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One of these days, Arthur Aguefort was going to find himself dead at the other end of Riz’s arquebus, and what a wonderful day that would be.
Lured out to a forest on the very edge of the Elmville city limits just after the final bell for “mandatory party bonding,” the Bad Kids found themselves woefully underprepared—spell slots drained, exhausted from the day, and some even still injured from combat demonstrations—to face the adult green dragon that had, apparently, been terrorizing travelers venturing through Pilgrims Pass for weeks.
And they are not doing well.
Okay, yes, the dragon has taken its fair share of damage, but so had they, most of them lagging and stumbling, desperately trying to deal the final blow. Kristen ran out of spell slots for heals several attacks ago, and Fig was close on her heels, only left with Lay On Hands that she hasn’t managed to get close enough to anyone to use. Gorgug sends his last Cure Wounds Adaine’s way, arm outstretched and still only managing to brush his fingertips against her, only for her to immediately get slashed by sharp claws—though it would have likely been enough to drop her without the heal. She immediately fires back a Chromatic Orb that causes the dragon to stagger for a moment before it begins to crane its neck, searching for a new target.
Riz ducks back behind the gnarled tree he’s positioned himself behind, breath quick and shallow. He’s landed a few good hits, but he’s also taken a concerning amount of damage—certainly for a rogue, if nothing else, getting caught by several well-timed wing attacks. He doesn’t bother calling for a heal, knowing that there aren’t any left, but he’s having to steadfastly ignore the way his limbs scream in agony, raising his arquebus and leaning out for just long enough to fire a shot squarely into the dragon’s side—and to catch a claw attack to the shoulder, too quick to dodge.
Thankfully, the dragon gets bored with him for the moment, and he does his best without losing what cover he has to catch Fabian’s eye. It’s not hard to find him at all, a flurry of blade and battle sheet, and it certainly helps that he’s mid-shout, not looking away from where he’s striking against the dragon’s tail.
“Gorgug, you’ve got this! I believe in you!”
Riz manages to catch Fabian’s eye and makes a face that he hopes implies he could really use a bardic right now, at it seems to work well enough, but Fabian just frowns and mouths Last one, sorry.
Right. Right. That’s fine. The dragon reels back, the same way it has every time it’s used its breath weapon, and Riz ducks back behind the tree. He can’t see, but he can hear, and that’s enough—Fabian wasn’t in the path of it, and neither was Adaine. Fig got hit with the brunt of it, as did Kristen, but neither of them are down. And Gorgug—thanks to Fabian’s bardic inspiration, probably—managed to mostly dodge, only catching a bit of poison damage that Riz watches him partially absorb as he peeks out, trying to line up a shot.
The dragon looks hurt, which is the most hopeful thought he’s had since they ran into it. He ducks out again while it lumbers forward, reaching for Fig, and braces his arm against the trunk of the tree to steady his aim. A beat, then two, then the crack of his arquebus firing and a final deafening roar as the dragon pitches to one side and collapses with a hefty thud, bullet buried deep in its skull.
There aren’t cheers or hooting and hollering like usual after battle. They all congregate several yards away from the dragon, no one wanting to be near it for much longer, and assess the damage. Fig beelines for Riz—despite multiple protests—and immediately uses most if not all of her Lay On Hands.
“Fig,” he continues to argue, even as her palm is already pressed against his arm, “I’m fine.”
“You took more hits than any of us, dude,” Kristen adds, busying herself with the cuts and bruises on Adaine that Gorgug’s Cure Wounds didn’t heal. She’s out of spell slots, but Riz was able to needle her into attending medic electives with him, and it’s paying off in spades. “Except maybe Gorgug, but he’s built for that.”
“I’m fine,” he says again, like that might make it true. Fig’s magic stops seeping into his skin, and he stretches out his arms, testing his range of motion. They ache still, just a bit, but it’s nothing a rest can’t fix. Maybe he can swing by Mordred and talk Tracker into a Healing Word—so long as Kristen isn’t in earshot.
