. Your childhood friend. Clara. You didn’t. Also all night?."

"No. No, no, no, no "

Kelvin leaned back slightly. "Then why do you look like that? You looked like this yesterday after Miss Kelly?"

Liam stared at the whiteboard.

His mind went somewhere else entirely.

---

Elena drove him back home but it hadn’t ended there.

After they got back to his place, Elena’s idea technically, she had said she wasn’t ready to go home yet and Liam hadn’t argued with that.

They had barely made it through his front door before she had her arms around his neck and was kissing him in the entryway with the door still open behind them and he had kicked it shut with his foot without breaking the kiss.

The couch first.

Elena on his lap, facing him, her hair loose around both of them, her hands on his chest.

The gown rode up every time she moved.

He had his hands on her waist and she was moving her hips in that slow rolling motion she was great at, every time she did it a sound came out of her that she clearly hadn’t planned on making.

"Mm — Liam—"

Then the bedroom.

Her on her back this time, the sheets already half off the bed from the first five minutes, her legs around him, her head pressed into the pillow, her hands gripping his arms.

The sounds she made in the bedroom were different from the hotel, less controlled, louder, like she had decided somewhere between the front door and the bed that she wasn’t going to manage herself anymore.

"Ah — ah — oh god—"

Her boobs moved with every thrust, rising and falling, the pale skin flushed all the way down her chest, her blonde hair spread across his pillow in every direction.

Then the bathroom. Her idea again.

She had said she wanted a shower and he had followed her in and that had turned into its own thing entirely, her hands flat against the tile wall, the water running hot, steam filling the whole space, her voice bouncing off the walls in a way that the bedroom hadn’t allowed for.

Then back to the bed.

She had fallen asleep eventually, finally, her face pressed into his shoulder, her breathing evening out into something deep and steady.

Liam had lain there looking at the ceiling for another hour unable to do the same thing.

By the time his eyes actually closed it was somewhere past four in the morning.

His alarm had gone off at seven.

---

"I just couldn’t sleep," Liam said.

Kelvin looked at him. "That’s it?"

"That’s it."

Kelvin looked at him for another second like he was deciding whether to push it. Then he let it go. "Okay. Fair enough."

The lecturer said something that prompted half the class to write something down. Liam watched them do it and didn’t move his pen.

Kelvin stretched his arms up over his head and his chair creaked. "You got plans today after this?"

Liam thought about it.

’Not really,’ he thought. ’Except I need to talk to Shay.’

"Not really," he said out loud.

"Okay good." Kelvin sat forward. "Then we’re going gaming.

That place on fifth that has the new setup. I’ve been trying to get you to come for three weeks."

Liam looked at him. "Maybe another time, I’m going to check on the business."

"I’ll come with you."

"Kelvin."

"I won’t say anything. I’ll just stand there. You won’t even know I’m there."

"You being there is the definition of knowing you’re there."

Kelvin pointed at him. "That was almost a compliment."

"It wasn’t."

"I’ll be quiet. I promise." He paused. Then he added, "You know, ever since that underground arena thing you haven’t brought me into anything. It’s like you’ve got this whole other life going on and I’m just over here hearing about it after the fact." He leaned back. "That’s not how best friends work, man."

Liam looked at him.

’He’s not wrong,’ he thought. ’And that’s the problem. Every time I bring Kelvin near any of this something nearly happens to him. The arena was close enough. I don’t want to be the reason something actually lands on him.’

He felt the guilt sit in his chest for a moment. Real and quiet.

"Another time," Liam said. "I promise. We’ll actually hang out properly. Just not today."

Kelvin looked at him for a long moment. Then he exhaled and leaned back. "Fine. But you owe me."

"I know."

"Like actually owe me. Not almost owe me."

"I know, Kelvin."

The lecturer wrapped up whatever point he had been making and moved to the next one and the class continued its slow movement toward its end.

---

They parted ways at the building entrance, Kelvin heading left toward the gaming place with his hands in his hoodie pocket, looking back once to give Liam a look that communicated both disappointment and the understanding that he would get over it.

Liam watched him go and then pulled out his phone and opened the ride app.

Twenty minutes later he was standing outside the warehouse.

He almost walked past it.

