Wordlessly, he nods, easing the trophy case open and extracting the Viking helmet. “Heavy,” he notes, rubbing the pads of his fingers over the engravings. “Your turn.”
I put the Devil horns on the shelf, adjusting them just-so, and carefully close the door.
We have to kill a few minutes in the locker room, waiting by the door. Both of us have our phones out, watching the time, but there’s been this weird shift in energy all of a sudden, like neither of us wants to talk. It’s a formless impulse, and I’m not sure if it's born of an apprehension to build on the moment or completely shatter it.
Either way, Reyn is solemnly quiet when we finally exit the door.
We get to the fence and he throws the cardboard up. I try to fight against the strange sinking feeling. I can’t exactly put a name to it, but it feels kind of like a worse version of disappointment. Like maybe there could have been a moment back there. Like maybe we could have—
But we didn’t.
Reyn stands behind me as I ascend the fence, but he doesn’t put his hand on my ass this time. Instead, he holds my hips, pushing me up.
Definitely a worse version of disappointment.
“So what’d you do last night?” Sydney asks. She’s lying on my bed, flat on her stomach, scrolling through ChattySnap. Every few seconds, she snaps a picture and sends it off to one of her followers.
“Not much.”
It’s killing me not to tell Sydney where I’d been the night before—and with who. Keeping all of this from my best friend feels more like a betrayal than any other part of this whole thing. Is it wrong that I feel less guilt about stealing the Viking horns from Thistle Cove than I do about keeping it a secret from her? Reyn’s questionable moralities may be rubbing off on me. After all, I do sort of know how to pick a lock now. Easy locks, but still.
“I called you,” she says, “around nine. I was bored and wanted tacos.”
“You did?” I ask, instinctively picking up my phone off my desk. I pretend to scroll. I had a vague recollection of seeing her missed call when Reyn and I got back in the Jeep. The adrenaline rush combined with the swooping dissatisfaction kept me from caring too much, at the time, but obviously now I’d have to face it. “I must have been in the shower or something. I passed out early.”
She looks up from her phone, eyes sweeping over me. “Are you using again?”
“What? No.” The truth is that I’d actually gone all night without a nightmare. I think doing something other than moping around my room probably wore me out for once. “I was just tired.”
Syd rolls over and pulls up the hem of her shirt, fingers grazing her flat stomach. “I really want to get a belly piercing but it’s against the rules for cheer. It violates some appropriate dress code or something. Which seems totally sexist and oppressive, don’t you think?” She turns her head to face me. “Maybe you should write an article about that. All the bullshit dress code stuff. I mean, guys wear pants and button downs and ties. Fully covered. We’re out there like some kind of perverted fantasy of knee-socks and plaid skirts.”
I lean back in my desk chair. Sydney thinks I’m working on my sports article, but I’ve really been uploading all the documents I’ve been collecting about the Devils onto my laptop. The paper files are in a folder tucked in my desk. “So in order to not be as objectified, you want me to write an article about how you should be allowed to wear a belly ring, but not forced to wear knee-socks?”
“Duh.”
In theory, she’s not wrong, but I know that, ultimately, Sydney just wants to be able to show off her belly ring in her cheer uniform. I open my mouth to tell her that I’ll consider it when she gasps and jolts up
suddenly. “Oh my god!”
“What?” My pulse quickens. “What happened?”
She holds out her phone but it’s too far away for me to see it. “Holy shit! Someone broke into the Thistle Cove gym, stole their Viking helmet, replaced it with Devil horns, and then delivered the helmet to the quarterback’s house.”
“Really?” My heart is about to launch out of my ribcage. With a shaky hand, I quickly ‘X’ out the file and go over to her. “Where did you see that?”
“I follow a few kids that go there—I met them at a party last summer—and one of them posted it. That is an epic prank.” Her thumbs fly over the keypad and she smiles gleefully. “Who do you think did it?”
I feign innocence. “I have no idea. Probably just some jocks or something. Trying to stir up the rivalry, maybe?”
“You know what?” she asks, dropping her phone into her lap. “This reeks of the Devils.”
The wind gets knocked out of me. “There are no Devils anymore.”
“Sure, I know.” She flaps a hand. “But don’t you think this has the Devils' hoofprints all over it?”
Pranks were a big part of the Devils' wheelhouse, so it’s not a bad theory, but here I am, part of this group—this secret group—and my instinct is to protect it.
“Emory has been pissed about the Devils getting disbanded for months. Trust me, I’m pretty sure I would know if it had started up again. Plus, there’s just not many of them left, anyway. They had too many seniors.”