“That was an incredible final shot, The Ball!” Fabian calls out from where he’s taken a seat against a tree, panting and bloodied. Before Fig can protest (though she absolutely does anyway), Riz is on his feet and rummaging for his medic kit, darting over to start bandaging Fabian’s shoulder and torso.
“Wish I could’ve landed it sooner,” he says, even though that same part of him that hero-worshipped Fabian all of freshman year (and, okay, most of sophomore year as well) glows with the praise.
Fabian hisses in pain when Riz presses a gauze pad against a particularly nasty cut on his side. “I think we all wish that. What was Aguefort thinking?”
“That he could get a bunch of kids out here to handle this instead of doing it himself, I imagine,” Adaine answers. “You sure you’re okay, Riz? Kristen’s right, you took way more hits than normal.”
There’s lots of words on the tip of his tongue. I’m fine, of course, but they didn’t believe it the first two times and he doubts they will the third. And, more bitter than he intends, Yes, no thanks to Fabian. Except that’s not fair, because he’s supposed to be able to dodge and hide and do his job without help, and Fabian was just keeping the people in the front safe. So Riz shouldn’t need bardic inspiration; not today, not ever.
(But with five bardic inspirations a day, you’d think after two years of Fabian being a bard that his best friend would have gotten more than one.)
(He chides himself for the thought almost as quickly as he thinks it, because if anything this is his own fault. Gods, he’s a rogue, this is the one thing he’s meant to be good at.)
“Dragon’s dead,” he decides on, and tries to keep his voice light, “and everyone is standing. That’s what I care about.” And no one argues, so he calls it a win.
They pile into the Hangvan once everyone is as patched up as possible, still battered and exhausted but in slightly better spirits. Gorgug drives, only after Fig insists on him taking the last of her Lay On Hands—and letting her ride shotgun—which leaves Riz, Fabian, Kristen, and Adaine sprawled out in the back. Fabian is loudly complaining about Aguefort’s audacity, which is more than fair, and Adaine almost immediately pulled out the reading for one of her wizarding classes and started scribbling notes in the margins, which left Riz to attempt to entertain incredibly restless Kristen.
“Sorry I can’t do more for your shoulder,” she says for what must be the fourth or fifth time since they pulled off—not that Riz is counting.
“Not your fault, Kristen. But if Aguefort tries to pull this again, I might just kill him instead of the dragon.”
“You should just do that anyway. Don’t let him get comfortable. Besides, he’ll probably just find a way to get me to rescue him from… well, wherever he ends up. Pretty sure he only got to heaven because I snuck him in, and I don’t really want to go back, so.” She fiddles with her crystal halfheartedly. “Gods, I should probably do this stupid essay for Theological History.”
“When’s it due?” He’s already drafting out a writing timeline in his head, and resigning himself to writing the outline so that she has something to work off of.
“Uh… tomorrow, I think?” She at least has the decency to look sheepish about it. “I swear, I tried to stay on top of it, but I just can’t get myself to start. I mean, I have all the research and stuff done, but my brain is like… resisting it.”
Riz buries his head in his hands with a groan.
“Dude, it’s totally fine, I can finish it tonight! And I have an A in the class anyway, so it probably won’t tank my grade too much. And I have energy drinks in the fridge! As long as Lydia doesn’t catch me taking more than one of them, I’m golden.” She grins. “This essay better be afraid of me.”
(He considers dissuading her from the energy drinks. This would make him a hypocrite, probably, so he refrains.)
“Do you want me to stay over and help?” The thought of his own work nags at the back of his mind, but it’s fine. He’s two weeks ahead at least, and it’s not like last year. He isn’t trying to juggle near as many extracurriculars, and even his classes have eased off as the focus for them shifts from class-specific skills to college prep and independent projects.