The building was the same structure it had always been from the outside, the same brick, the same industrial size, sitting back from the road the same distance.

But everything else about it had changed.

The approach path had been cleared and repaved, smooth concrete replacing the cracked and weed-split surface that had been there before.

The entrance had a proper door now, solid, fitted into the frame cleanly, a small light above it mounted flush to the brick.

Someone had cleaned the exterior walls, the old grime gone, the brick showing its actual color for the first time in what looked like years.

Two people stood outside the door. Not leaning. Standing. Straight, positioned, aware of the street in both directions.

They clocked Liam coming from twenty meters away and neither of them moved but both of them were watching him by the time he reached the door.

One of them nodded once. The door opened from the inside.

Liam walked in.

The interior had been completely redone. The floor was clean, the old scattered debris gone, the space organized and deliberate.

Lighting had been installed properly, strips running along the upper walls giving the whole space an even light that didn’t have the harsh overhead quality of bare industrial bulbs.

Along one side a row of chairs sat against the wall, occupied by people who looked up when Liam entered and then looked back down.

A table near the far wall had equipment on it that Liam didn’t look at too closely. The smell of the place was different too, cleaner, the old damp industrial smell replaced by something neutral.

On the far wall, hung above everything else, was the flag.

Blue background. Deep, solid blue, the kind that had some weight to it. And in the center, a reaper.

But not the standard version.

This one had its scythe raised and swinging, the motion of it caught in the fabric, and its face, where a skull should have been, was turned toward whoever was looking at it with an expression that was unmistakably, completely, a grin. Wide and skeletal and absolutely unbothered by everything.

Liam stood there and looked at it.

"You like it?"

He turned around.

Shay was coming across the floor toward him, moving through the space like he owned every inch of it, which at this point was accurate. He looked different too, not dramatically, but different. Stood a little straighter. Moved with something that hadn’t been there before, a settled quality, like a person who has stopped wondering whether they’re in the right place.

"It’s awesome," Liam said. He looked back at the flag. "Genuinely."

Shay stopped beside him and looked up at it too. "I knew you’d say that." A pause. "You helped make it possible. The quiet setup, the space to think, all of it." He looked at Liam. "That mattered."

Liam nodded. He kept looking at the flag for another moment, the grinning reaper looking back at him.

Then he turned to Shay. "There’s something I need to tell you."

Shay’s expression shifted. Not alarmed. Just attentive. "What’s that?"

Liam opened his mouth.

The door opened.

One of the people from inside, younger, moving quickly, came across the floor with his hands up slightly in the universal gesture of I’m interrupting and I know it. He stopped a respectful distance from them.

"Sorry to cut in," he said. He looked at Shay first, then at Liam. "We caught someone trying to get in through the side. Came around the fence, wasn’t using the entrance." He paused. "We weren’t sure if he was a scout or a spy. We were going to deal with it but figured you’d want to see him first before we did anything."

Shay looked at Liam.

Liam looked at Shay.

"Bring him in," Liam said.

The young one nodded and turned back toward the side entrance. There was a brief moment of muffled movement from somewhere beyond the wall, the sound of footsteps, more than one person moving, and then the side door opened.

Two guys came through first.

Then Kelvin.

They had him by the upper arms, one on each side, and he was walking between them with the slightly over-dignified posture of a person trying to maintain composure in an undignified situation.

His hoodie was slightly rumpled from where they had grabbed him.

His shoes were scuffed from whatever the ground on the other side of the fence looked like.

One of them kicked the back of his knee as they reached the center of the floor.

Kelvin went down.

He landed on both knees on the clean floor of the warehouse and absorbed it without making a sound, which was impressive.

He stayed there for a second with his head down. Then he looked up.

His eyes found Liam immediately.

And his face broke into the widest, most completely unrepentant grin that a human face could produce. Full teeth. Eyes creased at the corners.

The grin of a man who had been caught doing exactly what he had said he wasn’t going to do and had absolutely no defense prepared and had decided the best strategy was to commit fully to being delighted about it.

Liam looked at him.

He exhaled through his nose. Long and slow.

Beside him, Shay raised one hand and pressed it flat against his own face, covering his eyes, and stood there like that for a moment.

Kelvin’s grin didn’t move.