“Sorry,” says Grace as she sets up a second game.
“Never apologize for winning.”
“Sorry,” says Grace again. “Not for winning, but for being sorry for winning.”
Throughout the next game, Grace gives a blow-by-blow analysis, pointing out all the moves Connor should have made and why.
“Don’t worry about it,” Grace says, capturing Connor’s queen with a bishop hiding in plain sight. “Morphy made that slip against Anderssen, but still won the freaking match.”
Connor isn’t so lucky. Grace wipes the floor with him again. Actually, Connor would have been disappointed if she didn’t.
“Who taught you to play?”
Grace shrugs. “Played against my phone and stuff.” Then she adds, “I can’t play games with Argent. He gets mad when I win, and even madder when he wins, because he knows I let him.”
“Figures,” Connor says. “Don’t let me win.”
Grace smiles. “I won’t.”
Grace leaves and returns with an old-fashioned backgammon board—it’s a game Grace has to teach Connor how to play. She’s not very good at explaining, but Connor gets the gist of it.
Argent comes back during the second game, and with a single finger, flips the board. Brown and white pieces scatter everywhere.
“Stop wasting the man’s time,” Argent tells Grace. “He doesn’t want to do that.”
“Maybe I do,” Connor tells him, making sure to force a smile when he says it.
“No, you don’t. Grace just wants to make you look stupider than her. And anyway, she’s useless. She couldn’t once get her game on in Las Vegas.”
“I don’t count cards,” mumbles Grace morosely. “I just play games.”
“Anyway, I got something much better than board games right here.” And Argent shows Connor an antique glass pipe.
“Argie!” says Grace, a little breathless. “You shouldn’t be using great-grandpa’s bong!”
“Why not? It’s mine now, isn’t it?”
“It’s an heirloom!”
“Yeah, well, form follows function,” says Argent, once more completely missing the actual meaning of the expression. This time Connor doesn’t bother to point it out.
“Wanna smoke some tranq?” Argent asks.
“I’ve been tranq’d enough,” Connor tells him. “I don’t need to smoke the stuff.”
“No—see it’s different when you smoke it. It doesn’t knock you out. It just throws you for a loop.” He pulls out a red and yellow capsule—the mildest kind used in tranq darts—and puts it in the bowl with some common yard cannabis. “C’mon, you’ll like it,” he says as he lights it.
Connor had done his share of this sort of thing before his unwind order was signed. Being hunted kind of killed his taste for it.
“I’ll pass.”
Argent sighs. “Okay, I’ll admit something to you. It’s always been one of my fantasies to do tranq with the Akron AWOL and talk some deep spiritual crap. Now you’re actually here, so we have to do it.”
“I don’t think he wants to smoke tranq, Argie.”
“Not your business,” he snaps without even looking at Grace. Argent takes a hit from the pipe, then puts it over Connor’s mouth, holding Connor’s nose so he has no choice but to suck it in.
The physiological response is quick. In less than a minute, Connor’s ears feel like they’re shrinking. His head spins, and gravity seems to reverse directions a few times.
“You feeling it?”
Connor doesn’t want to dignify him with a response. Instead he looks to Grace, who just sits helplessly on a sack of potatoes. Argent takes a second hit and forces Connor to do one as well.
As Connor’s mind liquefies, memories of his life before unwinding come rushing back to him. He can almost hear his parents yelling at him and him yelling back. He can remember all the things—both legal and otherwise—that he did to numb the feeling of being troubled and troubling in a dull Ohio suburb.
He sees a little bit of his old self in Argent. Was Connor ever this much of a creep? No—he couldn’t have been. And besides, he got past it, but Argent never did. Argent is maybe twenty, but he’s still wallowing in the loser mud hole, letting it turn into a tar pit beneath his feet. The anger that Connor feels toward Argent dissolves into the liquid of his thoughts, spreading into a thin, wide layer of pity.
Argent takes another hit and reels. “Oh man, this is good stuff.” He looks bleary-eyed at Connor. The combination of tranq and weed have made Connor emotional. He knows it’s about his own past, but Argent takes it as a connection between them.
“We’re the same, Connor,” he says. “That’s what you’re thinking, right? I coulda been you. I can still be you.” He starts giggling. “We can be you together.”
The giggle is contagious. Connor finds himself giggling uncontrollably as Argent makes him take another hit.
“Gotta show you this,” Argent says. “You’ll get mad, but I gotta show you anyway.” Then Argent pulls out his phone and shows him one of the pictures he took with Connor yesterday.
“Good one, right? I put it up on my Facelink profile.”
“You . . . did what?”
“No big deal. Just for my friends and stuff.” Argent giggles again. Connor giggles. Argent laughs, and Connor finds himself laughing hysterically.
“Do you know how bad that is, Argent?”
“I know, right?”