“You totally don’t have to,” she answers, with an inflection that says you probably should. At least, he should if he wants her to actually finish this essay, and even without literally every extracurricular and also the end of the world looming over his head, it’s still been a mad scramble to find a college that’s likely to accept them all (Fig included, seeing as he’d managed to talk her into a summer GED program after she and Ayda are done exploring the world off and on this year.)
“I can, it’s no problem.” Except this is the first night that his mom is going to be home for dinner, and part of him is screaming please say no, please insist, even as he motions for her laptop. “Let me see the assignment and what you’ve got so far, I want to know what we’re working with here.”
She passes him her scuffed-up laptop, smoothing down a peeling sticker as she hands it over. “I think I’ve got the thesis statement good, and I’ve got all my research to back it up, but I don’t know what order it should all go in. Like, it’s not really chronological, so do I just put it in whatever order?” She’s peering over his shoulder as he scrolls through the assignment, then skims her research notes—which are, to her credit, significantly more legible than last year. Still, this is a ten page essay, and while he can knock those out in a night if sufficiently motivated (and caffeinated), this topic is completely out of his wheelhouse.
He puts on a smile anyway. “This is a good start. I’ll stay over, I think we can finish this before it gets too late.” Not fast enough for him to get home for dinner, but he might at least catch his mom before she gets to bed. Not an incredible feat for either of them, but he clings to it when he digs out his own crystal and surreptitiously shoots her a text.
Won’t be home for dinner tonight. Got asked to tutor last minute.
It’s not a lie, technically, but it doesn’t make him feel great. Especially not when his mom types for a long time before she responds.
Okay, sweetie. Don’t work yourself too hard. I’ll save some leftovers for you.
The guilt gnaws at him, and he tamps down the little flare of anger, the voice that whispers let her do her own assignment for once, because it’s not like she was begging and pleading for Riz’s help. He offered, she didn’t even agree, she immediately offered him an out if he wanted it. This is his own fault.
(Except, that same voice whispers, you know without you it won’t get done. And there goes her grade, and her GPA, and her graduation, and college together—)
He bites the inside of his cheek and lets Kristen talk the rest of the ride, hoping, at least, that this is also an invitation to dinner. Not that he’s going to ask, of course.
A few days later, Riz scrambles into the Hangvan with Gorgug, driving to school well before sunrise. He has an advanced traps elective that meets early in the morning—especially brutal while the last vestiges of late winter sunrises still cling on even as the weather warms—and Gorgug is hoping to take advantage of the school being open to get into the artificing classroom and get work done on his senior capstone project. So it works out well for both of them, Gorgug having company and an excuse to be out early, Riz having a ride instead of walking in the early morning chill.
They rarely ride in silence, but this morning, Riz is more talkative than usual. He’s still complaining about the dragon, mostly, because even after getting a Cure Wounds from Tracker and another from Kristen the next morning, his joints still ache, and there’s a sizable cut on his shoulder that steadfastly refuses to heal or scar over but still burns when things rub up against it.
“It’s not even that we had to fight a full grown dragon,” he says between sips of still-too-hot coffee. “I mean, we did that freshman year.”
“Not well,” Gorgug says. “Kristen had to create a new god, sneak Aguefort out of heaven, and stop time for us to get a leg up.”
“Yeah, yeah, but we were kids then.”
“We’re kids now.”
“Okay, well. We’ve fought literal gods, at this point a dragon should be no problem. But he could’ve at least asked, or warned us, or something. Send us early in the morning while we all still have spell slots and energy and all that.”
Gorgug hums in agreement. “Fabian and I both had combat practicals. I don’t think he got hit too bad, but my whole thing is tanking damage. I’d already been down and brought back up before the fight. I’m just lucky it was a lecture day with Mr. Hopclap or I might not have had enough spell slots either.”
“Exactly.” Riz gestures so emphatically that his hand smacks against the dash. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he wants us dead.”
“Might want me dead. Since I’m the only one that can kill him or whatever.”
“That’s… I’ll be honest, I forget sometimes that he said that. What does that even mean?”
