“Hi. I’m Brody. Can I be in your group?”
She looked around. “I don’t have a group.”
“Can we start one?”
“Are you in a frat?” she asked.
“Nope.”
“Do you play a sport for the school?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Can you read above a seventh-grade level?”
“Sure can.”
She shrugged. “Looks like we’re starting a group.”
“Sweet. Come on, he’s next,” I said as I pointed at a guy in a button-down shirt and khaki pants. He always participated in discussions, and I’d bet my left nut that he’d already read all the cases. He was looking around anxiously, clearly too shy to approach anyone.
The girl, whose name I hadn’t gotten yet, looked at me curiously but gathered her things and followed me over to him.
“Hey, wanna join our group?” I asked him.
He stood up quickly, almost causing his chair to fall backward. “Me? I mean, yes, uh, yes. Absolutely.”
I extended a hand toward him. “I’m Brody.”
“Toby,” he replied as he took my hand.
“Why didn’t you offer to shake my hand?” Mystery Girl asked me.
“Because you looked like you were seconds away from gutting me where I stood.”
She seemed pleased with this answer. “I’m Aniyah.”
“It’s great to meet you both,” Toby said, smiling wide. “I guess we need to find one more.”
I scanned the room and zeroed in on a guy in the corner who was hunkered down in his seat and appeared to be sleeping. I wasn’t buying it. Granted, I hadn’t seen him take a single note since I’d been in the class, but the guy always handed in his assignments on time, and Dr. Sherman didn’t seem the type to let someone get away with dozing through class. I had a good feeling about him, and I was used to trusting my gut.
“Him.”
Aniyah and Toby looked at where I was pointing. “Really?” Aniyah asked. “Him?”
“Trust me.”
“Yes, because I just love trusting complete strangers,” Aniyah muttered, but she and Toby followed me over to where the guy was sitting.
“Need a group?” I asked him.
He wore a knit beanie that was pulled down almost to his eyebrows, but I could still see some of his shaggy blond hair under it. He opened his eyes and let them rove over our group before sighing deeply in what sounded like defeat. “I guess.”
“Great. I’m Brody, this is Aniyah, and that’s Toby.”
“You can call me Slayer.”
“Nope. That’s not going to work for me,” Aniyah said.
A small smile quirked “Slayer’s” lips before he pressed them back into a firm line. “Dragon?”
Aniyah gave him an annoyed look.
“Warlord?”
Aniyah looked at me. “There’s got to be someone else. Anyone else.”
“Fine, fine, my name’s Xander,” he conceded.
“Welcome to the group, Xander,” I said. I clapped my hands together and asked, “Has anyone looked through the cases yet?”
Toby didn’t disappoint. “I have. And I did a little preliminary research to see which might yield the most information.”
“And which would that be?” I asked.
“The Polaski Mine. It’s a gold and copper mine that would bring in a lot of jobs and could financially rejuvenate an area. But it’s within the limits of a city, so it would necessitate the relocation of houses, schools, and businesses. Not to mention it’d be a freaking mine in the middle of a city. There’s a lot to consider, and I think it would be interesting to dissect.”
“Any objections?” I asked.
“Nah, that would’ve been my first choice too,” Xander said. “Though the Chiquita Banana case also looked cool.”
Aniyah’s eyes widened as she looked at Xander like he was an alien. She clearly hadn’t expected that he’d have looked into the cases already. But that had been something I’d been banking on. He presented as a slacker, but I bet Xander had some serious brainpower under that beanie. The kind that didn’t require note taking.
I had a great feeling about this group.
Chapter Six
D R E W
Sophia and I had been living together for over a week, and it was different from anything I’d ever experienced. I would’ve thought growing up with three sisters would’ve prepared me for all the makeup and lotions and body sprays and perfumes and hair—so much hair!—in the bathroom, but I’d either forgotten about how…female everything was, or I’d blocked it out like some sort of estrogen-fueled PTSD. I was suddenly getting flashbacks of disposable razors and leave-in conditioner.
Every time I went into our bathroom to shave or take a shower, more of Sophia’s beauty products seemed to have appeared on the sink, which was already struggling for space in the tiny bathroom. Though I guess I was partially to blame for her things ending up on the sink because I only kept two of my own items out—deodorant and my toothpaste. Even my toothbrush was put away in the medicine cabinet. No way I’d risk getting a long dark hair stuck to it.
I slid some of the bottles toward the back of the sink against the wall like I’d done the past few days, knowing damn well they’d return to some other random spot. They were like drunk college kids who slept wherever they happened to land.
“Why do you have charcoal in the bathroom?” I called.
“Huh?”
Sophia had been in the kitchen, but she suddenly materialized in the bathroom doorway.
“This.” I held up a gray tube. “It says it has charcoal in it.”
“It’s a charcoal mask,” she said, like the answer was the most obvious thing in the world.
“You put this on your face?”
“Yeah, it cleans out your pores and gets all the gook out.”
“That’s disgusting.” I noticed a hair stuck under the lid. “Have you tried not putting gook on your face? Maybe you wouldn’t have to get it all out.”
She’d already grabbed the container and was opening it. “That’s not how it works. And don’t knock it till you try it. It’s so satisfying when you peel it off. You’ll see.”
If she thought I was putting that black shit on my face, she had another thing coming. “I’m not putting that on my face.”
“You’ll feel like a new man,” she said, already dabbing a little on her finger. “You can thank me later.”
Before I could make a move to stop her, her hands were on my face.
“What the hell? I didn’t consent to this!”
“Stop being a baby,” she said, still applying the cold paste to my skin. At least I had some facial hair that Sophia had to work around as she applied it.
“Fine, but while it…does whatever this does, can we move some of this stuff off the counter? Like whatever you don’t use every day or something?”
She looked confused. “I use all of it.”
“You put this shit on your face every day?” I pointed to the gray plaster of paris she was smoothing over my flesh.