“I try not to think about it too much.”
They park near the front of the lot—another benefit to being at school unreasonably early. It’s a blessing especially today. Riz opens the door to a gust of wind that cuts right through his coat and shivers, moving his fingers to hopefully keep them from stiffening up in the cold. Gorgug doesn’t bother, just opens the back and slings his bag over one shoulder. “Meet you in the library before the bell?”
“Of course,” Riz agrees, and he darts off as quickly as he can manage, breathing a little sigh of relief at the blast of warm air just behind the front doors.
His class goes well. It’s just him and a half dozen other rogues, left with instructions from Ms. Shadow on how best to navigate certain combinations of traps which had been set in the room for them to practice with and instructions to reset them if anyone triggered one. They all do well, Riz and another senior rogue he doesn’t recognize passing every trap without issue and everyone else only getting snared by one or two. Even their youngest classmate, a prodigious gnomish artificer taking the class for the technical aspects rather than the evasive ones, only managed to get caught by an elaborate pit trap after miscalculating how much weight it would take to collapse—a boon for Riz, who had planned on the same strategy and had a chance to change it last-minute.
The end of the hour sneaks up on all of them, most startling at the sound of the first bell. Some linger, using their last half hour to get extra practice in before their first classes, but Riz grabs his bag and runs out of the room, hoping to miss the first wave of students instead of trying to weave around them to avoid being crushed underfoot. It’s a blessing, then, that he spots Gorgug almost immediately, towering a head (or several) above the rest of the slowly gathering crowd. Riz beelines in his direction, having to take almost two steps for every one of Gorgug’s to match his leisurely walking pace.
“How is your project coming?” he asks once he’s within earshot. Gorgug doesn’t respond, so Riz grabs at his hoodie sleeve and tugs until he pulls off one ear of his headphones.
“Shit, hey Riz! Didn’t see you there. Class go well?”
“Yeah, yeah, it was good. I didn’t get a chance to tell him, but that freshman artificing student—Callab, I think?—he was great. How is your project?”
“Coming along, I think. There’s something off with the gear system, though. It works, technically, but it keeps getting stuck. I’d really like to pick Mr. Hopclap’s brain about it, but we aren’t supposed to get in-class time to work until Friday.” He sighs, adjusting his bag on his shoulder. “I think I know what the issue is, but—oh!”
He stops so suddenly that Riz nearly runs into him, then takes off into the crowd, nearly running. Usually he would linger for a moment, let Riz climb onto his shoulders instead of making him keep pace, but he must forget in the moment. Riz sprints forward after him, but even dodging and weaving through the growing crowd of students as fast as he can, he loses sight of Gorgug almost immediately. Instead, he turns toward the library, remembering their plan to meet up. Gorgug probably just spotted Mr. Hopclap, they still have twenty minutes before first hour. He grins and ducks around people congregating in little pockets around the main hall, slipping into the library and claiming a small table visible from the doors.
Five minutes pass. Then ten. Then the five minute warning bell rings, and finally the two minute warning bell—Riz can make it to his first class in a minute flat if he has to, and for a moment he considers waiting longer. But Gorgug is almost certainly at his first class by now, and Riz has been waiting for nearly twenty minutes for no reason at all.
He doesn’t bother to rush and still makes it with thirty seconds to spare. As he slides into his seat, his crystal buzzes.
where did you go?
fig was waving us over and you just disappeared
The lecture starts before he gets a chance to respond, which is probably for the best.
He meets back up with them at lunch—Fig included, and it only dawns on him then that it makes no sense for her to even be here, no wonder Gorgug rushed over so quickly. Really, he shouldn’t even be upset, it’s not like he couldn’t have kept going. Caught up with them. He knew what direction Gorgug was headed in, it wouldn’t have been hard, but instead he had to go and, what, mope?
Anyway, they all meet up at lunch, at their usual table, and Fig is there too, which is a rare treat.
“Rizbert!” She chucks him a fruit cup off of her lunch tray—and how the hell did she get a lunch tray, she doesn’t even go here—with a shit-eating grin. He can’t help but smile back, this morning already forgotten.
“Not my name,” he responds on instinct, but there’s no heat behind it.
“Right, sorry. Rizwalda.” She tosses him a spoon, too, but he’s already ripped off the plastic top and downed half of it in one mouthful. “Anyway, I have something to run by you. Well, all of you, really, it kinda throws a wrench in our plans, but…” She trails off, twirling a plastic fork with some mystery meat on the end between her fingers.
“What do you mean, ‘throws a wrench in our plans?’” he asks carefully. Which plans, he wants to ask, but he doesn’t have to, because he knows the answer before she even starts speaking.
“Well I was thinking,” she says between bites, “and I talked with Gorgug about this some, too. Not having classes has given me way more time to write songs, and I have enough to put together a strong album, and I would love to go on tour again.”
“But I told her it would have to be after graduation, at least,” Gorgug says. “I’ve got way too much on my plate to be touring right now.”
“So I was thinking, you know what, why don’t we do a gap year? Gorgug and I can do a summer tour, Kris and I can work on our respective churches, and all of you have time to work on, oh, what did you call them…” She trails off, twirling her hand in the air. “Passion projects! That’s it. You said they look good on college applications anyway, yeah?”
“No—well, yes, but—I mean, it really looks better if we—”
“Great!” She slams her hand on the table, grinning even more widely now. “Oh, fantastic, I’ll call—okay well, maybe we need a new manager, but I’ll make some calls. Ruben might know some people, or maybe… Oh, I don’t know, I’ll just make some calls.” She nudges Gorgug. “Think Baby would be a good manager?”
He hums noncommittally. Riz rests his forehead on the table.
“Okay, so, gap year,” Kristen says through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. “What’s everyone’s plans, then?” She swallows. “I mean, Fig’s right, I could really use a year to just really focus on Cassandra, y’know? Don’t want her to feel neglected. And it’d be nice to have a year without essays.”
Adaine looks thoughtful for a moment. “It might be nice to spend some time in Fallinel.” Fig looks at her, aghast, and she continues. “Not for fun, just… I’d like to get to know what the Elven Oracle is supposed to be. See what kind of change I can enact. Fix it from the inside out, right?”
“Well I suppose if the Elven Oracle will be venturing to Fallinel, it’s only right for her steadfast champion to accompany her,” Fabian adds, chest puffed out. “And of course, we’ll have to make a stop to visit my grandpapa.”
“Hm. Maybe you can make a stop,” she teases, “but I think I’ve had my fill of grapes and elven teens for a lifetime.”
“Hear, hear,” Gorgug says without much enthusiasm at all. “I mean, other than the tour, it would be good to get some more time in on personal projects. Get a portfolio built for applications, I won’t really have time to do that before graduation.”
That’s… not a bad idea, actually. Riz feels worse, now, for being to vehemently against this, with everyone taking it so seriously. And Fig isn’t wrong, passion projects can look really good on applications.
(But what if everyone gets so wrapped up in their projects that they forget their plans? What if they decide that they’re happier with what they’re doing than with going back to school together?)
(What if they all settle down, and Riz gets left behind again?)
“—iz? Rizbert? Hey, dude, come on.” Fig is snapping in front of his face, and he has to tamp down the urge to lunge forward and nip at her fingers. Stupid. He’s better than that.
“Hm?”
“What are your gap year plans?”
“Oh, um. I don’t know. Work, probably, keep up the detective business. Jobs for the LPRTF when they come up.” He grabs his bag and quickly piles his trash on his mostly-untouched lunch tray. “Sorry, I just remembered, I was supposed to meet with… um… yeah. About an essay. See you later!”
It’s a terrible lie, but he doesn’t stick around long enough to watch them see right through it.
Can we meet at the library after class? I need to complain.
He stares at the text, then deletes it, then retypes it, then deletes it again, then retypes it again and sends it before he can do anything else. His hands shake a bit, which is dumb, because it’s Adaine. She’s one of his best friends, and she gets it—all of it, or a lot of it, at least, in ways that Riz doesn’t even really have the words to articulate—and she is always down to bitch. So this is right up her alley.
Still, he breathes a little sigh of relief when she texts back, Of course! It better be good though or you owe me.
He texts back, No promises, and walks into his last class, willing it to go by just the slightest bit faster. It doesn’t, of course, because time never moves the way he wants it to. For not the first time he seriously considers if it would be worthwhile to learn chronomancy. Then again, there’s a chance he could end up like Aguefort. There’s no telling if his whole deal is a result of tampering with time or if he’s just like that, but Riz isn’t particularly keen to find out.
It’s a fight through the crowd to get to the library, hordes of students on a mad rampage for the doors, desperately trying to get out and enjoy the last several hours of their day before they have to go to bed and do the whole thing over again tomorrow. That means, however, that the library is blissfully quiet, and he’s able to snag a table in full view of the doors.
(The same table he waited for Gorgug at this morning. He tries not to dwell on it.)
(He does not succeed.)
The bell for the second round of busses rings. The last of the students trickle out of the library, what half dozen or so of them there are. Eventually the librarian comes around, leaning over him with a sad sort of smile.
“Sorry, kid, gotta kick you out. Can’t have you just lurking around unsupervised—” that’s a laugh after the last three years, but whatever ”—and I need to get home to my own kiddos.”
“Right, sorry. Heading out now.”
He takes his time gathering his things, putting away his notebooks and his pencils and his textbooks achingly slowly, and only after he’s got nothing left to pretend to pack up does his crystal buzz with several new texts. He has the decency to start walking out of the building as he reads them.
Riz I’m so sorry
I got a call from Fig, she was freaking out, I had to run straight home
I’ll make it up to you. Coffee run before school tomorrow?
Jawbone says he can take us
He stares at the screen for a long, long while before he eventually responds.
Can’t do tomorrow. Have that early morning class.
It’s fine. Nothing important, we can talk later.
He’s pretty sure his crystal buzzes again as he crams his things back into his briefcase, but he doesn’t bother to check. Not then, and not on the bus, and not when he walks into his empty apartment to a note from his mom and a few silver on the counter for pizza that he doesn’t even bother picking up. He’s not particularly tired, but he goes straight to his room, lays down, and stares at the ceiling for a few hours too many.
The next day, he does his best to avoid… well, anyone. Not that it’s particularly hard, because he doesn’t even see any of his friends until—well, he doesn’t see them at all, but he walks by an empty classroom at the end of the day and he hears familiar voices, and he freezes.
And, look, okay, he doesn’t mean to snoop. In fact, he feels like an awful friend for even lingering by the door long enough to hear that it’s them, all of them, talking in hushed tones about something important without him. But the school day is over and he’s waiting on Gorgug for a ride, and they’re also his party, and they’re meant to trust each other, and for a second it feels a little like that first day, walking in trying so hard to make friends and still constantly feeling out of step.
So he sneaks into the vents to listen in. Sue him.
“—feel awful. I mean, you guys see it too, right?” That’s Gorgug, he can tell. In fact, from his hiding spot, he can make out all of their voices, though he can’t quite see them without potentially revealing himself. The vent cover for this room is on the floor, and he’s pretty sure it’s tucked into a corner, but he’s not taking any risks.
“He’s not been himself for sure.” That’s Fig, and she sounds… dejected. It’s not a usual tone for her lately, and immediately there’s a pit in his stomach. Who’s got them all this worried, that even Fig sounds forlorn?
“It’s not like we’ve been helping with that,” Adaine says. “I certainly haven’t.”
“I feel like shit, man. I didn’t even notice,” Kristen adds.
“Well we have to fix it then, don’t we?” And that’s Fabian, unsurprisingly sounding the least dejected of all of them. Riz’s brain starts turning, trying to piece this together. They all seem upset, so it must be someone they’re all friends with. Maybe someone Fabian isn’t quite as close to, or maybe someone he is and he’s doing that false-bravado thing again. It’s hard to tell, not being able to see his face, the way his smile goes tight at the corners when he puts up his walls.
“How do you even fix something like this,” Kristen asks, “get a big ass cake and write Sorry for being shit friends! on it?”
“I mean. I’m not ruling out baked goods.” There’s a pause, and Adaine continues. “I was thinking… well, not a party. Just a hangout. All the things he likes. We can order takeout from Krom’s, bake cookies—”
“Oh, we can watch those shitty detective movies that he pretends to hate but secretly loves nitpicking!”
Riz’s brow furrows. He’s not sure he knows anyone who enjoys those movies—or anyone that could, seeing as they’re horrendous, a complete farce and about as realistic as a dolphin playing water polo, so it must be someone he doesn’t know, and that begs the question of who could be friends with all of the Bad Kids except him, what with how often they—
Oh.
Oh.
The realization hits him so quickly that he jolts up, banging his head on the vent cover above him and silencing the room. He hisses at the pain before his brain catches up.
“Um… hello?” Adaine asks, her voice louder. She must be facing the vent now. He hears a sword unsheathe, then a sharp whisper, “Fabian, put your sword away.”
“And let an intruder try to ambush us?”
“It’s obviously Riz.” She’s still whispering. Riz wonders if she knows he can hear her.
“It can’t be The Ball, he’s far too good of a rogue to get caught.” And damn if that doesn’t make that same little part of him glow with pride. Even if he did royally fuck it up this time.
Adaine doesn’t acknowledge him. “Riz?” Her voice is even louder, and he hears the soft thud of footsteps against the carpet approaching the vent.
Well, they already know. Or she does, at least. He moves toward the vent cover, close enough to not be hidden in the shadow, and sees the five of them peering down at him through the slats. They’re all frowning at him, and for a moment he thinks that maybe he’s got this all wrong, that they weren’t talking about him, except that makes absolutely no sense. He presses the vent cover up and over, scrambling out and to his feet as quickly as he can.
“How much did you hear?” Kristen asks. She’s picking at her fingers, a bad habit Riz thought she’d stopped after last year. Maybe she just didn’t have reason to until now.
“Not a lot,” he answers. “I didn’t—I mean, I heard you guys talking, and I thought… I don’t know. Sorry for sneaking up on you.”
“Whoa, no, we’re sorry, dude,” Gorgug says.
“Yeah, come on, you’ve got nothing to apologize for,” Fig adds. “We know we’ve been kinda shit friends lately.”
“It’s fine, I—”
“It’s not,” Fabian interrupts. “But we’re fixing it. Tonight. I mean—you already heard that, but—”
“It doesn’t have to be tonight.” Adaine takes another step toward him. “But soon. Tomorrow, maybe, or this weekend.”
He blinks, and for a second tears threaten to gather in his eyes. “Tonight is good. I mean, unless you guys are busy, but—”
“Hell yeah!” Fig punches the air and races forward, scooping Riz up into a hug. “Bad Kids movie night!” She whirls around, pointing at Fabian. “And we’re using your fancy ass TV.”
“Well, yes, I certainly hope so.” He rolls his eyes. “Honestly, do you think I have it just for show?”
“Okay, okay, let me call in our food order.” Gorgug pulls out his crystal and starts dialing. “Everyone want their usual?” There’s a chorus of agreement, and he walks over to a corner of the room to talk quietly with whoever picks up the phone at Krom’s.
Fig finally puts him down, but only for long enough for Kristen to barrel into him next, warping her arms around him. Adaine and Fabian join her, and for a moment he’s stuck in a tangle of limbs.
“Thanks,” he whispers, and the hug gets just a bit tighter. “I love you guys.”